matadams4u

Something isn’t right - there are supposedly over 200 Aussies on board and there has been no mention of how the drink packages are being handled.

Genting’s World Dream was denied port in Taiwan and passengers are being screened in Hong Kong.

True...can I see a raise of hands of volunteers for that experiment?

The Kyoda news article is grim - 236 tested who had had close contact and 31tests have been returned of which 10 were positive.  The original case left the ship 8 days ago.

Given the potential transmission rate this means a lot of people have been exposed.

On 2/2/2020 at 3:53 PM, Cairn Mom said:

https://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news/section/4/141062/Two-more-preliminary-positive-cases-for-coronavirus
The cruise passenger was on the 1/17 sailing of the Diamond Princess. He potentially infected all the passengers and crew on his sailing. He went to the buffet, stood in crowded elevators and went to shows.Think about these people. Hopefully Princess contacted them and gave their names to the appropriate health authorities so the could be monitored, They are still in the incubation period. They were in all sorts of public places and visiting with family and friends. They may, unknowingly,have infected thousands of other people. 

Obviously not comforting news. The margin between close call and triggering a multi national containment operation due to this one case is not great.  Let’s hope the behind the scenes efforts to assess the situation and arriving at  an appropriate risk assessment are successful.  Unfortunately the case in Vietnam today of an American contracting the virus during a two hour layover gives credence to your assessment.

i wrote this a few days ago but forgot to hit submit.  There is a news conference scheduled in Tokyo at 830 pm

There are now reports that ten passengers have tested positive.  There will be a news conference in Tokyo at 830 pm.

48 minutes ago, Level six said:

 

For what it is worth, I think I read on WHO or CDC that the pneumonia vaccine was not effective with the corona virus.  But, it is still important to get it.  

Agreed - some reports are of complications due to multiple issues so the source of the pneumonia in some cases could be in addition to the virus.  So yes it wouldn’t hurt.

21 minutes ago, npcl said:

 

Because it is well understood.  5 years from Corona will probably be well understood.

 

Since the biggest issue with Corona is pneumonia.  Let me put it this way  How many Norovirus patients can a medical unit of a ship handle? Noro has a mortality rate of about .002%.  A medical center can handle it because treatment is pretty much isolation until symptoms resolve and diet.  Now lets look at normal flu. About 1.5% get hospitalized and .1% fatalities. The fatalities for flu are due to pneumonia, as well as brain and heart inflammation. However the average incubation time for the flu is 2 days. It comes and goes quickly.  For Corona current data shows 25% being severe (hospitalized) with a 3% fatality rate. If we use that has a boundary and make assumptions that the number of cases are dramatically under reported and that all of those cases are minor In a disease that remains hidden for longer with an incubation period of 14 days.  Then using John Hopkins data estimating 56000 at the end of January compared with 12000 formally reported then it would lower the percentage for hospitalization to 5.4% and .6% fatality rate. Roughly 4 times the hospitalization rate and 6 times the fatality rate of the flu. 

But lets ignore the disease elements themselves and ask a few questions that we do not need to deal with concerning the common flu.

 

Since the Corona hospitalizations are almost all pneumonia or equivalent disease how many patients on oxygen could a medical unit on a cruise ship handle?

What would a cruise ship do if it gets a case to that level? 

Put off at the next port? 

Would the next port accept the patient?

What would happen to the other passengers if a case develops on board?

Would the ship be able to go to any ports?

Would the passengers be kept on board? 

Would they be able to fly home after the cruise?

Would they have to spend time in quarantine once they did get home?

Would someone fly to board a ship only to be denied boarding because of a fever?

If there is an outbreak in that area would they be allowed to fly home?

 

In my mind those questions impact my decision more than my concern over the disease itself.

 

All of these are valid questions.  The potential multiplier effects are amazing to watch.  The false alarm on the Costa ship started to put things in perspective -

* One false alarm could impact a cruise ship for a day and also generate alarm with future booked passengers.

* One active case could result in a 14 day in place quarantine - this would cascade to future cruises, hotel, air and other arrangements for let’s say 8000 passengers.

* This would then cascade into the general population as it has in terms of cancellations and reduced future bookings.

The current multiplier effect is amazing to watch -  look at posts a week ago compared to today or even plastic between Thursday and Friday when airlines started to cancel flights three months out.

The good new is the containment efforts around the world appear to have been pretty effective although a few places in Asia outside of China could experience a sudden change - once you get to a certain number of cases that were not contained early the cat would be out of the bag so to speak or the genie is out of the bottle.

For those over 65 it would be wise to have the pneumonia vaccine.  This is covered by insurance.

Actually the Bavarian case is of some concern.  It spread during a business meeting and then one person travelled to the Canary Islands.  

17 minutes ago, npcl said:

Yes but so far almost all of those are from people that initially contracted the disease in China and traveled outside.  We have not yet seen and active clusters of infection taking place outside of China.  We do have a couple of cases of people getting infected from people that have traveled from China such as the spouse in the US, the taxi driver in Thailand, etc.  But as of yet we have not seen the disease take off any spread else where.  The long incubation time means that it may take a few weeks to see if it will start spreading else where from those initial travelers.

10 minutes ago, npcl said:

At this time we are booked on a total of 24 days on two Princess cruises out of Sydney in march, followed by a 16 HAL cruise back to Honolulu.  Not quite sure how cruise lines would handle someone getting it on board ship. Past behavior would make me think that they would treat it like an inability to treat medical condition and get the person off ship ASAP if they could find a port to take them.

 

In our cases as healthy adults, not so much concerned about the mortality, as much how things could go badly very quickly on a long cruise with lots of sea days at the end.  As well as if the islands in the pacific start banning cruise ship landings as a couple already seem to have done.

 

First the good new -

*. Australia has implemented some good procedures to keep people infected from getting into Australia.

* Princess has implemented some good procedures to keep people from getting on ships if they are infected.

The bad news -

If for any reason these measures fail it would be highly likely everyone would be quarantined to there rooms for 14 days and any port would probably use the ship as a quarantine container since there would not be space onshore for 4000 people.  This would be due to the high transmission rate and risk of transmission onshore.  There would be room service available.

2 minutes ago, npcl said:

I would change have travel insurance to have cancel for any reason travel insurance. or check your policy and see if government imposed travel restrictions or recommendation is a covered reason.  Most US policies do not cover someone canceling due to an outbreak like this. 

I agree - it should have read have cancel for any reason travel insurance.  Additionally, people should wait for airlines and operators make decisions.  Right now trips to China are being cancelled through March - In part due to the number of changes being made are overwhelming tour operators.  A decision for April will probably be made next.  Anything after April is probably within the cancellation window.  Probably best to cancel anything within the cancellation period and book something else but right now you cannot predict a safe haven 75 days out - an educated guess but it depends on your comfort level of probability.  My Rome trip had a minor hiccup yesterday but I can’t say with certainty my tour of the Vatican will go without a hitch in two weeks.  Likewise I am booked on a three day California coastal in May -  I would like to say it is low risk but when you get an email at work to start preparing for pandemic operations you know the risk level is not zero.

This is getting a bit more serious and complicated throughout the travel industry.  I booked a quick land tour to Rome leaving in ten days.  My hotel was changed yesterday since the hotel I was booked being in a 14 day quarantine due to the two cases in Italy staying at the hotel.  My advice right now is -

*. Have travel insurance.

*. Book air with your cruise or tour operator.

* recognize even a single case or suspected case could result in a 14 day quarantine.  Have some idea of what a 14 day quarantine would mean.

*. Take your temperature before leaving to the airport.

*. There is some risk in all areas of the world right now except South America and Africa.

*. Expect things to be dicey in more parts of Asia in the days to come.  Although that is not certain just higher than comfort probability.

* Expect high safety protocols throughout your trip.

* Recognize you cannot control what happens.  You can wear a face mask but if one person in your plane, bus, hotel or ship comes down with something everyone will probably at the very least be asked to be in isolation and monitored for a period of time.

On the plus side -

*. Expect to see some great bargains in the coming months.

*. So many people depend on our travel so don’t give up travel.

What’s interesting is this is planning three months ahead.  Will be interesting to see other itinerary changes.

Will be interesting to follow.

Will be interesting to follow.

I agree if you gamble a little you will get casino offers although the best ones usually come anywhere between 30 to 75 days of sailing.  Low solo supplements are rare but I have seen some good deals through Princess emails.  If you are flexible you can find some good values.  

Arrived in Budapest today and there don’t seem to be any issues with water levels.  I am posting trip updates on the 2020 Viking Danube Waltz thread.  

I will be on this cruise and have done it many times.  Agree with others - expect fall weather and possibly some rain.  A light

sweater at night and a long sleeve pullover during the day.  Also bringing a wind breaker hoodie this go round. Only once was the ship rocking and rolling to the distress of the blue cards.  I always bring my bonine just in case.  I wear long athletic pants

during the day and dress pants at night.

My experiences have been the same as mentioned above -

* when a change is not posted a call will get it corrected

* I often get multiple changes before departure

* I check fares periodically.

* once the change resulted in too short of a layover and I switched to a diffferent airline.  Overall after rebooking two times on the anytime fare before final payment the cost was lower.

i have been a fan of ez air since my first cruise.  Our connecting flight to Vancouver was seriously delayed with about 40 passengers on the flight.  Princess held the ship, rushed us from the airport (including passengers that had not paid for a transfer) expedited customs ( I did not even realize we had gone through customs) bearded us into the wheelhouse for muster, and as soon as that was finished the ship left port.  That was my first experience with Princess and it has kept me as a loyal customer since.

The best bread pudding is served when they have English pub lunches usually on sea days.  There is usually one German themed buffet with a variety of sausages and other foods.  Shrimp cocktail is always an option in the MDR but haven’t seen a lot of shrimp in the buffet.  If they make shrimp scampi in the buffet it is really good but have only seen it a couple of times.

You raise some good points.  Personally shared values are important to me as an investor and as a customer.  The alignment has not been always perfect and there are times when a company hits a road bump and I can either sit and watch how management handles things or sell.  In many cases those road bumps are buying opportunities.  Carnival was one of my first stock purchases and has generally been a good performer.  Although I was disappointed with management’s failure to appropriately address environmental shortcomings threatening company operations in the US - my hope is that it will become a leader in this area.  I typically follow Warren Buffet’s advice when investing - historically strong companies, good dividends, competitive moat, and has hit a snag that has caused a significant price dip, and hold a long time.  Carnival pretty much checks all of those boxes.  

The stretch class is free - you just sign up the first day.  Unfortunately the quality varies but it is a good alternative if you prefer something lighter than Zumba.  The two occur at about the same time.

I noticed prices out of Seattle have been holding up better than prices out of Vancouver.  Noticed that next year there appear to be more departures out of Seattle.  

I also had the unfortunate experience of being diagnosed as pre diabetic bordering on diabetic before my last cruise and found myself trying to figure out how to make drastic lifestyle changes while being surrounded by temptation.

i made significant progress on the start of my recalibration on my cruise.  

Breakfast - three pieces of smoked salmon, egg white omelet with veggies, muesli.

lunch/snacks - shrimp salad or vegetable salad at IC.

dinner/large lunch - vegetables at the buffet and seafood - shrimp, calamari steak.

desert - princess does not make very appetizing sugar free deserts so I cheated but only had three.

main dining room - only ate there 3 times - embarkation lunch is good without desert - filet and shrimp appetizer.  Always enjoy the filet on formal nights.

crown - sea bass

other modifications - increased steps to a minimum of 6500 a day - used cross trainer in the gym.

WebMd offers a daily diabetes newsletter that has a lot of good information.  Weight seems to be the biggest issue in my case so I am on a pretty strict diet that has a good chance of putting the diabetes in remission.

i also have one glass of one on cruises but don’t drink normally and just water otherwise.  After losing about 35 pounds many of the symptoms improved dramatically.  At 45 pounds now and 30 ponds to go - 20 to a normal BMI.

Good luck - I found a cruise with all of the choices and activities was a great place to contemplate and experiment with lifestyle changes.

Agree it is at a good price for those wanting the OBC.  It could go lower but the dividend has gone up a couple times since the last time it was at this price.  If it tanks due to a one time surprise even I would certainly buy more.