Face masks are back on North and Southbound Alaska

[memoak]

1 minute ago, AE_Collector said:

There are three Princess ships doing Vancouver North/south cruises. Royal, Majestic & Grand.

 

Northbound these ships unload at Whittier which may have very limited ability to deal with the numbers of passengers with Covid. And southbound ships unload in Vancouver where Covid protocols are a bit more stringent than in the US adding a bit more complication.

South bound ships also include tons of people coming off of land tours

[cruzin4us]

 I guess this makes some sense in the fact the Whittier doesn't have the Hotels available for lots of positive cases.    

[Jeter02]

I will be curious to see if masks will be required for the bus transfers from Anchorage to Whittier.

[memoak]

10 minutes ago, Jeter02 said:

I will be curious to see if masks will be required for the bus transfers from Anchorage to Whittier.

Per the letters given to current passengers masks are required on Princess transportation 

[Buckeye10640]

23 minutes ago, cruzin4us said:

 I guess this makes some sense in the fact the Whittier doesn't have the Hotels available for lots of positive cases.    

Just transport them to Anchorage like all of the other disembarking passengers.

 (separately of course)

Just like in Vancouver, it was reported they bussed positive  passengers to Seattle. 

 

[Keksie]

1 hour ago, AE_Collector said:

In this case I would probably not cruise until COVID has gone away for good, not masks gone away for good. Maybe that’s what you meant. Masks going away seems to be more a who’s calling the shots/political/what’s best for me thing than a reliable indicator of the threat being gone. JMHO though….

No I meant masks going away.  Also, testing and being forced to quarantine in a lesser cabin need to go away before we will cruise.  Too many other places to go that don't require all those protocols.

[AE_Collector]

25 minutes ago, Buckeye10640 said:

Just transport them to Anchorage like all of the other disembarking passengers.

 (separately of course)

Just like in Vancouver, it was reported they bussed positive  passengers to Seattle. 

 

Presumably Anchorage IS what is being referred to with limited ability to deal with large influxes of people with Covid. I doubt that Whittier has ANYWHERE to stay let alone people with Covid.

[Bgwest]

2 hours ago, MissP22 said:

It sounds just like the Enchanted in the Caribbean.

95% of the people went unmasked for the most part.

Princess can mandate pretty well anything they desire but history shows they will NOT enforce any of this. Mandates without teeth are as useless as, well, you fill in the blanks. 🐗

[Ken the cruiser]

3 hours ago, PacnGoNow said:

Updated june 3 yesterday.

Under health protocols…onboard experience 

 

UPDATED: Will I have to wear a face mask?

Masks are recommended, but not required, in the majority of venues, though they may be required in select venues or situations. Please note that in an abundance of caution masks are required at all indoor locations on northbound and southbound Alaska voyages between Whittier and Vancouver until further notice. Masks will be provided to guests if needed.

This will be clearly designated through signage and onboard communications.

We recommend guests wash or replace their mask daily and choose a good quality mask. Masks should have two or more layers, completely cover the nose and mouth, fit snuggly against the sides of the face and have a nose wire. Please note that visors and face shields will not be accepted as a substitute for a face mask.

We'll provide complimentary surgical masks on board with replacements available upon request.

Additionally, when going ashore, guests should be prepared to follow all local health guidelines, the status of which will be shared with guests prior to debarkation at the destination.

This FAQ says masks are recommended, not required. Can someone please post something they have personally received or saw on the website where masks are actually required while indoors on the ship?

[Buckeye10640]

7 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

This FAQ says masks are recommended, not required. Can someone please post something they have personally received or saw on the website where masks are actually required while indoors on the ship?

the second sentence of the info you pasted from the Princess site.....

[cruisn43]

The section from post 7 says " in an abundance of caution masks are required at all indoor locations on northbound and southbound Alaska voyages between Whittier and Vancouver until further notice"

 

I think this may have something to do with Anchorage perhaps not having the availability of hotels for people who test positive and need to quarantine.

 

It looks like HAL just cancelled an upcoming cruise tour as well.

[PacnGoNow]

27 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

This FAQ says masks are recommended, not required. Can someone please post something they have personally received or saw on the website where masks are actually required while indoors on the ship?

Read it again:

Please note that in an abundance of caution masks are required at all indoor locations on northbound and southbound Alaska voyages between Whittier and Vancouver until further notice. Masks will be provided to guests ifneeded.

[GonzoWCS]

Interesting information here thanks

 

Cheers

[Mud_Shark]

We have done three masked cruises.  No big deal.  Enjoyed them all.  If masks are optional, we would likely not wear them.  If mandatory - we would.  It's fine either way with us.

 

Don

[arizonaperson]

This is the letter from a passenger on The Grand

[Guest ldtr]

1 hour ago, Buckeye10640 said:

Just transport them to Anchorage like all of the other disembarking passengers.

 (separately of course)

Just like in Vancouver, it was reported they bussed positive  passengers to Seattle. 

 

Anchorage does not exactly have a surplus of hotel space during the summer tourist season.  So finding quarantine space would not exactly be easy.

[cruisequeen4ever]

While wearing a mask is not fun at all, I have to admit that cruises unfortunately have increased our case count here. My guess is that this may be driven by Canada, since the roundtrip Seattle cruises visit the same ports, and masks aren’t required on them. It is highly unlikely to be coming from our state government, since they were happy to get rid of mask mandates.  Hopefully the current surge will end soon! 
 

Anchorage hotels do sell out in the summer, so if cruise lines don’t have blocks of rooms on hand for quarantines, I don’t know what they’d do. 

[Bgwest]

20 minutes ago, arizonaperson said:

This is the letter from a passenger on The Grand

Received a letter nearly identical to this one midway through our April TA.

During the days following distribution of this “mandate”, compliance was up to (just my estimate as I left my clipboard at home) maybe 70%

 

 There’s that boar hog thing again! 

[cruisingguy007]

6 hours ago, Keksie said:

That is the reason we are not booking until we are sure the masks have gone away for good.  Would hate to have a cruise booked thinking the protocols were to our liking only to have them changed before the cruise.  Will just stay with fun land vacations where masks are not required.

 

I booked cruises and won't cruise with any mask mandates, even for free. They know many won't sail with masks and I'm sure they'd issue a refund if you booked when masks weren't required and they made a huge change to reinstate them. I'd bet this has something to do with jurisdictional nonsense and not necessarily Princess itself. Folks shouldn't be afraid to book, I just don't see any line refusing refunds if they change the rules, it would create too much ill will for established customers and that isn't good business sense. I also don't see any line adopting this approach fleet-wide and shooting themselves in the foot with floods of cancellations. They have the option for sure, but folks should have the option to cancel as well.    

[AE_Collector]

Just like they can cancel and change ports at their discretion, I assume they can mandate masks at the last minute if deemed necessary. Maybe it’s in the fine print, I don’t know. But anyone who is adamantly opposed to wearing a mask if cases onboard are increasing should likely just plan on another year or more away from cruising. We all know this isn’t over yet but it can be controlled if everyone is willing to do what is required.

[cruisingguy007]

9 minutes ago, AE_Collector said:

Just like they can cancel and change ports at their discretion, I assume they can mandate masks at the last minute if deemed necessary. Maybe it’s in the fine print, I don’t know. But anyone who is adamantly opposed to wearing a mask if cases onboard are increasing should likely just plan on another year or more away from cruising. We all know this isn’t over yet but it can be controlled if everyone is willing to do what is required.

 

There may not be cruising in a year if that's the case. Unvaccinated are already excluded from the customer pool. If they exclude the vaccinated who don't want to have a masked vacation on top of that, plus all the folks who don't want the headache/uncertainty of pre-cruise testing, potential port changes, quarantine etc, you have excluded a huge percentage of your customer base. Some may enjoy half empty ships but it's simply unsustainable, especially when billions in the hole and leveraged to the hilt. They'd have to quadruple the fares at min and raise prices onboard even further to operate ghost ships successfully. The whole business model doesn't work with ghost ships.     

Edited June 4, 2022 by cruisingguy007

[AE_Collector]

It’s a delicate balance because if more cruises get cancelled and there are more cases onboard there will be a significant cost to the industry in bad will and further delays in people booking cruises. The cost to cruise lines right now has to be staggering at a time when there is no way they can come anywhere near close to breaking even on each cruise. If we hadn’t just grabbed a last minute cruise to Alaska I would consider doing it again with these new mask mandates.

[Ken the cruiser]

2 hours ago, Buckeye10640 said:

the second sentence of the info you pasted from the Princess site.....

Thanks! I just read the first line and stopped reading. I know. Who does that! 🙂

 

 

[Guest ldtr]

53 minutes ago, cruisingguy007 said:

 

There may not be cruising in a year if that's the case. Unvaccinated are already excluded from the customer pool. If they exclude the vaccinated who don't want to have a masked vacation on top of that, plus all the folks who don't want the headache/uncertainty of pre-cruise testing, potential port changes, quarantine etc, you have excluded a huge percentage of your customer base. Some may enjoy half empty ships but it's simply unsustainable, especially when billions in the hole and leveraged to the hilt. They'd have to quadruple the fares at min and raise prices onboard even further to operate ghost ships successfully. The whole business model doesn't work with ghost ships.     

Some people will not cruise if masking is required. Masking requirements pretty much determined by the number of cases on board (which only the cruise lines know the real number.  If case counts are too high, then you have an entirely different group that will not cruise.  So in either case the cruise lines are going to have a difficult time of it.

[Jeter02]

25 minutes ago, ldtr said:

Some people will not cruise if masking is required. Masking requirements pretty much determined by the number of cases on board (which only the cruise lines know the real number.  If case counts are too high, then you have an entirely different group that will not cruise.  So in either case the cruise lines are going to have a difficult time of it.

I'm perfectly A-Okay with following protocols and guidelines and for any of those who would like to cancel due to personal preference and comfort levels the more the merrier. I absolutely love sailing at a low capacity percentage it is such a dream. I keep saying to myself when that time comes for the number to rise it will take time to get used to those full capacity at 100%. I think for my spring break Caribbean sailing in March that was like 70% and you definitely felt that extra 20% increase