ohioNCLcruiser

I'm honestly surprised it's only 20%. Hopefully all those impacted by this have jobs to return to later this year. 

2 hours ago, jimbo5544 said:

Princess is in deep do do. I fear for that name continuing, I hope I am wrong.

The general public has short term memory. People thought this after the Carnival Splendor and Carnival Triumph incidents and it was also said about Costa after the Costa Concordia but that is all distant memory now. Other examples were Mandalay Bay deciding not to change their name after the Vegas shooting. I'm fairly confident the Princess branding will continue. 

5 minutes ago, xDisconnections said:

If you don’t think your cruise is going to happen, you should reach out to him for some advice and reassurance 😉

 

Why wouldn’t his information be accurate? He says they’re going to be back to normal by the end of a June.

Because he said the same thing when asked if my Mardi Gras inaugural was cancelled, my back-up Mardi Gras cruise and then my Norwegian Legend cruise that were cancelled. He is saying what their plan/information is at the moment. Just like he originally said the mid May re-start date was accurate a few weeks ago. 

I think cruise lines will follow similar to what Las Vegas does. I know July 7th MGM Resorts plans to open two properties on the strip (Bellagio and Aria) before doing others. I think whenever cruising does resume, we will see a few ships to "get their feet wet" and see how it goes. My friend at NCL corporate says they expect some ships to not be sailing for over a year. Another friend predicts no cruises will happen this year so we will see. If cruises were starting in June they would not be ferrying ships around the world to bring the crew home. Some of these people have just started their contracts. Just lines know they can't afford another PR disaster like the Diamond Princess incident. They are not going to start until they know they have everything they need in place before hand. Testing, temperature checks etc. 

4 hours ago, xDisconnections said:

I’m told by the brand ambassador that cruising will be back to normal by the end of June similar to the previous expected timelines. I have good faith in this information and hope he is correct 🙂

Take what John says as a grain of salt in terms of all this. He is a great guy but at the end of the day he is saying what he can say. Plus your quote shows exactly why it should only be taken as a grain of salt. "We will be back to normal by the end of June, similar to the previous expected timelines" and we know how well those previous expected timelines turned out. John is nice but he is definitely following the orders from corporate.  I'm on the Aug 29th Panorama sailing and coming up with some backup trip ideas since I would be shocked if this cruise happened sadly. 

22 minutes ago, shof515 said:

i read that Carnival Ecstasy is going to India

The only time a Fantasy class ship is heading to India that isn't bound for Alang for scrapping! I wouldn't be surprised if the Ecstasy goes into long term storage somewhere over there until a buyer is eventually found.

Dropping off crew there and then a stop in Indonesia to do the same. A few other ships are near her doing the same mission.

11 hours ago, SummmerInKefalonia said:

Nothing yet about Leonardo class ship.

The only announcement coming about these ships is a cancellation/major delay unfortunately. 

5 hours ago, Steff79 said:

they will not run on LNG.

 

the ship yards have contracts with the cruise lines, they need them too. But with Corona everything will be delayd so maybe the new ships are coming later, who knows if NCL will survive.

Even with contracts there are ways to get out of them for a certain penalty. NCL cancelled the Norwegian Epic's sister ships that were under contract during the last recession. Sadly I don't think the Leonardo ships will happen and if they do, they might look at them again in five years. 

Damn that is wild! I would love to hear them try to defend some of these unlikely events to the media. 

I think the fact that Carnival is using several of their ships to sail across the globe to bring their crew members home shows just how confident they are things will resume soon. I'm suddenly not feeling confident in my Aug 29th Panorama cruise anymore. I hope I'm wrong though.

I think it might be the opposite actually. If the materials and dry dock is not already paid for I suspect they might be postponed.  They are in crisis money saving mode now. If the money is paid or a 100% penalty to cancel is in place then it will probably continue as planned. 

2 hours ago, bonvoyagie said:

All of this for COVID-19 when there are so many other viruses on a cruise ship.

 

Norovirus will kill your toilet but it doesn't kill people at the rate of COVID-19.

Your heart is in the right place but nobody should be donating money to NCL in the hopes they donate it to their crew members. NCL should step up and take care of their employees on their own or through lending/grants etc they can obtain. 

I'm not sure if people are just in denial but saying that four months of sailings sold-out at the same exact time is silly.  Remember this is the same story line Carnival followed when the Legend, Spirit and Radiance sailings disappeared until they were formally cancelled.  People on this board tend to be avid cruisers but outside of the die hard cruise fans, bookings are at all time lows right now. For 12-20 sailings to sell out at the same exact time, when there was plenty of availability before hand, is simply impossible. This shipyard has a bad reputation for having multiple delays for this class of ship and this was before any impact from covid-19. People saying everyone on the first round of cancelled voyages re-booked the Mardi Gras right after is also not true. Some yes but not all. I know of several hundred, including myself, who were on the cancelled European sailing that switched to the Legend. Carnival needs cash right now which is why I think they haven't officially announced these sailings being cancelled and its better for them to delay the request for cash refunds. People can continue to believe these sailings magically sold-out in an instant however I would highly suggest coming up with a backup plan because that will need to be executed. 

2 hours ago, Purvis1231 said:

I am afraid if Carnival cannot sail before August- they may good bankrupt.

If Carnival, NCL or Royal Caribbean declare bankruptcy it would be a chapter 11 not a chapter 7 bankruptcy so they would still be in operation just restructuring. 

They are predicting the peak of this in the US to be in 3 weeks/start of May. The cruise lines are not going to be sending staff back to the ships until they are certain operations will resume within a couple of weeks. When the cruise lines do start up, I think it will be a few ships at a time over several months. Part of the problem too is when various countries and ports allow cruise ships to return. There are just way too many unknowns and moving parts for this to be over by May, June or July in my opinion.

I also predict any new build that hasn't started already to be delayed indefinitely. 

Her European season is definitely one of the cancellations being announced on Monday. I'm guessing it will stay out of Tampa.

Besides the gutting of the Victory already started like mentioned above, a lot of the materials for the dry dock would have already been purchased so there wouldn't be much additional cost to just continue with the refit. Add in any contract cancellation fees they would have to pay the shipyard that it would probably be an even wash. I do expect the work to be delayed which would be good news for both parties. 

Legend has also had all its European cruises pulled for this year and its first cruise that can be booked is November. Assume tomorrow we are going to hear about the Mardi Gras delay, Miracle which is showing NO cruises at all, and the changes to these two ships.

Looks like Carnival has zeroed out all cabin inventory for the Carnival Legend's European itins later this year.

Similar to above I got off the ship today and had a wonderful time. The ship is beautiful and the service was great. However I'm upset over NCL lying to us about the issues. As said above our second day in Kaula Lumpur was canceled so we had more time to get back to Singapore. The Captain announced Singapore officials requested the ship return early and they had no other choice but do comply. I wish they were just honest. I'd expect a Front Office Manager directing their staff to make up an excuse like that, but something about the Captain saying it doesnt sit well with me. Just be honest NCL! However most importantly we had a great time and the ship looks great.

I like the hull art a lot better than the Bliss and Escape! I'm tired of the scenes with whales jumping, dolphins swimming etc. Nice colors and a bit more towards the older traditional NCL hull arts.

Our April cruise from Tokyo to Shanghai resulted in about 200 people having to get off in Hong Kong and miss the rest of the cruise because they did not have a Chinese visa. The visa waiver did not apply to those coming from cruise ship on this itin. I highly recommend getting the multiple entry 10 year Chinese visa.

Thanks for the feedback! We booked direct with HAL so not sure if the person who took my booking is the one who will keep an eye out. Our sailing isnt until March 2019 so plenty of time.

Hey Everyone,

I've only cruised with HAL once so not very familiar with how they handle this so I figure I'd ask the experts!

My friend and I are doing a 14 day cruise out of Shanghai on the Westerdam and were assigned SY 8068 which is a full wheelchair signature superior veranda cabin. My friend and I do not need this but its the only cabin left in that category. We called HAL and let them know we don't need it and would like something else. My worry is that for selfish reasons another cabin won't open up and we won't get the tub, double sinks etc that the regular cabin has. My non selfish reasons is I worry that someone might actually need this cabin. We answered yes to the generic booking question of, "Would you like a free upgrade if available" but anything else we would do besides calling every so often? I assume if someone calls them and tries to book a wheelchair cabin they will see if we will take a different category cabin?

Anyone with any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

James

Yeah, I'd like to know as well. Nothing in their signature about it and no other posts ever about the Seaside on CC until now? I'm thinking they've never stepped foot on it ...... Fake. Just a Haven pusher from NCL ....... Haven is a total ripoff.

First of all I would relax. I clearly hit a nerve. If you go through my posting history you will see it has almost come to a stand still as we tend to use FB groups now. I can't direct message someone a photo but if you want to provide an e-mail I'll send you a photo of my cabin key and wrist band today but I expect an apology afterwards for jumping to the fake "haven" pusher comment.