Are Travel Bubbles The Way To Get Cruising Going Again?

[npcl]

7 hours ago, york survey said:

It would appear that the idea of travel bubbles (or corridors as some are now calling them) is starting to get some traction around the world. Be it for land based holidays at the moment.

 

We how have a number of countries talking about free movement within their bubble and the EU is talking about reopening it's internal boarders

 

Areas currently looking at this include:

 

Australia/New Zealand

UK/Ireland/France

Baltic States

Greece/South East Med

You could argue that the US is already a "travel bubble" with free movement between states 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/12/eu-reopen-borders-tourists-covid-19-recovery-plan

 

We all know the downsides. Quarantine to get into the zone and again on returning home. So it's only practical for passengers who live in a zone willing to remain in the zone.

 

But the idea of a British citizen being able to vacation in the south of France does have some appeal. It only takes a little imagination to then consider a 14 day cruise from Southampton stopping at Gibraltar, Nice, Monaco, and Le Harve on the return.

 

The question is would there be enough demand for a cruise ship to operate with these restrictions. I think these is if only to show how cruising can safely return.

 

Logically Celebrity would put ships in Southampton and Sydney (their 2 largest none American markets) to at least prepare for the option

 

 

A more critical question is within the travel bubbles are the rules going to be relaxed enough to allow cruise ships to operate.

[york survey]

1 hour ago, npcl said:

A more critical question is within the travel bubbles are the rules going to be relaxed enough to allow cruise ships to operate.

 

Logic would say yes

 

if you take the UK/France/Ireland bubble. The free movement would include ferry services. Some of which are overnight. So why not cruise ships. Of course the ship and all crew would have to quarantine when repositioning 

 

But when was logic any part of this pandemic 

[Fouremco]

Speaking of logic, I'm having trouble understanding the concept of a UK/France/Ireland "bubble" when the EU is considering opening internal borders.

[npcl]

52 minutes ago, york survey said:

 

Logic would say yes

 

if you take the UK/France/Ireland bubble. The free movement would include ferry services. Some of which are overnight. So why not cruise ships. Of course the ship and all crew would have to quarantine when repositioning 

 

But when was logic any part of this pandemic 

The issue with cruise ships is a very high attack rate on board (# new Cases/Time).  So prior to them to open the cruise lines have to come up with a valid system to limit spread on board.  In some places such as New Zealand and Australia, the number of cases will soon be low enough that the odds of an infected person on board will be quite low, In other areas like the UK France the spread rate is still fairly high.  So you have a case where the one place where they might be able to sail safely (NZ-Aus) is also the areas that the rules are tight enough that they may not allow them to sail. Especially since a fair number of their cases are directly tied to cruise ships.

 

Ferries are at most 24 hours, from a risk point of view they are like a long plane flight.  Cruise ships as they are constructed doing a 7 day cruise are a different story. 

 

Then comes the reason what incentive would the UK and France have to let cruise ships sail.  Land tourism brings far more revenue to an area than cruise ships do (unless you are a small Caribbean Island or a port in Alaska).  As these areas open up to tourism it is far higher reward to risk ratio to allow land tourism, compared to cruise ships with a higher risk to reward. At least for everybody except the cruise lines.

 

The only place that I can see in Europe really want cruise ships is Greece.

Edited May 14, 2020 by npcl

[npcl]

3 minutes ago, Fouremco said:

Speaking of logic, I'm having trouble understanding the concept of a UK/France/Ireland "bubble" when the EU is considering opening internal borders.

With Brexit UK will no longer be in EU.  Also when EU talks about opening internal boarders they usually talk about the Schengen area which the UK is outside of.

[Fouremco]

5 minutes ago, npcl said:

With Brexit UK will no longer be in EU.  Also when EU talks about opening internal boarders they usually talk about the Schengen area which the UK is outside of.

I'm well aware of the UK's position. I was questioning the logic of a "bubble" that included France should the EU open borders.

[Wolf 8]

On 5/11/2020 at 7:53 AM, begood2me said:

That's a likely solution; however, the largest market, the US consumer, will be locked out for an extended period as we do not have this under control and we are showing signs that we might not ever get it under control.  There are too many people that are incapable of being as concerned about others as they are for themselves.  We do not have a universal mask policy.  We have people protesting with guns in our capitol buildings. I can certainly see most countries not letting US citizens/residents until we can demonstrate we have some more control than we currently have.

 

I agree, NO sane nation would accept U.S. cruise ship passengers now.  They've watched New York "protect" their nursing home patients.

[npcl]

6 minutes ago, Fouremco said:

I'm well aware of the UK's position. I was questioning the logic of a "bubble" that included France should the EU open borders.

The folks from the UK want to go somewhere and France is easiest/closest if they can get France to agree while the UK is still outside of the internal EU borders.  The rates in both places are still to high but the EU wants to restart its domestic tourism industry.

[Fouremco]

Maybe I just don't understand your concept of a bubble. When Australia and New Zealand are considered, it makes sense as the two are isolated and have comparable COVID-19 rates. Anyone from within the bubble could cruise with minimal risk as long as the cruise is limited to those residing within the bubble. You couldn't, as an example, allow US residents to fly into the bubble to join the cruise as it defeats the isolation.

 

If you have France in a bubble with the UK, but the EU opens its internal borders, there is no longer an isolating bubble. A UK/Ireland/Iceland bubble might make sense, should they be able to come to terms, but I don't see any country that is a gateway to the rest of Europe as a viable candidate for inclusion in a bubble with the UK. 

 

[MamaFej]

I believe you and I are thinking along the same lines, @Fouremco. It's as if France is the center of a Venn Diagram between UK/Ireland and Schengen. It essentially connects the Isles with Schengen, so they are no longer bubbled off. 

[npcl]

57 minutes ago, Fouremco said:

Maybe I just don't understand your concept of a bubble. When Australia and New Zealand are considered, it makes sense as the two are isolated and have comparable COVID-19 rates. Anyone from within the bubble could cruise with minimal risk as long as the cruise is limited to those residing within the bubble. You couldn't, as an example, allow US residents to fly into the bubble to join the cruise as it defeats the isolation.

 

If you have France in a bubble with the UK, but the EU opens its internal borders, there is no longer an isolating bubble. A UK/Ireland/Iceland bubble might make sense, should they be able to come to terms, but I don't see any country that is a gateway to the rest of Europe as a viable candidate for inclusion in a bubble with the UK. 

 

I concur I wasn't defending it just saying what they were talking about.  In my mind both of those areas are still too high for traveling to make sense.

[Fouremco]

2 minutes ago, npcl said:

I concur I wasn't defending it just saying what they were talking about.  In my mind both of those areas are still too high for traveling to make sense.

Good enough. We certainly agree that both are still too high for travel.

[GeroWA]

Living in Australia there is talk that International Air Travel won't be operating for at least 2 years.

Bearing this in mind the Travel Bubble is a great idea, living on our West Coast we could cruise from Fremantle (Perth) around the continent to Sydney then on to New Zealand  or the South Pacific.

Way to go!!

I just hope Solstice comes back to Australia

[bigbenboys]

These hats in Germany might be fun for the pool or Martin Bar.

https://nypost.com/2020/05/14/german-cafe-celebrates-covid-19-reopening-with-pool-noodle-hats/

[yorky]

On 5/15/2020 at 4:13 AM, GeroWA said:

Living in Australia there is talk that International Air Travel won't be operating for at least 2 years.

Bearing this in mind the Travel Bubble is a great idea, living on our West Coast we could cruise from Fremantle (Perth) around the continent to Sydney then on to New Zealand  or the South Pacific.

Way to go!!

I just hope Solstice comes back to Australia

I can’t see any way that international air travel won’t happen for two years.

[UnorigionalName]

2 hours ago, yorky said:

I can’t see any way that international air travel won’t happen for two years.

 

Why not?  If I were living in New Zealand, if my choices are between no air travel and completely open economy and society, vs. air travel and lock downs like the rest of the world, I think I would chose the former.  

 

From what I am reading, there seems to be broad support for isolation in new zealand and australia specifically because of their success, and seeing the disaster that is the rest of the world.

[npcl]

2 hours ago, yorky said:

I can’t see any way that international air travel won’t happen for two years.

There might be air travel but with a two week quarantine upon arrival, or with restrictions on who can enter limited to citizens, residents, and essential travel (still with quarantine).

 

Australia and New Zealand, seeing how easy they have had it are not going to be in any hurry to join the rest of the world's problems.

 

Considering that 40% of New Zealand's tourism is from Australia, they can even recover a good percentage of their tourism industry without exposing themselves to outsiders.

[bEwAbG]

They're also heading into winter & their regular flu season, so it makes sense for them to remained isolated. 

[markeb]

2 hours ago, yorky said:

I can’t see any way that international air travel won’t happen for two years.

 

I can for Australia and New Zealand.

 

I suspect they'd figure out how to manage international commerce, which would probably be straight from the airport to a hotel for 14 days. Both countries have worked hard to keep out disease from their human and animal populations. They're not going to stop that.

 

Europe probably loosens up first. Then all bets are off.

[TeeRick]

On 5/11/2020 at 9:42 AM, phoenix_dream said:

Just to be clear, we do not 'perceive' unrest to be occurring - it is occurring.  Many of our states are still under strict shelter-in-place orders with no end in sight.  In Illinois our governor has grouped us into regions, with each region to be moved to less strict guidelines as that area improves.  Unfortunately, the entire suburbs surrounding the city of Chicago are all grouped into the same region of Chicago, where the virus is running rampant for many reasons, some due to age-long problems and some due to ignorant people who are defying guidelines by partying in the streets in groups of hundreds and in other ways thumbing their noses at the rest of us.  In contrast, in the burbs the people are by and large being very cooperative in following guidelines and are very unhappy with being grouped in with Chicago.  I see a lot of unrest coming out of this, as it is unlikely Chicago itself will reach our targets for reopening anytime in the next few months (and for that matter, anytime this year!).  A financial and humanitarian disaster.

What you describe is exactly what is happening in the Philadelphia area too.  Counties in the rural areas of the state are slowly opening up.  But our county (Montgomery) borders Philly.  And we have the highest number of nursing homes in the state by far which is inflating our numbers dramatically.   We will be highly restricted for the forseeable future.  It is so different across our vast country.  Not sure if some people get what we are going through in the highly restricted areas.  My brother in NH is going out to dinner at a restaurant tonight for his birthday.  I can't even get a haircut!