navybankerteacher

I suspect that they will simply wing it - the way they appear to be doing it now with regard to the short itineraries now scheduled for August out of Florida and Texas. Has anyone heard anything about any precautions the lines plan to take? I would say that anyone booking one of those early sailings right now is buying “a pig in a poke” - (a trenchant Southern concept).

A “what” of pay phones, or a dearth of “what” ?????

Yes, let’s ignore COVID and cruise as usual.

Certainly “step one”; but recalling what is regularly shown on TV of crowds in areas which are opening up, it seems that there is little interest in distancing — and it is hard to see it practiced given the “faster to the fun” mentality. It it would seem that stricly enforced time slots would be an important reminder of the necessity of distancing throughout the cruise —- but does anyone seriously believe that six-foot spacing will be anything other than an occasional exception on a cruise ship?

“To what it was” - if you mean before the industry started building (and filling) monster floating malls, yes - I sort of liked it in the 1990’s. If if you are referring to the maga ships of NCL , Carnival and Royal Caribbean — I really couldn’t care if they ever sailed again or not — as long as they stayed out of ports I would like to visit.

I once wrote a theme on the proposition that, at the time of the “Big Bang”, when all of everything we now have came into being, there was - in addition to physical matter- a finite amount of intelligence created —- which necessarily means that, as the human population expands, the intelligence has to be spread more thinly. This would explain a lot.

Exactly - perhaps the surest way to spread COVID is to claim that such and such a port is COVID-free.

You should pay more attention to many of these posts - people are determined to get on one of the first ships to sail, with no apparent interest in the protocols which might be imposed. Have you seen televised reports covering some of the crowd scenes in recently re-opened areas? Seeing that a number of US states now have growing numbers of infections, it will be interesting to see the November repercussions.

So what? Is non-essential recreational travel more important than trying to control what is killing tens of thousands of people a month? Do you think inactivated ships will evaporate after a few months? Do you think that Hertz’s filing for reorganization will mean that there will be no more rental cars?

Do you REALLY believe that there could be ANY vaccine without government funding and/or organization?

Of course wearing what you want, where you want, and when you want are understandable preferences. But there is more to cruising than that.

Having been in that area several times that time of year - from Venice down to the west coast of Greece - maybe just fortunate, but usually dry, sunny, with temps from low 60’s to mid 70’s - probably best time of year there — particularly because the summer crowds are gone.

Then, of course, there are other angles — try standing on deck at Manhattan Cruise Terminal on a 10 degree day in January with a 35 mph wind whistling down the ice floe filled Hudson — while waiting for some no-shows to be identified.

How can anyone not “feel weird” these days? Everything we do is colored by the new environment.

Back on topic: there are several tiers of “intermediate mid-market cruise lines” between the likes of Seabourn and Crystal at one end and Carnival and NCL at the other.