sndral

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/02/14/national/japan-clear-coronavirus-cruise-ship/#.XkepdaaIafA

Two interesting things from the article, first it appears what will happen on 2/19, when quarantine is ‘over’ isn’t yet clear.

Second, the positive case in Okinawa from Friday 2/14, was a taxi driver being monitored because she had contact with passengers from Diamond Princess when they ported in Naha on 2/1.

Edited to add - based on the post above it looks like plans for how to end the quarantine have firmed up.

35 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

You obviously don't understand what an incubation period is. To put it simply it is the time between a person being infected with a virus to when the virus has multiplied sufficiently in the new host so that symptoms are apparent...

Per the CDC there appears to be asymptomatic transmission of the virus - https://www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-02-13-20-intl-hnk/h_8d935a8b6df385aba0cbfdb30cd3aeac

I believe that the Japanese authorities have been testing those who manifest symptoms and those in close contact w/ them, the results of those 492 tests (unknown how many were retests of the same individual) were 218 positive, so of those tested approx. 44% positive. I’m wondering how many will test positive from the next batch of tests which I believe are of passengers who have no symptoms and no close association with a known positive.

52 minutes ago, kathy49 said:

I would think the charter would take them to an airport where everyone can make connections home...doubt if separate charter to each country?

Correct, my mistake - see npcl’s post #623 on pp. for correct info..

6 minutes ago, npcl said:

According to HAL's letter it will take a few days to get everyone off of the ship.  They said that will use charter flights to Phnom Penh. So one would expect that the passengers will be put on commercial flights there (paid for by HAL).

Thank you for explaining - I missed the Phnom Penh part and was wondering where all of the chartered planes would come from, of course there are a lot of idled planes at the moment w/ all of the canceled flights.

3 hours ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

I don't think anyone is going to complain about the debarkation port at this point. I think debarking will depend on flights. If HAL is picking up the cost of these flights, I would expect that they're making the bookings. Who gets booked first? Probably people who booked their flights through HAL to begin with and people for whom seats on the appropriate route are available.

 

If HAL is arranging chartered flights it will be different from a normal booking. Presumably the whole plane will be filled with Westerdam passengers flying to an airport in their home country. So who gets off the ship first will most likely depend on the logistics of arranging the chartered airplanes. Once the passengers arrive in their own countries via the chartered planes I assume they’ll be able to continue to their home airports via normal bookings. 

Many years ago the FAA shut down the airline I was flying the day before I was leaving Maui, the company I’d purchased my flight through had a lot of stranded passengers on Hawaiian holiday packages and they chartered a plane to get us all home.  It happened to be a Delta plane they chartered - I’ve had a fondness for Delta ever since. 

5 hours ago, gentlemancruiser said:

NCL has cancelled all asia trips until December.  Norwegian Spirit from April to December. 

Not exactly, NCL decided to not send the Spirit to Asia post dry dock from Europe, the Jade, however, is still in Asia & her cruises have not been canceled. Jade ported in Hong Kong just over a week ago.

10 minutes ago, Merion_Mom said:

Would you like to hear a story?

 

A funny/not funny story?

 

Ok, so I started this thread to get away from the labyrinth of the other one, since this one is about the here and now.

 

I boarded the Anthem on January 5, and took three 11 night cruises.  So when I got off today, I had been on board for a little longer than a month.

 

Because my cruise was so long, I did what I usually do:  I called Dave's Best Limo, a Philadelphia-based shuttle service, to take me to Cape Liberty on January 5 and pick me up today.

 

While we "waste" a lot of (my) time driving around picking up or dropping off other people, I am certainly not going to pay 33 x $25 to drive myself and park in the garage.  (Don't even do the math; you'll puke).  And I have to wait until they get there to pick me up, and that time can vary A LOT.  They come up with a load of new passengers, drop them off and pull up to Zone 9 to pick up us, the departing passengers.    When I called at 7:30, I was told that the van would be there at 9:30.  I was standing outside at 9:15 in a cold drizzle, with nowhere to sit and only a small canopy to huddle under.  The driver actually pulled up at 10:20.

 

I learned about the new passengers being sent away by our shuttle driver.  He said, "I just dropped six people off with their luggage, and the porters told them they couldn't take their bags; they were being sent away."  (we didn't really care about them, but he said that Dave's would send another driver to pick them up if they wanted to go home; they probably got an Uber to a hotel once that was announced)

 

So that's how and when I knew about the delay.

 

The driver told us that we had a person already in the van, and we had to take him to JFK!  And we were picking up someone there!

 

Now, if you know your geography, you know that JFK is far away and in the opposite direction from Philadelphia.  But it's a shared van service, and this is the risk you take, although it has NEVER happened to me before, and I use them a lot.

 

So..............indeed, it added about two hours to our transit time.  I didn't get home until almost 2:30.

 

But that's not the funny/not funny story.

 

So, here we are, just disembarked from a ship with a potential case of novel coronavirus, and the news media are freaking out, and every one on Cruise Critic is freaking out, and everyone on Facebook is freaking out.  My son-in-law the TV news reporter texts me and asks if I know anything, and if I want to be interviewed on TV!  (HA! NO!)

 

We drive to JFK, drop the guy off at one terminal, drive around, and pick up a woman at a different terminal.  I veg out in the back of the van, starting this thread and generally checking out social media, texting with my son, etc.

 

At one point, the other couple in the van who had also been on the January 27 cruise, asked the woman where she was returning from.

 

Her answer?

 

"Oh, I was in China for three weeks."

 

And there you have it.

 

 

 

 

Hope you don’t have any cruises planned for the next 15 days since you now are in the banned from cruising category of having been in ‘close’ contact w/ a person who’s been to China, Hong Kong, or Macau ...unless it was a very large van?

2 hours ago, Kimba2 said:

I think that I would smoke anyway.  Seriously, what could they do - kick me off the ship?  

It’s been years since I quit that nasty addiction - but when I traveled as a smoker I usually carried enough packs to get me through my travels and a little extra but not enough extra for 14 days & the ship stores are closed so no resupply. So @ some point most smokers, whether they obey the no smoking edict or not, will become @ least temporary non smokers if only because they’ve run out of cig.s.

I always take a cross stitch project and knitting mostly to do on long plane flights, but at least I’d have that to occupy me if I was sentenced to solitary confinement on a cruise ship. Someone upthread wondered about solo travelers, IME most solos are comfortable with solitude - maybe not 14 days worth - but still they have experience w/ it, I’m more concerned with those in packed cabins or cabins w/ children needing to be entertained. Not being able to excercize except for pacing in the very small space of the cabin would be hardest for me, I think.

3 hours ago, nadinenurse1 said:

So legal, people reading, tell me this,  it appears the majority of us here  are thinking  this is a frivolous type of law suit,  there is verbiage in the contract not to do this, not a act of cruise ship negligence, the direct unauthorized result of a incorrect human action, ( who besides Michale Jackson dangles a baby outside  a window many stories up ). Can a judge dismiss this as a invalid suit ?  If it goes to court  Can you imagine the cruise contract we will now have to sign, which will cover anything any idiot might litigate for. Thank u in advance 

I’ve read that RCI has filed a motion to dismiss, which I assume would be a 12(b)6 motion alleging the plaintiffs have failed to state a cause of action in their complaint. If the Judge grants that then yes, the case is dismissed, although sometimes plaintiffs are allowed to file an amended complaint to correct whatever defects there are (dismissal w/out prejudice.)

During discovery RCI can also file a motion for summary judgement and if the Judge grants the summary judgement motion the case is dismissed as well. Summary judgement is a ruling on the merits, so that ends the case, but plaintiffs can appeal the ruling.

Personally I would be somewhat surprised if a motion to dismiss was granted, but I would not be surprised if the Judge granted a motion for summary judgement in RCI’s favor in the future.

But I’m no expert in federal civil litigation - my only experience w/ it was when a guy I convicted at trial and sent to prison for several years sued me, the cops & our agencies pro per in federal court for convicting him. That case was dismissed via summary judgement. 

On 7/14/2019 at 4:34 PM, TAD2005 said:

...

Heading back to the Marco Polo airport, get another water taxi and they will drop you right at the airport terminal where you roll your bags to the checkin counter.   Very easy.

Just FYI, if you opt to take a water taxi or the Alilaguna shared boat to Marco Polo airport the walk + schlepping your luggage from the pier where the boat drops you to the terminal is about 10 minutes. I assume there are most likely porters, although I’ve never used one.

http://www.adr.it/documents/10157/16175834/T3+arrivi_20190306.pdf/5bfce7fa-b982-4de9-93e6-b8495da10f74

I can’t speak to HAL, but if it’s like RCI, it was pretty easy last October. Assuming you have a shared/bus transfer.

Here’s a map of FCO terminal 3 arrivals. On the left you’ll see an icon of a guy w/ a hat holding a passport  that’s were you’ll go through customs/passport control. After you go through passport control you’ll head to the baggage carousels which are the boxes with suitcases numbers 3-11 on the map. After you’ve collected your luggage head to where it says T3 on the map by the little cafe area where there are people holding signs with your ship’s name. You can’t miss them. You check in with them, they check their list to mark you off & you just go where they direct you.

Note, I arrived the day before and stayed at the airport Hilton and just walked back over to the T3 arrivals area, so if you land in one of the other terminals you should be able to find your way over to Terminal 3.

10 hours ago, jordanaire said:

...I went to Guest Services, with the email, to inquire about this. They told me that they didn't have any record of my request. I showed them THEIR email to me and said they still showed no record of it.  I was not happy. They told me that all of these items would be delivered to our cabin by the end of the day (embarkation day). I got the distilled water on Day #3, the Sharpe's container on Day #6 and never did see the extension cord!...

Based on the replies in this thread it sounds like it is the cabin steward’s job to provide these things, but that the email sender stating those items would be in the cabin did not communicate this to the ship. When guest services assured OP those items would be delivered that night either they did not let the steward know, or since the distilled water showed on day 6, they waited a long time to let the cabin steward know and/or s/he waited awhile to meet the request - did guest services send the request via carrier pigeon?

On my RCI cruise last Oct. I saw my cabin steward once - on embarkation day. I saw the other cabin stewards pretty regularly - but never him. I did ask one of the other cabin stewards to ask my steward to toss the by then 2 day old embarkation gift chocolate covered strawberries, she said she’d tell him - finally I tossed them on day 4 and carted the plate to the WJ myself. I don’t know whether he never got the message or did but couldn’t be bothered.

Why didn’t guest services advise OP to ask their cabin steward for the items if that’s the procedure?

Just got off 12 nights on the Jewel, looking at my photos of the ship, deck 2 windows are pretty small - smaller than the deck 3 & 4 windows.

Deck 2 is where we embarked/disembarked at every port except 1, RCI shore excursions used the stairs by the Coral theater to walk down to deck 2 for disembarking most days.

Thank you for your posts & pictures - I’m doing Jewel’s 2018 version of this itinerary and I really enjoyed a peak at many of the ports I’ll be visiting in Oct./Nov..

I’m curious, did many people on board dress up for Halloween?

Would you mind sharing how many cruises you've been on with Royal Caribbean? Just wondering what audience they are targeting with this survey.

I’m a newbie w/ RCI having done one 7 night cruise out of Venice w/ them. I have a 12 night RCI cruise out of Rome coming up this Oct. & have been doing a lot of comparing for N. Europe next spring.

Did it mention if they were considering real discounts vs fake discounts?

Well, It didn’t use those exact words, but a few questions were definitely about whether I believed so called ‘sales’ were fake in cruises and retail stores.

Perhaps they were trying to ferret out a ‘sales’ pitch I was less jaded about :cool:

Several questions focused on bundling extras like spa + drink + internet + dinning as part of your cabin price.

Haven’t seen any posts about this - has anyone else received this survey?

It appeared in my email 6/27.

It seemed to focus on promotions & discounts, for example asking several different ways which of a series of options would make me more likely to book such as:

Kids sail free v. 50% off 3rd/4th passenger v. Bundled discounts (like NCL does) v. onboard credit v. free cabin upgrade.

It also asked questions designed to measure the effectiveness of various sales approaches.

It asked what I valued most in web & phone interactions too.

The survey made me wonder if they were considering rolling out a new advertising campaign, or offering different types of discounts.

To quote Mark Twain "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story."

My head is spinning at some of the conjecture I've read in the last 16 pages.

Starting w/ reference to where were the 'parents' - based on news reports the 13 year old was on board with his mother and his brother - so 'parent' singular in this case.

No need to assume details about how the attack started as the link to the video of said attack exists, thanks to Redrobo at post 73 on page 4. The video is edited so that what prosecutors described as a simulated sexual assault is not depicted.

The propositioned girl's father did not do the lewd and lascivious act on a minor - her Uncle was convicted of that crime and was sentenced to 3 years in prison. The girl's father got 2 years for keeping others away while the Uncle did the lewd and lascivious on a minor crime.

Also no need to speculate as to what the denial of a motion to dismiss means in this case thanks to Kccrzr's link to the actual Judge's opinion in post 57 on page 3.

Plaintiff's complaint alleges that the 13 year old boy along with several other young passengers where in the library (in the video you can see the victim, his brother and one other young male) when 2 visibly intoxicated adults entered and sexually assaulted and battered the 13 year old.

Plaintiff alleges over serving of alcohol but also, interestingly, plaintiff sets forth 2 alternative theories for liability relating to the camera monitoring: they allege that either no one was monitoring the cameras or that some one was monitoring the camera, but did not intervene. Thus, apparently plaintiff does not yet know whether anyone was watching that camera at the time of the incident.

The opinion linked by Kccrzr's post also mentions the facts in support of plaintiff's intentional infliction of emotional distress claim which I haven't seen discussed here.

Since this is only a denial of defendant's motion to dismiss there's no point in talking about the IIED claim IMO unless plaintiff survives summary judgement down the road - and the Judge seemed to be hinting pretty strongly that the IIED claim won't survive.

Thanks for the update. Nothing like starting to plan the next big adventure to take away the sting from the one that went awry.

My FCO flight leaves at 11 a.m..

The RCCL advisor booked it via Air2sea as well as the ship’s transfer - so hopefully it’ll all work.

On Vision in the fall of 2016, we had an actual Bravo, Bravo, Bravo and even though I didn’t know what Bravo meant at that time, I knew it was an actual fire because of the subsequent announcements about which teams were to respond where - apparently something in the engine room or something, the Captain announced it was out a bit later. We later also had an Oscar, Oscar, Oscar, which turned out to be an empty life vest floating in the Adriatic, which happened on a sea day so we all watched the little boat zipping out to investigate.

Royal's program requires full payment for flights when you book the flights. You do get to choose flights and seats. The highest fares are refundable.

Actually, depending on the air carrier, you may not be able to choose seats - I couldn’t on the Lufthansa portion of a United code share Air2sea booking twice. The second time, 2 months ago, I was able to log on to Lufthansa after the Air2sea booking and pay an extra fee to pick a seat, the first time in 2016, I couldn’t even do that.

Note I was able to pick my United seats w/ Air2sea, just not the Lufthansa flights.

I am confused. What piece of notarized paper are you calling a ‘copy’ of your birth certificate? Is the one you ‘think’ may be in the safe deposit box at the currently closed bank different or is it issued by the same entity (eg: a duplicate.)

Is the notarized copy you have a government issued document typically obtained from the County (@ least in CA) where you were born? Normally those are certified by the governmental agency that issues them when you pay for your copy.

Or is the copy you have a notarized document from some other, non governmental entity (like the hospital)? If so, why would that document be notarized anyway?

Can't speak for Jewel, but we debarked Rome off of Rhapsody in 2015. We were off the ship by 7 am and at the airport by around 8 or 8:15. We did not "self disembark." We had a flight around 10:50 as I remember and had no problem. We did have a private transfer standing by which was critical, and as D+ we had the Concierge escort us down. Again, that was in 2015, but plan to get off as early as possible and you shouldn't have any real problem.

That’s a relief. I have an 11 am flight booked w/ air2sea (choice air?) and an RCI transfer from the ship back to the airport in Rome which seems a bit tight to me, but the RCI person who booked it said it would be fine.

I'm another sparkling water addict. I just buy the refresh package (I think that's what it's called) as I don't like flavored sparkling water and so I ask for the Pelligrino in the bottle at lunch, dinner and the bars. Sometimes I'll opt for sparkling/soda water w/ a shot of cranberry juice at the bar. For the package to pencil out financially (even at the on sale price) I have to drink a lot of bubbly water, which I do, and to have a cappuccino or two per day. Flavored sparkling water from the spigot at the machines doesn't appeal to me.