Curious: are others looking at alternative cruise or land itineraries “in case” NCL cancels

[vanchelle]

🤔
Hey all, I imagine I can’t be alone in this? I’m not panicking at this point. We don't cruise until June 19th on the Jade out of Athens. I have, however, started to just dabble a bit in looking at “other itineraries” for cruises (Alaska?) or land vacations as a back up if we get bad news. I was a little surprised about the most recent announcement extending though April for some sailing, but I realize there are lots of factors they’re considering. 
mom just nosy:

what else/where else are you considering if these cancellations continue? 
stay home?

land? 
a different itinerary if there’s a cruise going out? 
stay well!!

[ECCruise]

For the first 10 or 12 of the trips we had cancelled (some cruise, some land) we had no back up plans because they were in 2020 and there were no back up plans.

Since then, we've had back up plans for every one of the 6 or 7 trips we've had cancelled.  And guess what?  In almost all of those cases, the back ups were cancelled.  This continued right up until Thursday when our Thailand land tour was gone (which replaced our Vietnam land tour).  So now we have added extra days to our Hawaii trip.  Which we hope will fly (mainly because we are doing it all on our own).

 

Our next cruises are in May and June in Greece and the Black Sea.  We are confident enough (which probably is a mistake) that we have no back up plans for those.

[vacation44]

Our February cruise is Plan B.  Plan A was an all inclusive in Jamaica.   Plan C is Margaritaville in Hollywood, Florida.  Plan D is switching to an Alaskan cruise, but that is something we want to do with our two young adult children and this vacation is just the two of us for our 25th wedding anniversary.   And we wanted to actually be away on our anniversary.

[Laszlo]

I've been making alternate plans for two years now Lol

[The Traveling Man]

When one of our planned cruises was cancelled during 2020 and 2021, our backup plan was to book a different cruise that was scheduled to sail a few months later.  Another would be cancelled, and we would find another replacement a few months down the road.  In the years leading up to the pandemic, we usually would cruise about six or seven times a year.  With the merry-go-round of cancelled and re-booked cruises, though, we currently stand at 17 cancelled voyages.  Most were cancelled by the cruise line, but we chickened out and cancelled a couple ourselves.  Keep telling yourself, it just has got to get better.

[mertziek]

We are on to Plan B after we canceled our Athens to Rome cruise.  We are doing b2b to the Caribbean in Feb.  But we have a backup plan C set up to do a land vacay to St. Pete’s Beach and then to Disney.  There are way too many variables and scenarios to guarantee anything will happen but we are prepared if the cruises get canceled.

[milolii]

I’ve been making alternate plans since last year.  

[BirdTravels]

35 minutes ago, vanchelle said:

🤔
Hey all, I imagine I can’t be alone in this? I’m not panicking at this point. We don't cruise until June 19th on the Jade out of Athens. I have, however, started to just dabble a bit in looking at “other itineraries” for cruises (Alaska?) or land vacations as a back up if we get bad news. I was a little surprised about the most recent announcement extending though April for some sailing, but I realize there are lots of factors they’re considering. 
mom just nosy:

what else/where else are you considering if these cancellations continue? 
stay home?

land? 
a different itinerary if there’s a cruise going out? 
stay well!!

Being on a cruise ship is a lot safer than being at a land resort. At least you are with that have been screened at the point of embarkation. (We have been on 3 cruises and a dozen land vacations during the pandemic)

Edited January 13, 2022 by BirdTravels

[IMNOFUN]

Twice canceled so far. The last one was departing from Rio, and I read that Brazil had closed departures, so our Rio-Spain was out.

 

We're looking at others, but switched our time frame to next fall. We also have a late July for Alaska, but I doubt that short cruise out of Seattle will be canned. I hope not since this is the family cruise and my progeny of two generations have to give vacation notice. One is uncertain since she's an RN and will definitely continue to work if she's needed. 

 

I'd really like to cross the Antarctic Circle to match up to our Arctic Circle crossing a few years back. I'm wondering if we'll ever get to Oz/NZ, which we'd love to do. The Galapagos is harder to cruise since it doesn't have a cruise-ship sized port. You have to doc in Bolivia or Peru, then take a small boat out to the islands. 

[IMNOFUN]

9 minutes ago, BirdTravels said:

Being on a cruise ship is a lot safer than being at a land resort. At least you are with that have been screened at the point of embarkation. (We have been on 3 cruises and a dozen land vacations during the pandemic)

I agree. The cruise lines don't want to kill their paying customers, so I think most are getting more careful as time goes by. With a ship, you don't have strangers wandering in and out without being checked for vax and tested. 

[classy_cruiser]

I checked out some land vacation ideas and the price was double my cruise fare. So I’m going and hoping for the best! 

[HowardK]

My May 2020 cruise was cancelled-I knew in February it would be as I saw there was no way cases would decrease.

 

I made it to NYC twice for some concerts.

 

However, I feel that I am now just reading cruise critic and complaining about my job.

 

I was planning 3 cruises in 2024- different times 

[Cruise Gopher]

We went to Hawaii twice last year in lieu of our canceled cruises. 

[vanchelle]

1 hour ago, vacation44 said:

Our February cruise is Plan B.  Plan A was an all inclusive in Jamaica.   Plan C is Margaritaville in Hollywood, Florida.  Plan D is switching to an Alaskan cruise, but that is something we want to do with our two young adult children and this vacation is just the two of us for our 25th wedding anniversary.   And we wanted to actually be away on our anniversary.

 We would end up with pretty similar plans C or D as you 😂

[vanchelle]

1 hour ago, BirdTravels said:

Being on a cruise ship is a lot safer than being at a land resort. At least you are with that have been screened at the point of embarkation. (We have been on 3 cruises and a dozen land vacations during the pandemic)

We’ve been telling people this. We continue to have people question our plans and they just don’t realize that illnesses are always “highlighted” more on cruise lines than resorts, etc. we are optimistic our Greece Cruise will be a success. 

[ElizaSTN]

If it's cancelled (or if a member of our group other than ourselves test positive at the pier) we'll hop a flight to Mexico or maybe DR.

[Susandt]

We discovered Anna Marie island, fl from past canceled cruise.  Went 2x last year and will go again if February cruise is canceled

[baflagg]

We sail June 12th on the Breakaway out of Miami but I'm going to do some research this weekend and book a beach hotel somewhere within driving distance to have a backup just in case.  Our final payment is due 2/2 would rather not pay if there is a chance the cruise is cancelled but not sure they would cancel that far out.  

[vichastwins]

Well, we were supposed to be on Saturdays Escape cruise. Fourth time rescheduled since the pandemic began! We have no luck! My fiancé was determined to go in a cruise and he is a Disney cast member so we were able to book the Disney Fantasy at CM rates for the same week! Woohoo!

[SimplyAlbert]

If our February cruise is cancelled we'll just stay home.  DH is retired and I'll just work that week.  We have land-based trips planned for March and April so we didn't make back-up plans for this cruise.

[Bramcruiser]

Yes, I am actually looking at alternatives should NCL cancel my July cruise. Everyone said "Don't worry. That is down the road and things will be better then". But its the same message we heard back in 2020 and who would have thought we would have to go through this all again 2 years later.

 

So if my Iceland/Greenland cruise is cancelled I am glad I paid the mega buck to buy refundable airline tickets. I will either shorten the dates away and do a land trip in Iceland or pick some other place where its safe to go.

 

What I won't be doing is booking yet another cruise to go through it all again. I would have thought by now the Star would have been sailing. HA HA HA! the joke is on me!

 

The cancelled 2020 cruise was also supposed to be a retirement cruise for my other half who retired then.

 

Edited January 13, 2022 by Bramcruiser

[Quincella]

If NCL cancels our Sunday cruise, we'll be in a resort in the Keys.  There is no way I'll spend next week in the frozen tundra when I can be somewhere in south Florida, with flights already booked. 🙂

[natefish95]

I took three cruises last year on Royal and Carnival because NCL kept cancelling. My backup now would be to spend a few days on St. Martin at Orient Beach. 

[weltek]

1 hour ago, Quincella said:

If NCL cancels our Sunday cruise, we'll be in a resort in the Keys.  There is no way I'll spend next week in the frozen tundra when I can be somewhere in south Florida, with flights already booked. 🙂

We cancelled our January cruise long before we gave that power to anyone else. But I had the fun mental exercise of "what if we were in Miami for our Jan. 5th sailing that was cancelled the day before sailing." I theoretically decided I would do the same as you, Quincella, but I did wonder if last minute lodging prices would be insane...have you looked? 

We went ahead and just planned camping trips for 2022 and booked a December 2022 cruise only because I had a CruiseNext with a booking deadline of today/travel deadline of December 2022. Toyed around with booking a fall Alaska cruise, but are pretty sure we won't want to make that call to make final payment in May. We'll see how comfortable we are come August when final payment is due for the December cruise. 

Edited January 13, 2022 by weltek

[jlseymour3]

Looking at a March trip to Costa Rica.  I offered DW the choice between all inclusive and cute boutique hotel - she said "all inclusive" in a way that made it clear she thought I was daft for even asking.