Our transatlantic was cancelled on April 14.  Just got the refund over the weekend.  That was approximately 68 days.  

https://www.princess.com/news/notices_and_advisories/notices/global-ship-operations-pause-2020-australia-canada-taiwan.html

• All cruises sailing in and out of Australia through mid-September on Sea Princess, Majestic Princess, Sun Princess and Sapphire Princess
• All cruises in and out of Vancouver and Seattle in September and October on Coral Princess, Emerald Princess, Grand Princess, Royal Princess, Ruby Princess and Star Princess
• Pacific and California Coast 7-day roundtrip cruises from San Francisco departing in September and October 2020 on Star Princess
• All roundtrip cruises from Keelung, Taiwan, departing August 2020 on Majestic Princess

November is 5 months away...without social distancing, I cannot imagine the virus in Brazil will not have burned itself out by that time.  Remember "flattening the curve" is all about spreading the peak over a longer amount of time to avoid overwhelming the hospitals.  If they don't have measures in place to flatten the curve, it just means it will burn out faster albeit with a much higher peak.  This may overwhelm their hospitals in the process, but when it burns out, it is out.  

With the measures in the US, Covid is probably going to be with the US much longer since we have been going through the efforts of flattening the curve.  I would not be surprised out all if the US opens cruising, but Brazil and everyone blocks the ships because of ongoing cases in the US.

48 minutes ago, timbom said:

Why would any community use these when Hotels and convention centers are empty.  Seems like a federal Bail out and complete waste of money. 

I don't think hotels have as many rooms in one place as a cruise ship, but they are certainly better option than a convention center.

Convention center have bathroom issues; personal safety issue and more.  You cannot make a person recovering from surgery walk a quarter mile to the convention center bathrooms.  You have very limited options to secure your things or your person (i.e New Orleans convention center after Katrina). 

I think cruise ships fit this nicely...  lots of rooms, each with a bathroom and security.  Additionally, if they can keep the staff on payroll, it also comes with the size of a  workforce convention centers and hotels cannot match.  That is not to say there will not be challenges with cruise ships, but if I am recovery from a surgery, I know where I would prefer to be housed.

I don't think they will be paying dividends again for a long while....

55 minutes ago, Torquer said:

We just bought 100 shares of CCL at $15.74 to get the OBC on future cruises.  Although it is quite possible the share price will sink even lower, I am totally confident that one year from now, the price will be significantly higher than what we paid today.  As a bonus, the dividend yield is outstanding at current share prices.

You only get the 125% FCC if you agree not to take a cash refund.  Otherwise the are only getting 100% cashback.

The net is that you are getting a 20% discount by using this.  Carnival is moving into a cash crunch and wanting to fill cruise fares through 2020 and 2021.  So selling this highly restrictive FCC for 80 cents on the dollar is probably a good deal for them.  

19 minutes ago, RocketMan275 said:

Wouldn't the refunds come from customer deposits?  

Carnival does not place customer deposits in a separate account.  Instead, it uses customer deposits as working capital...  of which only $518m is left in the bank.  

4 minutes ago, ozzie0075 said:

They are most likely counting on a bailout from the federal government and hoping people take the increased FCC. 

I would not count on a bailout.  I am not sure how much of an appetite their is in Washington to bailout cruise lines that don't have any US flagged ships.  Washington is talking about "small business" support, which would be the travel agents.  

Carnival had $518m in cash and $4.7b in customer deposits as-of 11/30/2019.  They physically cannot refund more than ~10% of their bookings before they run out of cash.  

https://www.carnivalcorp.com/static-files/dda3ed91-579c-4930-96bf-55bc4e839497

Noted...

Not sure I see the disconnect between the two.  The key takeaway is that there will have to be immediate changes to European sailings.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/11/coronavirus-trump-suspends-all-travel-from-europe.html

Apologies for putting this in a new thread.  

Since I cannot imagine my Fort Lauderdale to Rome transatlantic actually sailing, I was looking at alternative itineraries.  Lo and behold, there are some dirt cheap Alaska itineraries on the Westerdam starting April 29.  

We are booked on the Zuiderdam from Fort Lauderdale to Rome in April.  If I were betting, I would say the Zuiderdam will not be going to Europe at all this summer.  With all the cancellations, it makes no sense to try to fill last minute itineraries in this climate of fear.

I emailed my TA to ask a question.  She said she would have to call HAL to confirm, but that hold times for the TA's are over an hour.  I suggested my question was not important enough to wait on the phone for an hour.  

If the TA's are spending all their time on hold with HAL, they wont be able to answer customer calls.  

Interesting note on the Crystal cancellation policy is that the new policy is not retroactive.  Anyone who cancelled before March 4, lost their money according to the standard cancellation policy.  Also, their policy does not cover airfare.

2 hours ago, ryndam said:

FWIW, Crystal just announced that it is modifying all April & May voyages that call into Italy.

 

ALERT: ADVISORY UPDATE

 

 

UPDATED Thursday, March 5, 2020 10:30am EST
New Notice on Travel to Italy

Crystal is aware of the current U.S. State Department advisory to reconsider non-essential travel to Italy. As a result, the company is currently planning itinerary modifications for its April and May voyages that call into Italy.

In the meantime, we have advised new cancellation policy considerations through April 30, 2020 for our guests providing added flexibility as well as the benefit of time to help alleviate travel concerns and further assist in making informed decisions about upcoming travel plans.

We will, of course, keep our guests and travel partners updated as we finalize itinerary modifications.

 

State department is still showing level 3 - https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/italy-travel-advisory.html.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/28/politics/coronavirus-travel-advisory-italy-reconsider-travel/index.html

I suspect we will see HAL making changes to cruises with Italy ports shortly.

We are doing the 14 day transatlantic on the Zuiderdam in April with 4 kids in tow.  I would be interested in hearing your experience.  

7 minutes ago, Himself said:

That is what I understand.  

According to Vesslfinder, she is moving at 13 knots about 300nm from Bangkok, heading generally in the direction toward Bangkok.  At current heading/speed she is about 23 hours away.  

Oosterdam is not listed as offering Club HAL.  We sail on the Zuiderdam (which is currently in dry dock) with kids in April and this makes me very nervous.

https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/onboard-activities/cruise-activities/club-hal.html

Google "cruise monitoring system fish".  You can find a site which tracks historical prices....  unfortunately forum rules prevent us from just hyper linking it.

This site should answer your question about what prices have done in the past.

Looks like there is a four day gap between dropping off passengers in New Orleans on 4/19/2020 and starting the transatlantic from New York on 4/23/2020.  It seems they are sailing an empty cruise ship from New Orleans to New York.  I cannot imagine that is enough time for any type of refit unless they are doing it while underway.