Found this interesting, decided to share

[lv2cruisgrl]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2022/01/06/royal-caribbean-moving-covid-positive-crew-vision-rhapsody-ships/9115818002/

[hcat]

Sounds like a  good plan..until the new Covid wave passes.

[Arizona Wildcat]

Possibly because of a very large number of cases.   The cruise lines have not been giving numbers of crew coming down with COVID.   The CDC reported there were over 5000 covid cases on board from December 15th to the 29th.  I was surprised the number was so big.

[the penguins]

15 minutes ago, Arizona Wildcat said:

Possibly because of a very large number of cases.   The cruise lines have not been giving numbers of crew coming down with COVID.   The CDC reported there were over 5000 covid cases on board from December 15th to the 29th.  I was surprised the number was so big.

Meaningless without knowing the number of passengers.

Royal published figures of 1,100,000 passengers carried since the restart and 1700 Covid cases - way below the averages in the population as a whole

[Cruising89143]

I see nothing wrong with this. A good move by RCI. I read that Carnival Corp. was doing this also in the southern Caribbean with P&O and Cunard. Not sure if this includes Carnival Cruise Lines.

[Jim_Iain]

It could be a very positive experience for the crew.   The crew I talked to said that when they were in isolation prior to resumption of cruising they were given private  Veranda rooms so they could get fresh air.

[TeeRick]

5 minutes ago, the penguins said:

Meaningless without knowing the number of passengers.

Royal published figures of 1,100,000 passengers carried since the restart and 1700 Covid cases - way below the averages in the population as a whole

No it is actually very meaningful.  Here is what the CDC reported.  Prior two weeks had 162 reported cases.

 

"Between Nov. 30 and Dec. 14, cruise ships operating in U.S. waters reported 162 cases of COVID-19 to the CDC. Between Dec. 15 and Dec. 29, cruise ships sailing in U.S. waters reported 5,013 COVID-19 cases to the CDC."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2021/12/30/cdc-cruise-warning-omicron/9055443002/

[lv2cruisgrl]

8 minutes ago, the penguins said:

Meaningless without knowing the number of passengers.

Royal published figures of 1,100,000 passengers carried since the restart and 1700 Covid cases - way below the averages in the population as a whole

I was just surprised at how many Staff were effected.  It in the hundreds on some ships.

[DCPIV]

They've been doing that for a little while.  There are some folks talking about how Rhapsody came over to a port to meet them.

 

I also like the idea.  It certainly smooths some operations.  Nice thinking on RCI's part.

[mahdnc]

Quarantine of the Seas

[Turtles06]

It's not just RCI.   Cunard "parked" the out-of-service Queen Victoria off the coast of Barbados some time ago to act as a support ship for other Carnival group ships, and earlier this month a number of infected crew/staff aboard the Queen Mary 2, which was in the middle of a cruise with passengers, were transferred over to the QV. 

[DCPIV]

52 minutes ago, Turtles06 said:

It's not just RCI.   Cunard "parked" the out-of-service Queen Victoria off the coast of Barbados some time ago to act as a support ship for other Carnival group ships, and earlier this month a number of infected crew/staff aboard the Queen Mary 2, which was in the middle of a cruise with passengers, were transferred over to the QV. 

 

Yes, we saw the QV anchored off Barbados a few weeks ago.  We didn't know if she were helping out or just finding a place to let the covid storm blow over.

[Turtles06]

17 minutes ago, DCPIV said:

 

Yes, we saw the QV anchored off Barbados a few weeks ago.  We didn't know if she were helping out or just finding a place to let the covid storm blow over.

 

We saw her there as well in early December.  We thought that's where Cunard had "parked" her during the pandemic, but I learned over on the Cunard board (when friends were caught up in that recent aborted Queen Mary 2 Caribbean cruise) that she'd been brought there specifically to help out.

 

 

(photo by turtles06)

[phoenix_dream]

6 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

It could be a very positive experience for the crew.   The crew I talked to said that when they were in isolation prior to resumption of cruising they were given private  Veranda rooms so they could get fresh air.

I'm glad to hear this for their sake.  I know on Apex they were given balconies of Deck 6.  Too bad they don't seem to be offering this option on all ships to passengers who test positive.

[Cruising89143]

Since this thread is about RCI, below is a copy and paste from a Symphony thread on the RCI board. The Symphony OTS is one of the four ships being pulled out of service due to Covid.

 

Just chiming in again.

 
From a crew perspective, many of crew were hating the current situation - such as the horrible Xmas cruise experience etc. 

Not being able to provide the experience guests expect was totally wrecking morale on board for crew and a lot were calling on RCI to call a time out. 
 

Crew were going down with covid, venues shutting, crew themselves living under draconian rules leading to crew morale plummeting, and the existing situation just couldn’t continue. 
 

I’m sure there are hundreds of disappointed customers out there, but RCI literally tried to run too quickly before they could walk, and have found out the hard way that right now it just wasn’t working with packed ships, and lack of crew.  
 

I’m in no way a RCI apologist - just totally support my partner who is suffering from the way these cruises have been run recently, and I think a time out was necessary so the company can regroup and get their ***** and protocols together and run (no pun intended) a tighter ship. 
 

Just my thoughts from someone indirectly affected by having a partner working on board Symphony. 
 

Direct link for those interested. This poster has also added some additional comments on a few posts. He brings up some very good points. 

 

 

[Megabear2]

6 hours ago, Turtles06 said:

It's not just RCI.   Cunard "parked" the out-of-service Queen Victoria off the coast of Barbados some time ago to act as a support ship for other Carnival group ships, and earlier this month a number of infected crew/staff aboard the Queen Mary 2, which was in the middle of a cruise with passengers, were transferred over to the QV. 

Passengers are also now on Queen Victoria in quarantine because apparently Barbados has run out of isolation hotels. Late testing QM2 North American guests were moved on to her before QM2 sailed for UK and once negative tested will be flown home.

[DCPIV]

2 hours ago, cruisingator2 said:

Since this thread is about RCI, below is a copy and paste from a Symphony thread on the RCI board. The Symphony OTS is one of the four ships being pulled out of service due to Covid.

 

Just chiming in again.

 
From a crew perspective, many of crew were hating the current situation - such as the horrible Xmas cruise experience etc. 

Not being able to provide the experience guests expect was totally wrecking morale on board for crew and a lot were calling on RCI to call a time out. 
 

Crew were going down with covid, venues shutting, crew themselves living under draconian rules leading to crew morale plummeting, and the existing situation just couldn’t continue. 
 

I’m sure there are hundreds of disappointed customers out there, but RCI literally tried to run too quickly before they could walk, and have found out the hard way that right now it just wasn’t working with packed ships, and lack of crew.  
 

I’m in no way a RCI apologist - just totally support my partner who is suffering from the way these cruises have been run recently, and I think a time out was necessary so the company can regroup and get their ***** and protocols together and run (no pun intended) a tighter ship. 
 

Just my thoughts from someone indirectly affected by having a partner working on board Symphony. 
 

Direct link for those interested. This poster has also added some additional comments on a few posts. He brings up some very good points. 

 

 

 

Thanks for pointing that out. When I read Fain's statements from a couple or few months ago about being back to 100% capacity by year's end or January, the first word that came to mind was "hubris." To be fair, I wish it all would've worked out, but it was a "damn the torpedoes" move that will hurt for a long time. 

[TeeRick]

10 hours ago, DCPIV said:

 

Thanks for pointing that out. When I read Fain's statements from a couple or few months ago about being back to 100% capacity by year's end or January, the first word that came to mind was "hubris." To be fair, I wish it all would've worked out, but it was a "damn the torpedoes" move that will hurt for a long time. 

I'll give him a pass on this.  Well before Omicron emerged.

[paulh84]

20 hours ago, the penguins said:

Meaningless without knowing the number of passengers.

Royal published figures of 1,100,000 passengers carried since the restart and 1700 Covid cases - way below the averages in the population as a whole

 

Also meaningless if that 1,700 figure is pre-mid December. It is wildly misleading. They also confidently state that none of their 41 guests who were hospitalized had omicron. That also seems like a bold claim to substantiate unless those 41 guests were all hospitalized before omicron made its appearance. 

[DCPIV]

1 hour ago, TeeRick said:

I'll give him a pass on this.  Well before Omicron emerged.

 

I don't.  He was hitting a twenty (or maybe a 17 or 18).  No surprise that it was a bust.  "Oops.  Didn't see that coming" is not a viable excuse.

 

Delta still was raging, and -no one- believed things would be over and done by the end of the year.  It was a money grab and a highly leveraged move--absolutely acting like everything was over and done with.  RCI packed ships with families, allowing unvaccinated passengers and not enforcing protocols because crews were getting sick and fatigued.  It was recipe for the disaster that has ensued, and it was the result of hubris that came straight from the top.