Will cruising take a pause?

[Interestedcruisefan]

Norwegian Cruise Lines just cancelled all upcoming cruises with immediate effect on 9 of their ships in one announcement 

 

7 of the ships cancelled all the way through until March earliest

 

Not sure how many ships they have? 

 

Or is that their entire fleet?

 

Will other cruise lines  be forced to follow suit?

 

 

Edited January 5, 2022 by Interestedcruisefan

[Interestedcruisefan]

Updated on January 5, 2022

The health and safety of our guests, crew and communities we visit is our number one priority. Therefore, a limited number of sailings across our fleet have been affected.

 

• Norwegian Pearl cruises with embarkation dates through and including January 14, 2022
• Norwegian Sky cruises with embarkation dates through and including February 25,2022
• Pride of America cruises with embarkation dates through and including February 26, 2022
• Norwegian Jade cruises with embarkation dates through and including March 3, 2022
• Norwegian Star cruises with embarkation dates through and including March 19, 2022
• Norwegian Sun cruises with embarkation dates through and including April 19, 2022
• Norwegian Spirit cruises with embarkation dates through and including April 23, 2022

If you have an active reservation one of the affected cruises above, you will automatically receive a refund of your cruise fare in the original form of payment for the amount paid. Additionally, a 10% off Future Cruise Credit will be automatically added to the guest's account as of January 7, 2022. This discount can be used to make a booking from January 7, 2022 through January 7, 2023 and can be applied towards any sailings through May 31, 2023.

[Dermotsgirl]

I  tend to think that most cruise lines will do everything in their power to not halt sailings again. It would be bad for their business, and I imagine they think it would dent customer's confidence.

 

However, Omicron may end up reaching a critical mass and they won't have any option but to stop their scheduled cruises.

 

Give it about 10 days, and we might get an answer to this conundrum. 

[bobstheboy]

I believe cruises from the UK should be stopped for the winter, but money talks, not peoples safety.

[wowzz]

9 minutes ago, bobstheboy said:

I believe cruises from the UK should be stopped for the winter, but money talks, not peoples safety.

The number of people dying from Covid after a cruise is how many, exactly ?

If you want to stop cruises, you also need to shut hotels, restaurants etc, for safety as well.

[bobstheboy]

I couldn't care less how many are dying. It is irresponsible to allow up to 3500 to go on a cruise ship and potentially infect dozens of passengers and crew. 

 

I am not going to argue with those on here who continue to bang the carry on regardless drum.

Edited January 5, 2022 by bobstheboy
Grammar

[Interestedcruisefan]

4 minutes ago, wowzz said:

The number of people dying from Covid after a cruise is how many, exactly ?

If you want to stop cruises, you also need to shut hotels, restaurants etc, for safety as well.

Think this is different 

 

Nobody has forced NCL to cancel those cruises for health and safety reasons

 

NCL has chosen to cancel as those cruises clearly arent viable either logistically, financially or both

 

I guess they would have preferred to cancel with Govt financial support 

 

But there comes a time when money talks 

 

And lots of cruises happening at the same time less than half full can't work ongoing 

 

This is moving from health and safety to money now I assume 

 

 

 

 

[yorkshirephil]

If cruise lines are willing to sail and people are willing to go then so be it. Hopefully we will soon know whether Omicron has peaked and thinks may be clearer.

[davecttr]

7 minutes ago, wowzz said:

The number of people dying from Covid after a cruise is how many, exactly ?

If you want to stop cruises, you also need to shut hotels, restaurants etc, for safety as well.

The number of people dying is not what is driving this, or the hospitalisations . It is the disruption to cruise operations caused by the sheer number of infections combined with the countries regulations visited by the ships. If you add in the current rate of people cancelling just carrying on and ignoring reality is just plain stupid IMO.

[Interestedcruisefan]

6 minutes ago, davecttr said:

The number of people dying is not what is driving this, or the hospitalisations . It is the disruption to cruise operations caused by the sheer number of infections combined with the countries regulations visited by the ships. If you add in the current rate of people cancelling just carrying on and ignoring reality is just plain stupid IMO.

Yes the logistical costs of all the problems and dealing with staff sickness, customer quarantine added to the low numbers plus risk and costs of refunds etc must be huge?

 

 

[Megabear2]

1 hour ago, Interestedcruisefan said:

Norwegian Cruise Lines just cancelled all upcoming cruises with immediate effect on 9 of their ships in one announcement 

 

7 of the ships cancelled all the way through until March earliest

 

Not sure how many ships they have? 

 

Or is that their entire fleet?

 

Will other cruise lines  be forced to follow suit?

 

 

They have 18 in total, although Prima isn't sailing yet.  I'm due on her later this year!

[jeanlyon]

I would agree that I think this is a mix of two things.  Lack of passengers and the problems of offloading people here there and everywhere.

[davecttr]

I think NCL currently have 17 ships and maybe those 9 were the ones in service or scheduled soon to be. Maybe NCL have reset the schedule (put it back by months)

[terrierjohn]

We have now successfully cancelled our fully paid Feb Iona cruise, and transferred the monies to our existing Feb 23 cruise, so we presumably fall into the too scared to cruise category. However had P&O had the gonads to ignore the silly protocol that Spain are following, that any positive cases are disembarked to a quarantine hotel, we would have been more than happy to go ahead and enjoy the cruise.

[Megabear2]

Epic was next to us in Antigua, she isnt on ICF's list.

[davecttr]

1 minute ago, terrierjohn said:

We have now successfully cancelled our fully paid Feb Iona cruise, and transferred the monies to our existing Feb 23 cruise, so we presumably fall into the too scared to cruise category. However had P&O had the gonads to ignore the silly protocol that Spain are following, that any positive cases are disembarked to a quarantine hotel, we would have been more than happy to go ahead and enjoy the cruise.

You are not too scared, you are just being prudent.

 

If P&O had just ignored the 'silly' protocol that Spain has then P&O would not be calling at any Spanish ports, after all it is their country!

[Megabear2]

Just realised these are actually all their "smaller" ships covering Eurooe, Hawaii and the short Bahamas cruises. Their high capacity megaships are not on that list.  

Edited January 5, 2022 by Megabear2

[Interestedcruisefan]

6 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

We have now successfully cancelled our fully paid Feb Iona cruise, and transferred the monies to our existing Feb 23 cruise, so we presumably fall into the too scared to cruise category. However had P&O had the gonads to ignore the silly protocol that Spain are following, that any positive cases are disembarked to a quarantine hotel, we would have been more than happy to go ahead and enjoy the cruise.

It's interesting that in the opposite way a Marella cruise wanted to offload Covid positive passengers in Barbados this week

 

Barbados refused to accept them. But the cruise has chosen to spend 7 days in port at Barbados with guests on board rather than continue

 

Must have decided it wasn't safe to cruise away with the positives on board? 

 

Or else they realised no other ports would allow them access so no point going anywhere?

 

It's a real cruise to nowhere now

 

 

 

 

Edited January 5, 2022 by Interestedcruisefan

[Megabear2]

4 minutes ago, Interestedcruisefan said:

It's interesting that in the opposite way a Marella cruise wanted to offload Covid positive passengers in Barbados this week

 

Barbados refused to accept them. But the cruise has chosen to spend 7 days in port at Barbados with guests on board rather than continue

 

Must have decided it wasn't safe to cruise with them on board? 

 

 

 

 

They are moving away from port tomorrow.  Negative tested passengers have been allowed to go ashore while Discovery has been in port.  The problem with Marella is there are passengers on B to B cruises and everyone on board is a fly cruiser.

 

There are people in quarantine in Barbados - see the Princess board for a very interesting review.

[Bazrat]

48 minutes ago, bobstheboy said:

I believe cruises from the UK should be stopped for the winter, but money talks, not peoples safety.

Any particular reason why you think that

[bobstheboy]

4 minutes ago, Bazrat said:

Any particular reason why you think that

Simply because viruses are more virulent in the winter.

[zap99]

33 minutes ago, yorkshirephil said:

If cruise lines are willing to sail and people are willing to go then so be it. Hopefully we will soon know whether Omicron has peaked and thinks may be clearer.

Easy. If folk want to cruise, or take other holidays, or hotel breaks ,or restaurants, let them. If folk don't then....... don't.

[Bazrat]

7 minutes ago, bobstheboy said:

Simply because viruses are more virulent in the winter.

Just out of interest when was the last time you cruised, and did you feel safe with the protocols which we're in place

[Megabear2]

12 minutes ago, zap99 said:

Easy. If folk want to cruise, or take other holidays, or hotel breaks ,or restaurants, let them. If folk don't then....... don't.

It does have to be viable for the companies operating these cruises, holidays etc though.  I had a look at the previously sold out Aurora Canaries cruise on 1 April which I'm due to sail on and the volume of cabins now available even this far out is enormous.  The more problems there are in Europe in particular the more this problem will grow as people realise they can end up stranded ashore in foreign parts.  We retirees might be able to risk the time away but many more of working age will be reluctant to do so and big ships like Iona need big numbers of guests to sail in a financially viable way. If Aurora with her huge loyal fan base has this huge availability problem in Europe what hope for the big ships when they return from their Caribbean/US adventures?

Edited January 5, 2022 by Megabear2

[bobstheboy]

7 minutes ago, Bazrat said:

Just out of interest when was the last time you cruised, and did you feel safe with the protocols which we're in place

What is this  20 questions !!!!?

 

I cruised on Iona in August and again in September last year. I did feel safe but from what I am reading, protocols are being ignored now onboard, especially mask wearing and people insisting on crowding lifts.  

 

I'm finished for now.