Will the New Summer Sailings from Nassau/St. Maarten Actually Sail?

[Shorewalk Holmes]

These new sailings are wonderful news!!  I'm going to try to book one.

 

But if there's a fourth covid wave, they may not even sail.  IMHO the biggest risks for this are (1) the new covid variants, and (2) noncompliance with reasonable safety guidelines.

 

Last fall, we heard:  'Don't be afraid', it's just the flu', 'masks don't work', 'only 6% of covid deaths are legit', ignore Fauci', 'ignore the CDC'.  And of course many people did ignore the CDC.  They swamped the airports and had large indoor gatherings during the holidays. The result, as everybody knows, was a huge spike with about 300,000 US covid deaths since November.  I wonder how many of these deaths were people who loved cruising...

 

Yet the world still has lots of covid skeptics, joined by people calling vaccines 'poison', and excusing fake proofs of vaccination.

 

Occasionally we even hear some of this from fellow cruisers -- very nice people no doubt, and surely way more fun than I am, as you can tell by this gloomy post.  I just hope the broader social media misinformation wave doesn't help cause another covid wave.

 

But there are reasons to be optimistic as well -- expanding vaccine supply, better weather coming, with fewer indoor gatherings...

 

What do you think?

 

Edited March 20, 2021 by Shorewalk Holmes
Spacing

[Ourusualbeach]

23 minutes ago, Shorewalk Holmes said:

But there are reasons to be optimistic as well -- expanding vaccine supply, better weather coming, with fewer indoor gatherings...

I definitely see the ships sailing as they are requiring everyone 18+ to be vaccinated and with a negative PCR test as well as a rapid antigen test prior to boarding there is little risk on board the ship.  The only variable 5hat I see would be the quality or variability of ports of call and shore excursions. 

[Shorewalk Holmes]

This makes sense to me.  I think the cruise ship itself will be safe.  If anything, they're probably ahead of most venues with regard to things like ventilation and sanitizing, even if a case somehow does get aboard.  And I could live with itinerary changes.

 

If there's a fourth big covid wave, though, I might not be ready to stand around a crowded airport, customs, or a cruise terminal very long.  Then again I might, out of desperation!

[firefly333]

13 minutes ago, Shorewalk Holmes said:

This makes sense to me.  I think the cruise ship itself will be safe.  If anything, they're probably ahead of most venues with regard to things like ventilation and sanitizing, even if a case somehow does get aboard.  And I could live with itinerary changes.

 

If there's a fourth big covid wave, though, I might not be ready to stand around a crowded airport, customs, or a cruise terminal very long.  Then again I might, out of desperation!

If you are vaccinated I dont understand your big worry. Sorry but dont get it. If you are so worried then stay home. Dont cruise until you conquer your fear.

[Shorewalk Holmes]

26 minutes ago, firefly333 said:

If you are so worried then stay home

I agree, don't cruise if you're not comfortable with the risk.  But, although vaccines greatly reduce risk, they still allow occasional mild but symptomatic cases, and any symptomatic case could be more troublesome for old and less healthy people.  Things are looking OK now, so none of that would deter me. But if there's another huge wave like we saw a couple of months ago, it might. 

That's only important to this topic because, if there's a big spike in cases, there are probably tons of people in my demographic who might be spooked into canceling their bookings, perhaps causing Royal to cancel the sailings.  However if society can keep it together and avoid a spike, there shouldn't be a problem.

[firefly333]

4 minutes ago, Shorewalk Holmes said:

I agree, don't cruise if you're not comfortable with the risk.  But, although vaccines greatly reduce risk, they still allow occasional mild but symptomatic cases, and any symptomatic case could be more troublesome for old and less healthy people.  Things are looking OK now, so none of that would deter me. But if there's another huge wave like we saw a couple of months ago, it might. 

That's only important to this topic because, if there's a big spike in cases, there are probably tons of people in my demographic who might be spooked into canceling their bookings, perhaps causing Royal to cancel the sailings.  However if society can keep it together and avoid a spike, there shouldn't be a problem.

The spike was predicted during the holidays and winter. It's also been predicted virus are less active during summer when more people are outdoors.

 

Sorry I dont believe there will be a 4th spike and especially less likely during the summer. Of course you can still get it with the vaccine, but again it should be a much milder case. 

 

Let's see what comes from these throngs of kids on miami beach and then you can decide to book or not. I see you are in Arizona...are you actually thinking of booking or just fear mongering.

 

I'm more worried about covid positive illegals crossing the texas border than I am of cruising on a fully vaccinated ship during the summer. 

[Shorewalk Holmes]

 

16 minutes ago, firefly333 said:

.are you actually thinking of booking

I'm pretty sure I will try to book when it opens.  We are trying to decide whether to fork over the extra money for the Celebrity version. 

16 minutes ago, firefly333 said:

Sorry I dont believe there will be a 4th spike

If I had to bet, from the rosy perspective of now, I'd bet that the spike, if it occurs, will be smaller than the last one.  But then I thought last spring we'd be over it by summer.  Then I thought the summer spike was horrible.  Then I saw the much, much bigger winter spike!  So who knows.

Edited March 20, 2021 by Shorewalk Holmes

[CanadaRob]

Yes they will cruise, all passengers vaccinated/tested. Not CDC controlled.  

[Shorewalk Holmes]

3 minutes ago, CanadaRob said:

Yes they will cruise, all passengers vaccinated/tested. Not CDC controlled.  

Thanks.  This is my first topic start.  Maybe I should have put some sort of poll up at the top...

[CanadaRob]

8 minutes ago, Shorewalk Holmes said:

Thanks.  This is my first topic start.  Maybe I should have put some sort of poll up at the top...

No problem, I wish as a Canadian I could get there (and back) without having to isolate

[lauren0309]

Hope it all goes well and they will expand their sailings as I have a cruise scheduled for September. We are both fully vaccinated so can't wait to start cruising again. 

[twangster]

I can't worry about what might happen 3 or 4 months from now.

 

A Russian satellite could fall from the sky and land on my taxi 😱

There could be a hurricane 😱

I could get in a car accident on the way to the cruise 😱

I could get a smoker on the balcony next to me 😱

And so on and so on and so on 😱

 

I have cruises booked in every month in 2021 because I am hopeful one day the CDC might wake up.  Any.  Day.  Now. 

 

If the price is right I'll cruise from Nassau or St. Maarten and I won't think about all the terrible things that could possibly go wrong. 

 

Edited March 20, 2021 by twangster

[Shorewalk Holmes]

Heymarco, some of us old people aren't scared...we're being guardedly pessimistic 🙂

[Milwaukee Eight]

10 minutes ago, Shorewalk Holmes said:

Heymarco, some of us old people aren't scared...we're being guardedly pessimistic 🙂

Doesn’t much sound like you’ll be able to chill on a cruise. 

[Shorewalk Holmes]

11 minutes ago, twangster said:

I am hopeful one day the CDC might wake up.  Any.  Day. Now. 

Yes, as Ourusualbeach said, it should be pretty safe onboard the ship.  I don't understand the delay, but I don't know the inner workings of the CDC-Royal conversations.  Maybe it's better I don't.

[Shorewalk Holmes]

5 minutes ago, Milwaukee Eight said:

Doesn’t much sound like you’ll be able to chill on a cruise. 

I'll do my best once I'm onboard.

[Shorewalk Holmes]

41 minutes ago, lauren0309 said:

Hope it all goes well and they will expand their sailings as I have a cruise scheduled for September.

 Yes.  We also have a Royal cruise scheduled for September.  I want to at least use up the FCC from the cruises Royal cancelled.

[sandebeach]

My husband is more worried about getting on an airplane  than getting on a cruise ship.  

[Shorewalk Holmes]

3 minutes ago, sandebeach said:

My husband is more worried about getting on an airplane  than getting on a cruise ship.  

I agree!  The cruise ship itself could well be safer than other aspects of travel.  The plane may be well ventilated, but I wonder if these old airports refresh and HEPA-filter their air 12-15 times per hour.

[sandebeach]

5 minutes ago, Shorewalk Holmes said:

I agree!  The cruise ship itself could well be safer than other aspects of travel.  The plane may be well ventilated, but I wonder if these old airports refresh and HEPA-filter their air 12-15 times per hour.

Yes, good thought. I was trying o convince him that we should book Adventure out of Nassau, and he finally stated that his biggest concern was flying to Nassau. We are fully vaccinated, and have been talking  excitedly about a return to cruising, but we always drive to Miami or Uber to Port Everglades. 

Edited March 21, 2021 by sandebeach

[Shorewalk Holmes]

1 hour ago, sandebeach said:

we always drive to Miami or Uber to Port Everglades. 

We're currently booked on Allure in July out of Port Everglades.  I've never been there, and was so looking forward to seeing it, but now I'm thinking maybe the Adventure would be more likely to actually sail in July.  Of course we'd have to fly either way.

[A&L_Ont]

2 hours ago, twangster said:

There could be a hurricane 😱

This one could have an effect if the eye hit Nassau, otherwise you nailed the rest. 

[SNJCruisers]

37 minutes ago, Shorewalk Holmes said:

We're currently booked on Allure in July out of Port Everglades.  ... but now I'm thinking maybe the Adventure would be more likely to actually sail in July.  

Odds of the Adventure sailing in July are 100%.  Odds of Allure sailing in July are 0%.  Easy choice.

[sandebeach]

56 minutes ago, Shorewalk Holmes said:

We're currently booked on Allure in July out of Port Everglades.  I've never been there, and was so looking forward to seeing it, but now I'm thinking maybe the Adventure would be more likely to actually sail in July.  Of course we'd have to fly either way.

I think the Adventure will sail before Allure.  

[Biker19]

6 hours ago, Shorewalk Holmes said:

What do you think?

There are too many hypothetical threads on CC.