SWFLAOK

2 hours ago, azdrydock said:

I was also able to find out that historically PG drydocks in Singapore. Also found out today that the AidaVita which was scheduled to drydock in Singapore later this month will now dry dock in Dubai.

 

Judging  by Tahitianbigkahuna earlier post and the length of time the ship is out of service this may also be a mandatory class  maintenance drydock.  It is unlikely the aft cabin conversions would be done with passengers on board at sea since this requires cutting steel and welding which are safety concerns. I believe NCL had a big problem  a few months ago with toxic fumes due to deck work they started at sea  prior to the scheduled drydock .

 

As far as what the crew does during the dry dock..... Since it is a good  time for training  there is a lot of lifeboat/tender practice that may end up  in races, Water slide evacuations may be also practiced several times as are on deck fire hose drills  All of the amenities get thoroughly tested. Usually depends on what the captain and port allow.

 

They are trying to get the mandatory health inspections done prior to the flights so,  if necessary, the quarantine would be at origination instead of destination..... hmmm two weeks in Tahiti vs two weeks in Nebraska🙂

 

 

Just to clarify, drydock means the ship is lifted out of the water to give access to the bottom from dry land. Doing lifeboat/tender practice and water slide evacuations would be quite painful while a ship is in drydock. Lifting a cruise ship out of the water isn't something that every port has the ability to do, but many things on the interior can be done at a shipyard that doesn't have the ability to lift a large ship out of the water, and only crew would be onboard, not guests. 

My description of what the crew does after the passengers leave the ship and it heads to drydock is based on our conversations with several crew members who have done it in the past. Crew members who stay onboard work very hard on the upgrades that we all get to enjoy on future cruises.

The only news we have heard is found here -> https://www.pgcruises.com/travel-advisory

Our TA has no insight.

I don't think there are drydock facilities in Bali for cruise ships, but maybe that's not really needed.

In the past, drydock for the PG was in Singapore. After the passengers disembark in Bali, some crew members go home for vacation, and others stay onboard, prepping for drydock. They do things they never do normally, like rip up old carpeting. While in drydock, most of those crewmembers stay onboard,  where the AC doesn't work well while not in the water, and they put in new carpeting, and furniture. While out of the water, other work is done on the bottom and props by the drydock facility.
The question is whether they really need to go to drydock for what they need to do this year. The conversion of the aft cabins will be done by contractors who come onboard, but they wouldn't need to be out of the water for that. If they can delay any maintenance or repairs that require them to be out of the water, they may be able to wait for the drydock.

At this point, Singapore isn't necessarily a good airport to come through, but Bali could soon have the same problem. If you can get onboard, you may have trouble getting off and returning home without being quarantined, so we're keeping that in mind if we're able to complete our Fiji to Bali cruise before drydock. We were originally booked by PG to come back to the US through Hong Kong, and we rebooked through Sydney.

I was hoping that the latest update would address the Fiji to Bali situation on the way to drydock. Within the last week, 2 people have taken flights from Dubai to Bali, after visiting Iran. One tested positive when she reached New Zealand, and the other tested positive when he reached Melbourne. The government in Bali has already tracked down tourists seated near the first positive passenger. They are being "isolated" at their hotels, and told to "limit their activities". There are 3 hotels in Bali involved, but they weren't named. They are still working on locating tourists in Bali who sat near the second positive passenger. He transited the Bali airport on Feb 28.

Maybe there will be another update this week.

9 hours ago, Shippy said:

Interesting discussion on the news last night.

Becoming more and more a scandal about the lack of testing kits in the U.S.

A man whose company has a new, he says better testing kit, has it held up by the FDA.

The newscaster asked if he thought that the U.S. government was doing that on purpose because if were able to test the masses.....we would then have to report the  

‘real’ numbers of those that test positive, which is great.

I had never thought of that but it makes sense.

Here in California there is now a case where a woman was sick for a week before she went to the hospital. She was there for a few days before anyone thought to test her.

She was positive. Now transferred to a different hospital where they say she is on a respirator and not doing well.

How many people do you think she came in contact with? 
Test kits ?

My doctor says her (my) hospital is not allowed to have them. They would have to take a swab and send it to the CDC.

 

I'm sorry but this just sounds like California is not doing a good job of detecting and containing the corona virus. It's an old woman in the same area as 2 previous people who returned from China and weren't sick when they returned, and the had corona virus. How much investigation was really done to see who the previous 2 cases could have spread it to. I'm sure they were out and about until they felt sick, and they most likely infected others.

The rest of your post is totally political, and there's no place for that when it comes to stopping the spread of this virus.

Test kits are certainly available in all states, and thinking that someone has come up with one of his own that doesn't need to be tested by the FDA before replacing the CDC's is naive. I saw a similar comment today from a news story in Washington that said that it takes 6 days to get a test result for corona virus. And Washington state doesn't report any of their corona virus cases to the CDC because health information is private. Maybe there are communication problems between the CDC and California and Washington. Other than China, Iran, and Italy, these 2 states seem to be the only ones who can't figure out where their corona virus is coming from.

2 hours ago, Cruisedreamer1 said:

I don't think SWFLAOK's idea of warmer climate rings true. I, personally, am not worried at this point. I can think of worse places to be "quarantined" than on the Paul Guaguin! That said, I would bring my cold and flu medications with me.

I'm not sure what you think about my idea doesn't ring true. The warmer climate that the PG cruises operate in at this time of year are detrimental to the virus spreading, and that's a good thing.

Right now in China, it's cold and dry, just as it is in Iran, Italy, Japan and South Korea. That's when viruses spread. Dried out noses and sinuses pick up viruses more easily, and being chilled depresses the immune system.

High temperatures (mid 80's and higher) don't allow the virus to live for any length of time on surfaces, and humidity keeps noses working well as virus filters.

All of the upcoming PG cruises are South of the equator, where it's summer. It's hot and humid, which will hopefully slow the spread of the virus. Singapore has been able to control their cases, despite them being a popular place for business travelers from China, bringing corona virus with them. It's always hot and humid in Singapore.

We've paid 40K for our upcoming PG cruise since we added hotel stays on each end, upgraded to business air, and have to get to LA and back from Florida. If this was just a Society Islands cruise, I wouldn't be worried, but we really have no chance of doing this cruise again, since it's only been offered every 3 years. If this cruise sails, we'll be onboard, but spending the whole time onboard is not what we want to do since we'll never pass through these ports again.

In addition, we have a European River cruise on Viking in mid May that we would not be allowed to board if we were quarantined in April. We have "cancel for any reason" on that cruise,  but we booked and paid for that trip almost 2 years ago, and got the last suite onboard. Another 2 year wait might not work for us.

We always bring a large supply of cold and flu medications, and I wipe down our airline seats, and every touchable surface in our cabin when we embark with Clorox wipes. There always seem to be a lot of people with respiratory problems on cruise ships (and we only take cruises on smaller ships). On this trip, if anyone is coughing uncontrollably, I will be calling them out, and then pointing them out.

We were actually offered a "fam" upgrade on our first Regent cruise, and didn't know it until now. It was a cruise from Vancouver to Seward Alaska. It was offered through our TA on the morning that we were to embark. We had a Veranda Suite, and were offered a Penthouse Suite. We had already paid for our transfer to our hotel, which we also had  paid for, and our luggage had already been taken by the hotel to the ship, with our room number tags on every piece. The location of the new suite was not available to us. We turned it down, and have never been offered an upgrade again. Now we know why.

But, it we had been offered this in advance, we would have taken it.

If you have a Sunday at sea, there will be caviar and champagne at breakfast, and there's no additional charge. We aren't caviar experts, but it seemed fine to me. And the champagne was good.

7 minutes ago, orvil said:

There is also Insuremytrip.com.  This where I get my travel medical.

 

 

Well that's definitely an advertising site for insurance.

I wasn't sure if it was an oceanic white tip or a whitetip reef shark, based on what I had read. From someone onboard the cruise ship, they weren't far outside the reef, and reef sharks do follow small boats outside of the reef, associating small boats with fish.

7 hours ago, Jacqueline said:

I just found out my cabin disappeared through these threads! No word from the cruiseline or TA. 
I see from logging on that I have been reassigned to 8009. I have zero use for a butler on a cruiseship. 

The cabins on Deck 8 are definitely nice. I wouldn't turn one down if offered that for the price of the aft cabins on Deck 7. We normally don't make much use of our butler on Paul Gauguin,  but they can get you additional dinner reservations, and they can also help with other things that come up unexpectedly. On our first PG cruise, my husband had a latent back injury that was made much worse by a bumpy excursion at our first stop in the Marquesas. Our butler and room stewardess made that experience much better for both of us while he was bed ridden for several days.

Deck 8 is quiet, and convenient to the Pool area, the Pool Bar, and breakfast in the morning. We hope to be in our Deck 8 cabin for the 4th time on the Fiji to Bali cruise on April 11th,  but who knows what will happen between now and then.

I am spouse of SWFLAOK and lurk here LOL. I think the closer one is to the Equator, the less likely the virus is to spread because the virus is sensitive to higher temperatures and humidity. Both Fiji and Bali, are humid and 90 at this point. So hopefully this virus does not explode in those areas close to the Equator and that spares cruises within that area as long as they take preventative measures.

7 hours ago, FlightMedic555 said:

The screening of people using thermometers has already been shown to be ineffective in determining disease.  There have been a couple of cases of people who were diagnosed with the virus after returning from Indonesia (citizens of other countries-unknown if they had the virus while in Indonesia) and there is a lot of speculation (only speculation) that it is unlikely that there have not been cases in Indonesia.  All in all a lot is still unknown.  What is known is that Asia is the hotbed of virus activity and stopping the spread of the disease thus far has not been totally effective. 

 

If (a big if) the virus spreads to Indonesia (as it appears to be doing in South Korea and Japan) it could potentially result in a 14 day quarantine period which would effect the crew and therefore subsequent cruises.  I am not trying to say the sky is falling but we are entering uncharted territory with this disease.  I question at what point in time “better safe than sorry” enters the picture and tough choices are made.  

 

Even hospitals in the US (including mine) have implemented strict additional screening procedures for all patients presenting in the emergency department and clinics. 

Which cruise are you on that's affected by this? I'm more worried about flying through LAX than taking the Fiji to Bali cruise on PG. In fact, I'm more worried about our neighbors coming back from Hong Kong after several months there since we live in the same building, and touch the same handles and buttons.

The South Korea and Japan cases have come from China. I don't know if Indonesia has cut off flights and cruises from China. But having just been in Indonesia on a cruise back in December, there were not a lot of Chinese tourists as there were in Viet Nam, Thailand, and Singapore, or even Australia. The same was true for Malaysia which has had minimal cases. Who knows how many Chinese visitors have come to the US during this time, and just disappeared into our country.

I hate seeing sharks while I snorkel, but I've been able to tolerate the smaller sharks in shallow water. They're fed, along with the rays, and all are happy.

In deeper water, I never want to see them, and hated the Faka Rava snorkeling with very large black tips following me 5 feet under and 10 feet back.

Last October, a woman was decimated by a white tip reef shark off Moorea. I believe this was outside of the reef on a whale encounter. So be careful about the sharks you want to see.

On 2/17/2020 at 11:47 AM, Floridiana said:

 

Better have a tissue ready, but your sleeve is better than my face. Next time a table mate sneezes all over the  table, I will get up and leave. I have had passengers cough at me in a narrow hallway. Next time, I will say something.

The tables on Regent are something I have a problem with. At the Coffee Connection, the table is not wiped between customers. I complained about this onboard, and nothing was done about it. I made a show of wiping the table with a Clorox wipe each time I arrived, and still nothing was done. We were onboard for 32 nights . At the restaurants, most of the time, the table cloth is not changed between seatings. We had people with pneumonia onboard (confirmed by those they sat with), who coughed excessively on the table cloth while eating. We saw some of the waiters change the table cloth between seatings, but others did not. We complemented  the waiters that did, but we started purposely leaving food stains on the table cloth to make sure they were always changed.

I agree with everything that Floridiana said about what I will do going forward. I have tried to be discrete, but next time, I will say something to the passenger.

On 2/15/2020 at 12:27 PM, mrlevin said:

One of the passengers off the Westerdam arrived in Malaysia on a chartered flight from Sianoukville displayed symptoms and was tested; positive for COVID-19. Future charters have been cancelled with some of the Westerdam passengers still stuck in Cambodia.  

This is going to really put a damper on any more Asia port visits. Voyager nearing Singapore; I wonder where she will go next.

 

It was an elderly American heading home, with 175 other passengers from the Westerdam on the same flight. I guess all of the ports that turned down the Westerdam knew something that  HAL wasn't acknowledging. We did one HAL cruise a few years ago, and would never do another since our captain made a number of decisions on our 2 week cruise that we found questionable.

But, what the Westerdam did is very bad for the rest of us who have cruises over the next few months, whether they're in Asia, heading toward  Asia, or heading elsewhere after going through Asia. The Westerdam left from Hong Kong and stopped at a port in China a few days later. Obviously, at least one passenger onboard picked up corona virus before boarding, or at their only stop. They should have been quarantined in Sianoukville before disembarking since so many ports denied them entry, but they all went quickly on their way,  taking their virus with them.

2 hours ago, Tahitianbigkahuna said:

Paul Gauguin is being very pro-active   .... and I for one am glad they are  ....

 

New policy:

 

"In accordance with the recommendation of the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA), for any passenger who has visited, or transited through an airport in China (including Hong Kong and Macau) or Taiwan, within 14 days prior to their embarkation (period of incubation) even without presenting a fever, and for all passengers that have stayed or transited recently through an airport in China (including Hong Kong and Macau) or Taiwan, and presenting a temperature higher or equal to 100.4F / 38C, will not be accepted for embarkation onboard the ship.

Accordingly, for the safety of you and all our guests, checks will be carried out prior to your embarkation. For any further information, we invite you to contact your Paul Gauguin Cruises Reservation Department or your Travel Advisor. We look forward to welcoming you aboard."

Thank you so much TBK, this is what we were hoping to hear. 

4 hours ago, Wendy The Wanderer said:

 

Myself, I'm not sure that Regent has it perfectly right, but the PG situation is perhaps unique.

 

I think that the PG's spring schedule is at risk.  It's too bad they're doing this drydock, which means they add the trips over to Asia.  The best thing for them right now would be to stay right in FP, and go nowhere else. 

 

We'll see how that plays out.  Sorry your cruise is in jeopardy.

At this point, we will try to stop worrying and see what happens. It's too expensive to cancel. We have insurance, but it doesn't cover cancelling the trip for fear of catching a virus, or for a lack of ports to stop in.

And the reason we booked this cruise is to celebrate a milestone Birthday, with a cruise that stops in many small ports that we've never stopped at before, and will soon be too old to stop at in the future. If it was just the usual FP cruise, we would have chosen something other then the Paul Gauguin cruise since we've already done all of the other itineraries within the past 3 years.

6 hours ago, Wendy The Wanderer said:

Apparently Tonga just closed its port to all cruise ships.  The big question will be if other Pacific islands follow suit.  Is the PG scheduled to visit Tonga in April or May?  If Fiji follows suit, let alone FP, then there's big trouble.

 

(BTW, I read about Tonga on the Seabourn board here on CC.)

I read about Tonga on the Regent board on CC. The March 28th PG cruise from Papeete to Fiji is supposed to stop in Tonga, as it did in September when we took that cruise. We're supposed to board in Fiji on April 11th and sail to Bali. PG had booked us on a return flight through Hong Kong back to LAX, and few weeks ago, we cancelled that and booked a flight back through Sydney. We are much happier with that, but if we can't stop anywhere from Fiji to Bali, that would not be good. Our excursion booking just opened, and the excursions that were just added to our itinerary a few weeks ago, did not all become available. None of the excursions on Vanuatu have been confirmed by the local tour representative. I suspect that Vanuatu is considering banning the ship from their port.

I think that the ports are looking at what the cruise line requires for those who are boarding. Regent just cracked down big time, with no one with a passport from China, Hong Kong or Macau will be allowed to board, no matter what their country of residency. And anyone who has traveled to, transited through, or passed through the airport of China, Hong Kong or Macau in the last 30 days will not be allowed to board, and are asked not to come to the port. Full health screening will be done before boarding Regent ships, and those with a fever and/or respiratory symptoms will be subjected to additional tests, and possible denial of boarding, or quarantine onboard.

I haven't seen anything like this policy for Paul Gauguin. Many Chinese tourists fly into Papeete, and while most of them head to Moorea, or stay on Tahiti for their vacations, everyone boarding the Paul Gauguin should be subject to the same criteria as Regent is imposing.

The water between Tahiti and the Cook Islands can be pretty rough. The ship cannot dock at either of the Cook Islands, and anchors in an unprotected area to tender passengers through an opening in the reef to get to the dock. We tendered into Atutaki in December a few years ago. On the way back to the ship, the waves were going completely over the tender. It wasn't as bad this past September, but it still required a slow, careful process to get on and off the tender. Sometimes the Cook Island ports aren't accessible by tender so the 2 days at sea result in just a sail by.

36 minutes ago, lloydm said:

Mr. Del Rio has retired 

Do you have a link to this information?

1 hour ago, Dorl said:

Ok can I just put it out there...has anyone received a full cash refund. Royal Caribbean, Princess, MSC are giving full cash refunds, for those of you who care to disclose.

There are people waiting for 3 days so far to board RCL Anthem of the Seas. They won't be boarding until tomorrow, and haven't been offered a full cash refund, or any assistance,  monetary or otherwise,  with  finding a place to stay in New Jersey while they wait. They were told to go to the ship yesterday morning, and after waiting half a day, were told to come back on Monday. All of the passengers on the previous cruise have left, including the large group of Chinese Nationals that boarded with what turned out to be the flu.

I'm sure those on the Princess cruise with over 60 positive corona virus cases so far will be offered something eventually, but a cash refund seems too little compensation for them since Princess let someone onboard that had corona virus, and didn't clean sufficiently after he was removed from the ship before the next cruise began.

3 hours ago, boblerm said:

Gerry, my understanding is that for at least those that are quarantined aboard the Diamond Princess, they are actually confined to their staterooms (!), so  infecting fellow passengers is not an issue.  It is hard to imagine what it is like to be confined under these circumstances, especially for those unlucky souls in inside cabins.  There is a lovely gentleman who is posting from that ship on Facebook, I do not believe that Cruise Critic guidelines allow posting links to Facebook (not sure about that), but his name is David Abel, he posts video clips of his and his wife's situation once or twice a day.

 

In regard to the virus affecting our cruise or any other cruise, the issue is not so much how many cases may be diagnosed in any given country as it is people carrying the virus not diagnosed falling ill while on the ship. Impossible to predict, but the odds are far lower on a smallish ship than, say, the RCCL Oasis.

 

If you are in the US already and the cruise is cancelled, Regent may or may not refund costs of changing your travel arrangements to return home.  If not, it will depend on whether or not you have your air arrangements covered under your insurance.

I read something by a British tourist onboard that said that everyone was allowed out of their cabins. Those in cabins without windows are allowed out at all times since that's the only way they get fresh air, and are not confined to their small cabins. All others are allowed out for exercise everyday. They were told to wear paper masks, not to stop to talk in groups, and to keep at least a meter between each other. This is obviously not working since the number of cases has sky rocketed on the Princess. The original contaminator (the 80 year old from Hong Kong), boarded on the cruise from Japan to Hong Kong, and got off in HK before the ship headed back to Japan, with his virus left behind. I would stay in my cabin (which will never be one without an opening window), where I have more control over the viruses I'm exposed to, and I would not complain that I had to keep my own cabin clean, as those onboard are complaining about.

On our September cruise from Papeete to Fiji, we had better Wi-Fi than we had on 2 Regent cruises last year (Med cruise in July, Singapore to Singapore and Singapore to Sydney in December and early January). Maybe it's due to having way more people using the internet on a ship with 650 to 725 passengers instead of 300 people. Being close to ports in the Med seemed to give no better response than being at sea. Being in port on the SE Asia/Australia cruise had better access than at sea, but still bogged down at peak times.

The cost of Wi-Fi isn't significant to us compared to the price of the cruise. But when paying extra gets you nothing better (as on Regent) that's annoying.

We're on the cruise toward drydock, and we're more worried about whether it will happen than whether the Wi-Fi will be upgraded.

On 1/14/2020 at 1:17 PM, gnomie1 said:

IMO - I have found that for the most part, the quality of the excursions has diminished. It use to be that I was so excited to review the excursion offerings and had a difficult time choosing which one to select. The last few cruises I had trouble finding something that was fun and interesting in each port and started to leave excursions because I just found them boring.

 

While there are still some great excursions to be had, they are few and far between and often booked and sold out immediately.

 

But then again, it depends what you want and expect - I am the type of person that when I travel, I like to absorb as much as possible and see new and exciting things and go to out of the way places. I also HATE shopping stops and long extended rest stops that are really nothing more than a shopping stop - it seems that there are more and more of theses. On a recent excursion, WE HAD JUST LEFT THE SHIP, when we stopped for a "rest stop", which turned into a 90 minute waste of time at a cameo jewelry "factory" - this was not on the itinerary and as a result, other aspects of the tour had to be eliminated.  Other passengers loved the unexpected stop at the cameo factory - it all depends what you like and expect.

This has bee our experience as well. On our last Regent back to back cruise in December and January, Singapore to Singapore, followed by Singapore to Sydney, the excursions were mostly bad, and that included one we paid a large amount extra for. It was all about going slow, taking bathroom breaks, and shopping. A number of times we were delayed for half an hour or more because some on our tour did not return to the bus - sorry, they were shopping and the buys were so good. We also had long stops added at a pottery factory and an embroidery factory, which were very long, and gave us very little time at the more interesting stops at temples and museums that we had looked forward to. Most excursions left 45 minutes to an hour late due to bus loading and unloading time, and a few times, Regent kept the restaurants open late for lunch since the morning excursions didn't start returning to the ship until after 2 PM.

A few times, when given a chance, those on the excursion were consulted about stops, and their length. The majority did not want lengthy shopping stops, but if just one asked for it, we had at least a moderate shopping stop. We also had people asking for bathroom stops as soon as the bus left the cruise terminal, and we quickly stopped at a place with a bathroom, and the rest of us were told we could get off and shop while waiting.

How do we stop this and get real excursions? I don't know. It seems that too many of those onboard are just looking for a comfortable Air Conditioned bus ride, with some shopping and bathroom stops and a chance to stop for coffee and a snack ... probably the same thing they enjoy at home.

We had one paid excursion that we was over 300 dollars for the 2 of us. The excursion that we had signed up for was cancelled at the last minute for unknown reasons. This one was added at the last minute, and though it cost slightly more,  it sounded enjoyable, with a catamaran sail to a reef, a BBQ lunch and snorkeling. It was a cattle boat, with more guests (just over 60) than seats, and a very cheap lunch (salad, cake, and hamburgers, hot dogs and a limited amount of chicken and fish, cooked on a home size gas grill that was next to where the dinghy was loading and unloading snorkelers, making for a few minor burns). There was beer onboard, but those that snorkeled had to wait until the sail back to have any. Nearly everyone onboard snorkeled, although many had no experience, and snorkeling from a dinghy (transporting only 8 to 10 at a time) in an area with current isn't easy for a novice. The snorkeling was nothing special, and the safety of those in the water was suspect since there was only 1 person watching all of the snorkelers while they were in the water. We've done many trips like this in the South Pacific and the Caribbean, and they were all better, and less expensive. Some of them were on our own from land-based vacations, but some were cruise excursions that we paid for on cruise lines that don't include any included excursions.