Toofarfromthesea

I never worry too much about general cruise pricing trends because I only pay attention when I am looking to book.  But I know there are folks here who follow pricing and have a feel for general cruise price levels and I have a question for them.

What is your sense about whether the coronavirus is causing price decreases, and if it is, how far out?  Would it reach early 2021 cruises?  And would it reach destinations that are fare from the current major outbreak areas, like the Caribbean?

Thanks

7 hours ago, RocketMan275 said:

Yes, parents have a role to play.  But since not all parents are good examples, perhaps the school system could forgo some diversity and gender training to offer some financial training?

Based on my second career, 15 years teaching public school, I'm very doubtful about the ability of most of my colleagues, at the time, to teach such a class.  Many would have personally benefitted from taking such a class.

It is like the College and Career class my daughters had to take in HS.  It was a complete waste of time as teachers who became teachers right out of college don't tend to know very much about careers, or what any career requires, or really very much else that applies to real life.  My Dad was a public school teacher, and despite have been in the Army at the tail-end of ww2, gone to college under the GI bill, and gotten a Masters degree, after going directly into teaching he really didn't understand much about economics or how much of the real world worked.  Luckily my Mom had a bookkeeping background and kept the family on the financial straight and narrow.

15 minutes ago, Ava79 said:

You're right that these cases are not all we an know but really why so dramatic? For example I heard that only two cases of coronavirus in Russia ended quite good - ill people (citizens of China if I remember it right) were released from hospitals. And death of people from coronavirus outside of mainland China it is recorded only in Taiwan and the Philippines

When in danger fear or doubt

Run in circles, scream and shout

6 hours ago, RocketMan275 said:

The sad thing is how we have let down so many people by not exposing them to basic economics, how to manage your money, etc., while they were in middle/high school.  I'm a bit old for kids now, but if I had children, I would enroll them Ramsey's classes for middle/high school students.

No, the sad thing is how many kids didn't have a good parental example.  My millennial doughters are great personal finance managers and never got any instruction in school.  But my wife and I were pretty transparent about our finances and our financial decision making process.  And they were smart enough to absorb the lessons of no debt other than home, living below your means, maxxing out matching in 401ks, pay off credit cards in full every month, etc.

8 minutes ago, RocketMan275 said:

He was heavily into debt flipping properties, not personal residences or investment real estate.

OBTW, this dummy is now worth over $55M.

I bet he didn't get there via callable loans for the purpose of flipping houses.  Which is what I said was dumb.

13 minutes ago, ducklite said:

 

Uh, ya think?  Unfortunately I know numerous couples in this situation.

Sadly, I agree.  My first career was as a pension actuary for 20+ years, and my firm set up pension plans for small businesses, many of which were professional practices.  And a lot of my clients made great incomes, but despite that a fair number had serious financial problems. 

Being able to make money and knowing how to handle money are very different.  Ramsay has made a lot of money telling people how to handle money but does he know how to do it himself, as opposed to teaching it?  I questioned that ability when someone told the story of him racking up an unexpectedly large balance on a cruise by blithely running everything on his cruise card - a pretty rookie mistake for a personal finance guru.

Which is when the whole 'he's a millionaire, how many of you are' defense arose.

8 hours ago, jonbrown03 said:

I have been a long-time lurker on these boards and have always found them helpful and informative. My wife and I have cruised many times on MSC (we are Diamond level), but will be cruising MSC for the first time with our boys (6 and 4) in March on the Meraviglia out of Miami. Our kids have both cruised before, but always on Disney Cruise Line.

 

This weekend we received an invitation to bid on an upgrade to Yacht Club for our cruise. The opening bid is relatively low and since the bid is per person for the first two people in the cabin, the total out of pocket makes it a great deal to potentially experience the YC for the first time.

 

My question is in regards to having kids in the YC. I know that most folks are split here, so I understand that many of the responses will probably fall that way as well. Since we have never been in YC before, are they any/many kids there. Will we feel out of place with our kids joining? I do not want to spend all week worrying about my kids being too loud or getting evil stares from other YC cruisers. I also understand that MSC is a kid-friendly cruise line and we will be cruising during FL spring break, so anyone on this particular sailing should be ok with having kids around.

 

I would welcome everyone's thoughts and opinions. Thanks!

It depends on the kid, their parents, and your tolerance for cultural differences regarding kids.  On our Baltic YC cruise the was an Italian family with a monstrous child.  And I don't say that lightly.  She would literally scream in the grandmother's face in the restaurant and act out in the Lounge.  And the parents not only said nothing to her, it was like they didn't even notice.  And grandma didn't seem nonplussed by this behavior either, so I gathered it was their normal behavior.  Yet they had another child in the family whose behavior was fine.  OTOH, there were other international (from an American perspective) families who had kids who were delightful.

3 hours ago, RocketMan275 said:

That's funny.  Ramsey started his own business when he was in junior high.   He went into real estate and was worth over a million when he was 26.  His lender was purchased by another who called Ramsey's debts $1.2M due in three months.  He lost everything and declared bankruptcy.  That explains his aversion to debt.  BTW, his current net worth is $55M.  

https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/what-is-dave-ramseys-net-worth-heres-how-he-got-out-of-debt-and-made-millions.html/

As I said, I'm not anti-debt or into burning credit cards but I do understand that may be the best course for some.

Sounds like he was just dumb.  I've never had a real estate loan, for personal residence or investment real estate, that was even callable, let alone called.  Sometimes people learn the wrong lessons from their failures.  

3 hours ago, ldubs said:

 

I am not following your point in posting this stat?  

That the fact that someone is a millionaire is not that remarkable and certainly not evidence that the millionaire in question doesn't mix a lot of snake oil into their product.

3 hours ago, ducklite said:

Considering they both earn six figures, I think your suggestion is quite foolish over the cost of owning two cars that are in the $25K range--hardly an extravagance.  

 

I know many couples who work in opposite directions of each other and are both high income earners where dropping an income to avoid having two cars would be one of the stupidest financial mistakes they could make.

If they are both making 6 figures and are still having financial difficulties they have far deeper problems than just cars.

5 hours ago, ducklite said:

Borrowing money for some purposes will make you money.  For example a doctor starting his own practice who needs a business loan to set up an office.  Borrowing for a mortgage on a house which if lived in long enough will appreciate, regardless of cyclic markets (provided the monthly payments are affordable to begin with.) 

 

What you describe is immature and a road to ruin.

Yes, because borrowing to go on vacation and borrowing to set up a professional practice that lets you mint money are exactly the same.

5 hours ago, RocketMan275 said:

Neither was I.  My current wife and I went without fancy cars and other things.  Now, we have lots of cash, we can afford cruises, and we drive luxury cars.  We can afford to spend now, because we saved and invested back then.

Delayed gratification.  What a novel idea. 🙂🙃🙂

27 minutes ago, JMorris271 said:

This virus is not an act of god. It is an act of men being careless with their well being and the well being of others. Caused directly by the action or inaction of people.

Another person who does not understand the concept.  A clue:  war is, within the meaning of the term, an act of god.  Which is caused by people.  But still in legal parlance it's an act of god.

2 hours ago, JennyB1977 said:

I'm going to use an example that I'm sure will get picked a part as "not the same." I used to manage a small, local gym. We would have to make decisions on closing due to bad weather. This is a gym that people paid over $100/month to utilize. There was a pretty bad ice storm several years ago. The timing was ALL OVER THE place from the weather people. Timing, amount, severity were all inconsistent. We were left waiting until the last minute to close. However, we (the owner and I) were already there and had decided to wait it out a bit. A few folks (3) showed up not getting the text, e-mail or social media posts stating we would be closed. We offered them a drink (we sold various protein, energy and juice drinks) or a coupon to bring a friend for free for their trouble. Two declined the offer. However, the goodwill of offering something that cost us virtually nothing was appreciated.

But these people want money.  And money never costs virtually nothing.  If it clearly is 'not the same' (but really not even in the same county) it is hard to see how this is an example of anything.  Except maybe virtue signalling.

On 2/7/2020 at 7:45 PM, navybankerteacher said:

That 57,000 is the whole year’s toll in a population of 300 million plus.  The Corona virus is just over a month old - and the 300 plus deaths were in a population of just over 10 million.

 

It may not spread, and fatalities may not continue to grow - but for a virus which, apparently in the last six weeks, jumped from one species to another, it seems to be thriving — and even if it’s death rate is 1/3 that of the flu - if it’s infection rate turns out to be more than six times that of the flu (not inconceivable - as there seems to be no natural immunity and no vaccine) there will be greater impact.

 

I am not predicting any such thing - but people who take comfort in partial statistics should look at the whole picture.

It works the other way, as well - people panicking over partial statistics should look at a more complete picture.  No one ever gets to look at the whole picture because we never have the whole picture.

1 hour ago, That sinking feeling said:

How can an act of god be a thing? Pretty sure I have read somewhere that some solicitor proved this to be invalid. Sure he proved that anyone using this as an excuse could just about use it for anything. And how can you deny a claim of someone that doesn't do god? 

 

So if weather is an act of god then so is a disease. 

Because 'Act of God' is a term of art, not literal.  Thought that was obvious, but I guess not.

On 2/8/2020 at 6:45 AM, RocketMan275 said:

You really have no idea how many people would have similar claims.

People are always willing to throw other people's money around in Goodwill gestures.  That are rarely all that well received.

22 hours ago, AlanF65 said:

The social media apps track you and know if you are in a grocery store, they have the ability to send you a coupon for xyz product at a discount while you are in the store. The minute detail they get from likes and mentions along with searches and purchases puts today's shopper at a massive disadvantage. Online retailers prices change based on inventory, demand and what link got you there.   

 

I don't disagree with this, but it has nothing to do with whether to use a credit card or not, or whether using a credit card causes you to spend more than using cash.

4 hours ago, larrywizzit said:

Of course there is. Plenty. The carbon footprint of a passenger at sea is about 3 times that on land.

Cruise ship emissions as a total have risen dramatically in recent years due to rising popularity. https://www.tourismdashboard.org/explore-the-data/cruise-ship/

 

There is plenty of information available. I found this within seconds. I still cruise, but it is not helpful to say that no data is available.

 

 

 So if you believe in carbon footprint and GW,  how can you justify hundreds of thousands of people losing their jobs over something that you are exacerbating with your personal leisure choices?

This is the most amazing issue where people express concern yet rationalize why THEIR choices are OK.  Believing in carbon footprints and GW but continuing to cruise puts someone in the same category as celebrities who use private planes and limousines to get to award dinners and then save the planet by having a 'mostly' meat free dinner and scolding all of us for our normal activities.

I'll start believing in a climate crisis when I see the people claiming there is a climate crisis start ACTING as if there is a climate crisis

7 hours ago, ilikeanswers said:

 

Everything is socially engineered. People are ok when big comapnies do it but if governments do it people seem to think it is a conspiracy to take away their freedom. I believe some industries need to be forcibly reduced or killed. Imagine if we still made CFCs in the amount we made pre 1996? If world governments had not subsidised India's reduction of CFCs we never would have fixed the hole in the Ozone layer. Intervention is sometimes necessary especially when it comes to global problems where you need everyone to work together.

You defend recycling the same way a socialist defends socialism against the historical results of socialism - it just hasn't been done right, yet.

22 hours ago, RocketMan275 said:

Landfills are a viable long term solution.  Far more cost effective than the alternatives.

And safer, since modern landfills safely contain things much better than sending them to China.

7 hours ago, ducklite said:

My cruise itinerary was changed and the cruise line fully paid my change fees in the form of a check, even though I booked my airfare with the airline.  No FCC, cash.

What caused the change in itinerary?

1 hour ago, navybankerteacher said:

Of course that 26,000 flu dead out of a world population of 7,000,000,000 means 1 in every 270,000.   The 600 corona dead - almost all out of the Wuhan are  population of 11,000,000 - means 1 out of every 18,500.  A more than ten times higher fatality rate.

 

If you are going to seek comfort from statistics, you should try to understand those statistics.

 

  

I don't know where that 26,000 number comes from, but in 2019 there were 57,000 deaths from flu in the US.

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2019/04/us-flu-still-elevated-dropping-deaths-high-57000

If we are going to talk about statistics we should start with correct statistics.  Our flu deaths rate are approximately 3x the coronavirus death rate *so far*.  Obviously that will change as there are more deaths in Wuhan and elsewhere.  But we still need to know the correct numbers when making comparisons and assessing risk levels.  

15 hours ago, dethman said:

have 8 more days to cancel my 3/16 cruise on costa smeralda for only a 50% penalty instead of 75.  will see how this plays out but i don't really feel like getting stuck on a ship without being able to get off ports or have the possibility of being in quarantine.

I saw a medical guy on TV talking about how these viruses do not thrive in warm humid conditions and that this will die down around April.  He also expected that by the fall we will have a vaccine, in case the virus re-emerges.  Our next cruise is Nov. so I expect a lot more clarity by the time of our final payment.  I don't envy you your decision since you are on the border of when it will die down.  One positive is that by the time of your cruise they will be much better at dealing with any problems compared to the first ships, which had to be have been taken unawares.

This would be much less of an issue if ships would have clocks around the ship that reflect ship time.  Sometimes it seems harder to find a clock on a ship than it is to find one in a Vegas casino.