Still alot of uncertainly as to which cruises are a go? How soon with RCCL let us know?

[jrapps]

The sheer amount of stuff that still has to happen before cruises start is mind boggling. Not sure how much of this the lines have tried to do during the past year, but at a minimum they need to

 

1 - Re-crew Ships. (Likely to take WEEKS)

2 - Vaccinate Crew (an additional 2-5 weeks depending on when they arrive at port, and which vaccine they give, Pfizer, J&J, etc)

3 - New agreements with ports to cover when ships can dock, spacing boarding & offboarding passengers, out, pop-up medical facilities to treat outbreaks, etc

4 - Agreement with local Hospitals to ensure medical coverage is guaranteed in case an outbreaks occur

5 - Agreements with hotels for shoreside housing facilities to isolate and quarantine passengers for up to 14 days in the event of a outbreak

 

step 5 is not trivial...they also need guarantee of isolated ventilation to separate families from one another. 

 

6 - Actually define & document their entire end to end procedure. What is and isn't required (masks, vaccines, etc). how are they spacing people out. what % of the ship is filled. They need to get VERY detailed with how they plan to operate the cruise.

 

Once all these are done, THEN

 

7 - Decide if they are doing vaccinated or non-vaccinated cruises.

    7a - If non vaccinated, need to prepare a plan for a test cruise. Who is going, what % of the ship are they filling, are they asking for volunteers or doing family of cruise employees. How much notice are they giving them to pack and jump on a ship, etc.

   7b - If vaccinated, need to send notice to all passengers booked (probably need to give them at least 30 days notice) to provide them with proof of vaccination or give them a chance to rebook.

 

8a - If non vaccinated, submit Test plan to CDC, wait 5 days for approval. Likely this means they really send plan in 2-3 weeks before the cruise. What happens if their first application is not approved. They may need to tweak and re-submit.

 

8b - If vaccinated cruise is planned, get sued by various state legislatures. go to court...wait months.....

 

9a - Do test sailing. Then do a full writeup and submit report to CDC. This is the least known element, Nowhere in the CDC guidance does it at all say what is the criteria they define for success and further approval. Do you need to complete the cruise and test everyone as they get off, and have a 100% covid free to be "approved"? No one knows.

 

If you think all of this is going to be done in 2 months, you have more faith than I do.

 

This is going to be late summer at the earliest...more likely, we are looking at Fall. 

 

I am cautiously optimistic, but until anyone says what they have already done and submitted, we assume nothing.

 

[cruise wizard]

8 minutes ago, jrapps said:

The sheer amount of stuff that still has to happen before cruises start is mind boggling. Not sure how much of this the lines have tried to do during the past year, but at a minimum they need to

 

1 - Re-crew Ships. (Likely to take WEEKS)

2 - Vaccinate Crew (an additional 2-5 weeks depending on when they arrive at port, and which vaccine they give, Pfizer, J&J, etc)

3 - New agreements with ports to cover when ships can dock, spacing boarding & offboarding passengers, out, pop-up medical facilities to treat outbreaks, etc

4 - Agreement with local Hospitals to ensure medical coverage is guaranteed in case an outbreaks occur

5 - Agreements with hotels for shoreside housing facilities to isolate and quarantine passengers for up to 14 days in the event of a outbreak

 

step 5 is not trivial...they also need guarantee of isolated ventilation to separate families from one another. 

 

6 - Actually define & document their entire end to end procedure. What is and isn't required (masks, vaccines, etc). how are they spacing people out. what % of the ship is filled. They need to get VERY detailed with how they plan to operate the cruise.

 

Once all these are done, THEN

 

7 - Decide if they are doing vaccinated or non-vaccinated cruises.

    7a - If non vaccinated, need to prepare a plan for a test cruise. Who is going, what % of the ship are they filling, are they asking for volunteers or doing family of cruise employees. How much notice are they giving them to pack and jump on a ship, etc.

   7b - If vaccinated, need to send notice to all passengers booked (probably need to give them at least 30 days notice) to provide them with proof of vaccination or give them a chance to rebook.

 

8a - If non vaccinated, submit Test plan to CDC, wait 5 days for approval. Likely this means they really send plan in 2-3 weeks before the cruise. What happens if their first application is not approved. They may need to tweak and re-submit.

 

8b - If vaccinated cruise is planned, get sued by various state legislatures. go to court...wait months.....

 

9a - Do test sailing. Then do a full writeup and submit report to CDC. This is the least known element, Nowhere in the CDC guidance does it at all say what is the criteria they define for success and further approval. Do you need to complete the cruise and test everyone as they get off, and have a 100% covid free to be "approved"? No one knows.

 

If you think all of this is going to be done in 2 months, you have more faith than I do.

 

This is going to be late summer at the earliest...more likely, we are looking at Fall. 

 

I am cautiously optimistic, but until anyone says what they have already done and submitted, we assume nothing.

 

 

It is a daunting task for sure. I suspect that the cruise lines have done a ton of planning for so many different scenarios - plan A, B , C............Z. Planning is one thing - implementing is another subject.  

[Jimbo]

1 hour ago, cruise wizard said:

 

It is a daunting task for sure. I suspect that the cruise lines have done a ton of planning for so many different scenarios - plan A, B , C............Z. Planning is one thing - implementing is another subject.  

I think you are giving them to much credit into what you think they are doing.

 

Richard Fain keeps doing those you-tube video's and can't even comb his hair or get it cut or put on a different shirt.........

 

I think you are dreaming if you think the cruiselines have did alot already in preparing for the restart besides sitting back and putting out new itineraries and collecting deposits on new sailings.

[harkinmr]

3 hours ago, Jimbo said:

Another question for  the start-ups.

 

Before Royal makes the announcements on which ships and which itineraries.

 

I assume they will get the word from the CDC that their plans are good and the sailings will go right on schedule?

 

Not going to be one of those 11th hour things where the CDC comes in late and says to Royal, oh no that isn't going to work and ends of canceling those sailing too is it.

 

If that is what has to happen, might be longer until Royal annouces something, so really thinking July is a go might just be wishful thinking?

I would imagine that they will get their port agreements signed and approved, decide vaccinated or not meanwhile deciding on which ships sail and when, and finally submit plans for approval for their protocols and permits to sail those ships.  They will cancel anything else not in their startup plan.  Will it be perfect and not subject to change?  No.  But no one should expect that in this environment. 

Edited May 4, 2021 by harkinmr

[cruise wizard]

2 hours ago, Jimbo said:

I think you are giving them to much credit into what you think they are doing.

 

Richard Fain keeps doing those you-tube video's and can't even comb his hair or get it cut or put on a different shirt.........

 

I think you are dreaming if you think the cruiselines have did alot already in preparing for the restart besides sitting back and putting out new itineraries and collecting deposits on new sailings.

 

Call me an optimist.

[BecciBoo]

2 hours ago, cruise wizard said:

 

Call me an optimist.

Some people are just not very logical.  They've been planning for a whole year on what to do and protocols...anyone who thinks otherwise must be a little naive.  Do yourself a favor and view the Cruising with Covid by Travel Addicts on Youtube vid...it's an education.

Edited May 4, 2021 by BecciBoo

[cruise wizard]

11 hours ago, BecciBoo said:

Some people are just not very logical.  They've been planning for a whole year on what to do and protocols...anyone who thinks otherwise must be a little naive.  Do yourself a favor and view the Cruising with Covid by Travel Addicts on Youtube vid...it's an education.

 

Way back when I was still working (15 years ago) we had a planning process for all types of situations with people (teams) responsible for their areas of expertise. We were not at the time as large as RCCL but knew it was necessary to the continuation of the business. I have to admit that we didn't have a pandemic plan but did have a process in place that could be activated. I agree the RCCL has been working on several plans for start up.

[Jimbo]

3 minutes ago, cruise wizard said:

 

Way back when I was still working (15 years ago) we had a planning process for all types of situations with people (teams) responsible for their areas of expertise. We were not at the time as large as RCCL but knew it was necessary to the continuation of the business. I have to admit that we didn't have a pandemic plan but did have a process in place that could be activated. I agree the RCCL has been working on several plans for start up.

If so, seems strange that no communications of these plans between RCCL and the CDC have leaked out that would give people a good feeling that cruising is starting soon.

Why has neither organization been saying anything like that?

[Jimbo]

This might be what their current plan looks like:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9vhEK0aCek

[bucfan2]

32 minutes ago, Jimbo said:

If so, seems strange that no communications of these plans between RCCL and the CDC have leaked out that would give people a good feeling that cruising is starting soon.

Why has neither organization been saying anything like that?

I find it disturbing as well.  A year ago, I thought it would be interesting to see which cruise lines survived.  As each day w/o cruising drags on, I expect to see the morning news report on mergers/bankruptcy...only a matter of time now IMO if this continues to drag and drag.  I understand there are those who believe in ‘too big to fail’....save your breath as I’m not one of them. 

[cruise wizard]

1 hour ago, Jimbo said:

If so, seems strange that no communications of these plans between RCCL and the CDC have leaked out that would give people a good feeling that cruising is starting soon.

Why has neither organization been saying anything like that?

 

Leaking can be fatal.

[Jimbo]

Just now, cruise wizard said:

 

Leaking can be fatal.

For a gas tank?

[jrapps]

1 hour ago, Jimbo said:

If so, seems strange that no communications of these plans between RCCL and the CDC have leaked out that would give people a good feeling that cruising is starting soon.

Why has neither organization been saying anything like that?

 

I think everyone is waiting until after the hearing on the FL lawsuit against the CDC (May 12th I think?). Nobody wants to be on the wrong side of that. If the CDC prevails, you will start to see plans that lean toward vaccinations come out real quick...if there is an injunction against the CDC, plans that align with Governor Desantis's plans will emerge real quick.

 

No sense in getting pummeled in the world of Public Relations for no reason...cruise lines aren't going to take a stand until they have to.

[Jimbo]

1 minute ago, jrapps said:

 

I think everyone is waiting until after the hearing on the FL lawsuit against the CDC (May 12th I think?). Nobody wants to be on the wrong side of that. If the CDC prevails, you will start to see plans that lean toward vaccinations come out real quick...if there is an injunction against the CDC, plans that align with Governor Desantis's plans will emerge real quick.

 

No sense in getting pummeled in the world of Public Relations for no reason...cruise lines aren't going to take a stand until they have to.

I think we got bigger problems if  cruising  depends on what Desantis says or plans....................

Is there a way on CruiseCritic to block any posts with his name in it? I'm sure I'm like others on here whenever you start reading a post and his name shows up.........it's OMG !

[MaritimeR&R]

20 minutes ago, cruise wizard said:

 

Leaking can be fatal.

Once the announcement of what ships and ports will be resuming first, there are going to be quite a few customers wanting their money back, FCC's or the ability to lift and shift if their cruise is not included in the reveal.  I believe that RCG will wait until the last possible moment for their reveal and, in all likelihood, we will get another video from Mr. Fain telling us they (RCG) about on-going communication and the possibility that more ships will be included just to put off the avalanche of calls from those customers whose ships/sailings are not part of the initial reveal.

 

[smokeybandit]

28 minutes ago, Jimbo said:

For a gas tank?

Or for a ship. Or one's bladder

[broberts]

1 hour ago, bucfan2 said:

I find it disturbing as well.  A year ago, I thought it would be interesting to see which cruise lines survived.  As each day w/o cruising drags on, I expect to see the morning news report on mergers/bankruptcy...only a matter of time now IMO if this continues to drag and drag.  I understand there are those who believe in ‘too big to fail’....save your breath as I’m not one of them. 

 

I believe rci has some US$5,000,000,000 in the bank. That will go quite a ways servicing it's accumulating debt.

 

1 hour ago, jrapps said:

 

I think everyone is waiting until after the hearing on the FL lawsuit against the CDC (May 12th I think?). Nobody wants to be on the wrong side of that. If the CDC prevails, you will start to see plans that lean toward vaccinations come out real quick...if there is an injunction against the CDC, plans that align with Governor Desantis's plans will emerge real quick.

 

No sense in getting pummeled in the world of Public Relations for no reason...cruise lines aren't going to take a stand until they have to.

 

The suit is nothing more than political posturing and probably a fund raising tool.

 

I see this post is already setting up the next bit of political theater, how the nasty CDC was forced to restart cruising. To do so, it ignores the fact that the CDC has already communicated its current thinking on vaccinations and cruising.

[Stick93]

20 hours ago, jrapps said:

The sheer amount of stuff that still has to happen before cruises start is mind boggling. Not sure how much of this the lines have tried to do during the past year, but at a minimum they need to

 

1 - Re-crew Ships. (Likely to take WEEKS)

2 - Vaccinate Crew (an additional 2-5 weeks depending on when they arrive at port, and which vaccine they give, Pfizer, J&J, etc)

3 - New agreements with ports to cover when ships can dock, spacing boarding & offboarding passengers, out, pop-up medical facilities to treat outbreaks, etc

4 - Agreement with local Hospitals to ensure medical coverage is guaranteed in case an outbreaks occur

5 - Agreements with hotels for shoreside housing facilities to isolate and quarantine passengers for up to 14 days in the event of a outbreak

 

step 5 is not trivial...they also need guarantee of isolated ventilation to separate families from one another. 

 

6 - Actually define & document their entire end to end procedure. What is and isn't required (masks, vaccines, etc). how are they spacing people out. what % of the ship is filled. They need to get VERY detailed with how they plan to operate the cruise.

 

Once all these are done, THEN

 

7 - Decide if they are doing vaccinated or non-vaccinated cruises.

    7a - If non vaccinated, need to prepare a plan for a test cruise. Who is going, what % of the ship are they filling, are they asking for volunteers or doing family of cruise employees. How much notice are they giving them to pack and jump on a ship, etc.

   7b - If vaccinated, need to send notice to all passengers booked (probably need to give them at least 30 days notice) to provide them with proof of vaccination or give them a chance to rebook.

 

8a - If non vaccinated, submit Test plan to CDC, wait 5 days for approval. Likely this means they really send plan in 2-3 weeks before the cruise. What happens if their first application is not approved. They may need to tweak and re-submit.

 

8b - If vaccinated cruise is planned, get sued by various state legislatures. go to court...wait months.....

 

9a - Do test sailing. Then do a full writeup and submit report to CDC. This is the least known element, Nowhere in the CDC guidance does it at all say what is the criteria they define for success and further approval. Do you need to complete the cruise and test everyone as they get off, and have a 100% covid free to be "approved"? No one knows.

 

If you think all of this is going to be done in 2 months, you have more faith than I do.

 

This is going to be late summer at the earliest...more likely, we are looking at Fall. 

 

I am cautiously optimistic, but until anyone says what they have already done and submitted, we assume nothing.

 

If you are waiting for all this to happen then my next cruise may be in 2025.

 

I am not denying all these things should be done but I am not optimistic that these things can all be done.  The truth is one ship gets an outbreak of whatever magnitude and it will be a S@@@show like we have never seen. The blame will be leveled at everyone and anyone and there will prob be mass chaos.

 

With that said  - I am ready to get on a ship - but people who are high risk and those who are know who they are may want to stay away for the first little while.

[cruise wizard]

2 hours ago, Jimbo said:

For a gas tank?

 

"Loose lips - sink ships"................

[Jimbo]

1 hour ago, Stick93 said:

 

 

With that said  - I am ready to get on a ship - but people who are high risk and those who are know who they are may want to stay away for the first little while.

There lies the problem, you know those people at high risk are going to be the firsts ones on the cruises too, so after few issues arise and there goes cruises for everyone.

 

Will be a very long after that for a recovery of anykind.

 

Been thinking for a long time, time to find another way to spend our vacations and vacation $$$.

[DCGuy64]

Not gonna happen, Jimbo, sorry to burst your bubble.

[Jimbo]

8 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

Not gonna happen, Jimbo, sorry to burst your bubble.

You are such  in an ideal location, so many things  to see and do within only 400 miles of you.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Jimbo

[DCGuy64]

1 minute ago, Jimbo said:

You are such  in an ideal location, so many things  to see and do within only 400 miles of you.

Indeed, but I wasn't talking about domestic vacations. I was talking about your doomsday scenario regarding cruising. Not gonna happen, buddy.

[Jimbo]

1 minute ago, DCGuy64 said:

Indeed, but I wasn't talking about domestic vacations. I was talking about your doomsday scenario regarding cruising. Not gonna happen, buddy.

Okay, what do you think will happen if it starts off bad?

[DCGuy64]

Just now, Jimbo said:

Okay, what do you think will happen if it starts off bad?

It won't, that's the point. I don't know where your incessant negativity comes from. Honestly, I browsed the comments you've made over the past few days and it sure seems like anytime someone says anything positive about cruising restarting, you barge in like the proverbial wet blanket. What gives? Why so negative?