Alaska 2021 all 7 days....

[robertmartha]

assume everyone saw - is aware?

 

 

https://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/24044-seabourn-changes-2021-alaska-season-to-7-day-cruise-program.html

[zelker]

Sadly, yes.  Our B2B, 10 and 11 night Alaska cruises were cancelled.  And B2Bs on the 7 night itineraries aren't allowed either.  Heavy sigh.

 

[wesport]

Too much of a chore to fly from the east coast to the west coast for 7 nights. May wait to do Alaska in 2022.  

[robertmartha]

Will be curious to see how these sell....

with so much uncertainty at least thru the first part of the year - leaves only 3Q where I would think they could see more interest. If the price was right I may bite for an August sailing 😉

 

time will tell.....on this and so may other sailings !

[zelker]

For a lot of people it will be the issue of flying to/from Juneau that will cause even more hassles for a 7 day cruise.  And there's still a good chance that Canada won't open up to ships next summer either which will shut the entire Alaska season down again, no matter who you try to sail with.  I really feel sorry for all the small businesses (and towns) that rely so heavily on tourism during their relatively short season.

[robertmartha]

so true zelker -

hopeful for a 3Q restart at the latest- for the US and Canada

 

and you are right...Juneau not the easiest port  to embark /disembark - did not even think of that !

 

but the thought of sailing on Seabourn on the inside passage sounds glorious !

 

in fact sailing anywhere on Seabourn in 2021 sounds glorious !

[rkacruiser]

When I saw this itinerary, I wondered about Juneau's airport's capacity to handle a horde of cruise guests disembarking and flying out of that port.  Even though the Seabourn "horde" would not be equivalent to a "....of the Seas" type ship's "horde", it would be a considerable increase to their "usual" passenger load, I would think.

 

Juneau would make a good pre- or post-cruise port for a couple days visit.  

 

 

[cruiseej]

If I were doing this, I'd make it into a longer trip by renting a car and heading north from Juneau. You could drive up to Tok and down to Anchorage, or down to Valdez and then take the ferry to Whittier. Then to Anchorage, or take a day or two down in Seward. There are some great small boat day trips out of Whittier and Seward to visit Kenai Fjords National Park. You could go to Anchorage and fly home from there, or spend a couple days driving up to Denali. It depends if you if like car trips, I guess, but there's so much more to see in Alaska than the Vancouver-Juneau 7-day hop.

[zelker]

Have you been to Juneau?  You can't drive anywhere - there are no roads.  It requires flying or taking a ferry. 

 

Suspect you're confusing it with Skagway, which is an 11+ hr drive to Tok via Whitehorse or 9+ hr drive via Haines.

 

 

Edited December 18, 2020 by zelker

[cruiseej]

Yes, sorry I wasn't clear enough. You can take the ferry to Haines and drive from there, or cut down on the driving and fly to Anchorage to do a car trip from there. I was mainly trying to suggest that flying to Alaska for a short 7-day trip can be extended to see more of the wonderful scenery in the region -- if you're open to renting a car and doing a road trip before or after the cruise.

[rkacruiser]

Regardless, of whether you go wherever from there, Juneau is worthy of a stay of a couple of days, at least.  

[rols]

On 12/17/2020 at 12:48 AM, robertmartha said:

assume everyone saw - is aware?

 

 

https://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/24044-seabourn-changes-2021-alaska-season-to-7-day-cruise-program.html

Can anyone explain the rationale behind limiting cruises to 7 days? You put a group of people on a ship and if 1 is sick it's going to spread, ok I get that. How does changing that group every 7 days reduce that risk? Seems to be it would increase the likelihood of eventually getting an outbreak, more total people, more chances one is ill despite the pre-boarding testing. Conversely if you board a group of people and nobody is sick, keeping them all together for as long as possible sounds like a good idea. 

 

I would understand not selling pieces of cruises so you don't have guests arriving and leaving at different points thus increasing the mix, but having one group on for 2 weeks sounds like a better plan than having 2 groups on for 1 week each. 

 

 

[avalon1025]

7 minutes ago, rols said:

Can anyone explain the rationale behind limiting cruises to 7 days? You put a group of people on a ship and if 1 is sick it's going to spread, ok I get that. How does changing that group every 7 days reduce that risk? Seems to be it would increase the likelihood of eventually getting an outbreak, more total people, more chances one is ill despite the pre-boarding testing. Conversely if you board a group of people and nobody is sick, keeping them all together for as long as possible sounds like a good idea. 

 

I would understand not selling pieces of cruises so you don't have guests arriving and leaving at different points thus increasing the mix, but having one group on for 2 weeks sounds like a better plan than having 2 groups on for 1 week each. 

 

 

Sure,  for most the 7 days are over and you’re off the ship before your display symptoms.  Then the cruise line doesn’t have to say you caught it on the ship

Edited December 20, 2020 by avalon1025

[Fred arbuthnot]

From the CDC Conditional Sail Order (page 32)

 

(2) The cruise ship operator must not sail or offer to sail on an itinerary longer than 7 days. CDC may shorten or lengthen the number of days permitted to sail based on public health considerations and as set forth in technical instructions or orders.

 

Seabourn (or any other cruise ship operator) does not have a choice in the matter until the CDC changes their Conditional Sail Order.

Edited December 20, 2020 by Fred arbuthnot

[Wonderingabout]

On 12/20/2020 at 7:15 AM, Fred arbuthnot said:

From the CDC Conditional Sail Order (page 32)

 

(2) The cruise ship operator must not sail or offer to sail on an itinerary longer than 7 days. CDC may shorten or lengthen the number of days permitted to sail based on public health considerations and as set forth in technical instructions or orders.

 

Seabourn (or any other cruise ship operator) does not have a choice in the matter until the CDC changes their Conditional Sail Order.

That answers the question or does it just shift it.  The Question the original poster was really asking is why the order not who instituted the order.

 

Apparently some people are looking for more from experts and rules makers  than being treated like a child who after asking why is told by her parent "Because I Said So".  

[cruiseej]

Seven days or less reduces the chance of someone developing symptoms and becoming acutely ill during a cruise. Seven days or less likely means not being too far from a major port, where a ship could go if a passenger requires shoreside medical attention. Seven days or less likely means less disruption if a cruise needs to be cut short due to COVID onboard. Seven days or less make it easier to deal with if they need to clear passengers from the ship and make sure the crew is virus-free before starting another cruise. Seven days or less means if the virus is passed on a ship, there's a good chance an infected passenger might have returned home before developing symptoms and/or infecting other passengers.

[rols]

On 12/20/2020 at 10:56 AM, avalon1025 said:

Sure,  for most the 7 days are over and you’re off the ship before your display symptoms.  Then the cruise line doesn’t have to say you caught it on the ship

yes that was one less-than-charitable thought I had. That it's not really about stopping the spread, it's about ensuring it happens somewhere else. 

[rols]

On 12/23/2020 at 1:36 PM, cruiseej said:

Seven days or less reduces the chance of someone developing symptoms and becoming acutely ill during a cruise. Seven days or less likely means not being too far from a major port, where a ship could go if a passenger requires shoreside medical attention. Seven days or less likely means less disruption if a cruise needs to be cut short due to COVID onboard. Seven days or less make it easier to deal with if they need to clear passengers from the ship and make sure the crew is virus-free before starting another cruise. Seven days or less means if the virus is passed on a ship, there's a good chance an infected passenger might have returned home before developing symptoms and/or infecting other passengers.

All those are plausible suggestions, although as suggested by a previous poster they seem more geared to hoping nobody gets sick during a cruise than nobody gets sick as a result of a cruise.

I still feel that having few people in total be together for longer periods at a time reduces the overall expected number of people who catch the virus as a result of cruising. Mix more total people, add more chances people catch things. 
Since we're constantly told that the virus can spread asymptomatically and that 14 days is actually quite long and the majority of people get sick long before that, if someone gets on a ship with covid the best I can come up with is that in 7 days they only infect the first round of people and you don't get 2 or more generations of sickness. I do believe that if someone does get on the ship sick but before the virus can be detected, in most cases they'd be infecting others long before the week is done. 
I'm definitely of the view that you shouldn't mix groups on ships, the cohort which gets on stays on until the end of the cruise and you don't have a mix-it-up turnaround day in the middle, I remain unconvinced that restricting the length that group is together to 7 days actually reduces the total number of people expected to get sick by virtue of the fact they cruised.

[cruiseej]

10 hours ago, rols said:

All those are plausible suggestions, although as suggested by a previous poster they seem more geared to hoping nobody gets sick during a cruise than nobody gets sick as a result of a cruise.

 

Even if there's some truth to that, not having a cluster of people develop the virus on a ship and then need hospitalization and treatment in whatever port they can get to is likely a worst-case scenario. On the other hand, if you're tested before you travel for embarkation, tested prior to embarkation, and perhaps tested after a few days on the cruise, if anyone tests positive, they're able to be isolated quickly, and if anyone gets it late in the cruise, they're likely to be home before becoming significantly ill.

 

It's worth noting that this rule was devised by the CDC, not the cruise lines, so speculating that the cruise lines are doing this to avoid liability or responsibility for COVID cases seems off the mark.