PelicanBill

Regarding the discussion on "Essential" and whether the cruise industry qualifies, I invite you to read the CISA guidance, used by almost all states but remarkably not Florida or Texas, all 24 pages of it, that defines workers in essential roles:

https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/ECIW_4.0_Guidance_on_Essential_Critical_Infrastructure_Workers_Final3_508_0.pdf 

After you have read it tell me again how cruising is essential.

Whether Disney is open or not is a state matter.  Just look at the difference - Florida - okay to open - California - not so fast.  However with safety measures and a well-run operations Disney proved they could reopen safely - and they followed all CDC guidance (not regulations) as well.  No incidents for months, and same for Universal Studios Florida.

Cruise lines demonstrated for months they were unable or unwilling to comply with guidance and had continuing sickness aboard far too many ships. Just go back and read the CDC reports to see this. That's what caused them to institute the red-yellow-green protocol for ships entering US waters.

The healthy sail report was vague and lacked any implementation guidelines nor did it contain any commitments to implement all the measure contained within.

16 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

 

Neither does cruising. Never has, never will

It happens all the time with rhinovirus and norovirus, and Covid-sars-19 is far more contagious and deadly.  that is the position of the CDC.  The Diamond Princess was super close to a disaster. The CDC flew a team there to manage the situation on how to return people home. This is the medical opinion of the world's leading infectious disease experts. 

7 hours ago, Iamcruzin said:

Cargo is essential. Leisure travel isn't.

And cargo does not have the risk of dumping a thousand infected people into the country, all scattering randomly throughout on commercial transportation.

There is still a strange opinion here that cruise travel is somehow not leisure, and low priority. That it somehow has a large economic impact on the US.  It simply doesn't and cannot be a priority for the CDC.  The most impact is on small port towns in Alaska, which are not going to die on the vine since they survive half the year without port calls.  

The CDC's point of view is there is still a risk of a Diamond Princess event happening. And with less than 1/4 of the population vaccinated they cannot have any other opinion.  If a cruise line submits a plan that says sailings are restricted to vaccinated persons (all adults for now!) they might be given more leeway for that. But no cruise line has done so!  The cruise lines continue to play the victim and have not done enough to convince the CDC they are ready.  The healthy sail report was nowhere close to convincing. 

If 80% of the population gets vaccinated and transmission drops below 0.5% we will see a different situation from the CDC.  We won't know until July or August.

8 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

That's only in the case of disembarking after an outbreak

Read it carefully. There is nothing leading into that section that says that is for outbreak management. It is a general requirement of the shoreside agreement.  If they intended it to be for a returning outbreak ship that is not stated at all.  The purpose statement is for the simulated and all restricted cruises that may follow.

Here's the most interesting part of the shoreside technical instructions I read:

The agreement must specify procedures:

• to avoid congregating of embarking and disembarking travelers,
• to ensure disembarking and embarking passengers do not occupy the same enclosed or semi-enclosed areas (e.g., gangways, terminal waiting spaces, check-in areas) within the same 12-hour period, and

That pretty much kills same day turnaround of a ship, and prevents a 7-day itinerary departing the same day of the week.  Embarkation will have to be the day after the ship disembarks. 

Thoughts?

iFly may NOT be a simulator. Buyer beware

I noticed Breakaway went around to dock in Toulon.  Getaway is now in the dry dock although I don't know if dry or we - the bridge camera is stuck on a night view from last night.

There were a lot of ships in St Maarten yesterday, they may have a need and could not get a berth so a boat is their best choice. Would expect they would use their runabout.  So it may be a crew pickup needing more seats?

Strange to see differences in NY.  I had to show my insurance at a state site, assumption is they will bill for administering.

In theory this was all about a process by which cruise lines could get conditional permission to sail.

The cruise lines claim the CDC has stalled on the details of what they must do to get that condition permission. Based on the timelines for test sailing and 60 day advance request to resume sailing, we are already at a point that best case we'd have cruises restart in July. But we see no motion. So most of us lean toward August as the earliest possible. And that's for the first few ships and ports. Later for the rest. November....?

Never heard the theater from a cabin about 2/3 of the way down the hall on Deck 8 port side.

I believe if you use the Airport station, you must take the shuttle train to an airport terminal to get to ground transportation.

At the Newark train station, mobility may be a little challenging as the tracks are all elevated and you will have to find the stinky elevators to get down to a taxi stand.  The only concern I would really have is that metro train and subway stations are always experiencing elevator outages, so I would check the NJ Transit notices for Newark for the best info.  Even better, I found this page on Newark Penn Accessibility and there is a phone number:  https://www.newarkhappening.com/plan/accessibility/ 

5 minutes ago, pinnacleking2021 said:

oh really??? i did not kno this how much is it and where does it go nassau? how long does it take,,,thanks

There is one Ferry per week from Ft. Lauderdale to Freeport, not Nassau...

55 minutes ago, HBE4 said:

 

I know it's a long shot, but any chance that the health and safety protocols information gathered from the Adventure and Millennium sailing could be used to satisfy the "test cruise" requirements?   As well as Odyssey & Quantum.

 

I realize the last 2 are slightly different situation with residency bubbles but many of the health protocols are still the same.

No. A test cruise must exercise US Port procedures.

US travel restrictions will ease by summer IF we see spread continue to reduce (are you listening, Texas and Michigan and others up 10% this week?)

St. Maarten is one of the few Caribbean ports that IS capable of the logistics support. But they will need to keep it in the port and not have trucks clogging the tiny road that needs to get everyone to/from the Airport and hotels.

And I just priced SXM for me and it's $650-$750 for each adult. That's a lot more than the $400 I can get to Florida airports. Expensive cruise. Expensive air.  Extra hotel nights probably since air will be even higher with demand close to the cruise.  Pass.

Deck 8 is super convenient to everything on Decks 6,7,8 if you are mostly an inside person and want to be close to restaurants and entertainment.  People who want to be close to the pool deck, buffet and spa will prefer the high decks - 12, 13.

One thing to be aware of - if you've never been in a forward cabin that is closer to the waterline. In moderate or rough seas, you could hear the crash of water on the bow at times. It's not a huge noise, but noticeable when it happens.  I took many Breakaway cruises from NYC and so this happens fairly often on the open Atlantic.  Also, if you are in your cabin for a tender port, there will be a gut wrenching noise when the anchor drops. It's helpful to know this ahead of time so you don't run into the hall in your underwear in a panic.  (heh heh)

23 hours ago, Heymarco said:

I don’t get all the fuss about non-stop flights. Price is an understandable concern. However, anyone that doesn’t live near a major hub should be used to connecting flights. Or do people really only travel that little?

For secondary and tertiary airport markets, price is a big concern as soon as your destination is not domestic. I can get direct flights to florida port cities. And prices jump to well over $500 for destinations outside the US. And I avoid flights with plane changes going to a cruise (less concern going back) because luggage still gets misdirected all too often. I will always fly the day before or more, but for those who prefer not to the ability to fly same day will likely be gone - arrival times will be mid afternoon at the earliest, and typically later.  

The cost of flying to places outside Florida and NYC is not a trivial different for people in secondary airport markets. I can get flights to Florida routinely at $250-450.  To get the the Bahamas or any Mexico port is DOUBLE that in all cases.  Plus transfer of checked luggage which is a risk I hate to take before a cruise. 

Logistics at these small ports is a terrific challenge.  Total flight and hotel capacity.  Port congestion to move EVERY off and on the ship at once, plus supply logistics, all at once? And supply will have to be almost all shipped there to load, rather than delivered on trucks and loaded directly.  Very hard to provision fresh foods for 8,000 people on one day in the Bahamas or Cozumel.

Impossible at every port I can think of.  Temporary terminal could be done with Tents but you need big seating areas with fans, a network and computers, and a lot of employees to hire and train, or relocate temporarily, etc.

I can't see cruise lines dependent on US volumes making themselves whole with cruises departing from foreign ports. 

a) passport requirements + longer travel/increased cost

b) logistics challenges to fully provision ships in smaller ports such as the Bahamas

c) limited daily airline and local hotel capacities given the increased need to travel ahead

I can see a ship or two doing this, but not the whole fleets of NCL, Royal, Carnival, MSC, Disney... surely not the route to restoring financial health!

I can only hope they may still manage test sailings in June... with the 60 day advance filing for a conditional sailing permit... that would be really bad news.

Test cruise in June ==> Sailing resumes in August (per ship)

Test cruise in July ==> Sailing resumes in September (per ship)

assuming a successful test sailing, and approval of the request for conditional sailing permit by the CDC.

Unless the CDC changes the Framework for Conditional Sailing from the present requirements.

Great question.  One big factor is what port you sail from, and what time of year you sail. Lemme explain:

Avoid school holidays and summer

Avoid ports with large metro areas which increase large family groups (NYC, Baltimore)

Longer cruises (10-14 days) seem to draw an older crowd in my experience, but not as bad as your concerns, so I would recommend

Most important - choose your ship carefully. I love NCL Breakaway... but it is a challenge for crowds on the pool deck, and even a small number of children seems a lot given the crowded space.  There is an adult escape area called Spice H2O that is tranquil and where we spend the first half of most sea days. It has a splash area but no pool.  Two hot tubs and a bar.

Another good ship was Anthem of the Seas.  The adult Solarium is spacious and has small pools, hot tubs and a bar.

Even the walk from the port to the Silver Line station is a bit of a schlep.  Take a taxi or Uber to South Station.

22 hours ago, ohiocruisemom said:

The thing that I can’t get passed is since when is it a function of government to protect us from getting sick.  (Not deathly Ill, not overrunning hospitals) just plain sick?  We have and will continue to get sick.  It’s part of living.  That being said if some people are more comfortable wearing masks even after pandemic is over because it helps protect them from getting sick from airborne illness that’s fine. They are welcome to, just don’t put the focus on mandates to keep everyone from getting sick. 

This confuses me. A pandemic that kills a half million in our country in one year is not "part of living." It is the mission of DHHS and its CDC arm to protect us from disease and illness of all kinds, and more.  Here is their mission:

https://www.cdc.gov/about/organization/mission.htm 

If you read the first few pages of the CDC Framework for Conditional Sailing, you can clearly see how they assess the threat from Cruise Ships and therefore the rationale for the extreme requirements.  In addition, they report how the cruise lines have mishandled Covid on board their ships for months after the Pandemic began, which further elevated their concern for Cruise Ships as a vector for disease.

The only people qualified to say when the "pandemic is over" are the experts tracking transmission. But we don't have to be experts to understand that 20% vaccinated isn't the end of it yet. We have about four more months until the majority of Americans are vaccinated, and 30 days have passed for immunity. We should be able to tell in about June or July if we have been successful and can declare the pandemic over, and if it's safe to be maskless with strangers without distance.  The impatience of people is going to kill more people.

Nobody has said they plan to require 100% vaccinations and exclude children until then.

Nobody has a system for proving they have a vaccination. Easy to say you do and forge a card.

If people who are not vaccinated are allowed on board, then those of us who are still vulnerable are at great risk even with a vaccine. The J&J vaccine is only 42% effective at preventing someone with Diabetes from getting sick.  Even if I am not hospitalized and don't die, I could be on disability for weeks.  For this reason, the next cruise I have booked is not until the end of 2022 so I know if it proves safe.