Cruz3r4life

On 8/23/2020 at 10:24 PM, Elaine5715 said:

Our mainstream media barely mentions that obesity is one of the comorbidities that leads to a poor outcome with COVID especially with children   

That's because the phrases personal or parental responsibility might come up and that's a big no-no. 

At least in my local area the news doesn't even report the infection numbers accurately, they announce the "total" cases but don't mention that  it is in fact a cumulative count of the active infections, recovered and deceased cases - so if you tested positive in April 2020 and have recovered, you are still being announced in that daily number of cases even though it's August.  

On 8/20/2020 at 9:20 AM, John Bull said:

 

Yes, use of hand-sanitisers for buffets etc has always been pretty lax.

But that was protection against (comparatively) minor illnesses like norovirus, not something as deadly as Covid-19.

I think you can rest assured that it will be policed rigorously on all cruise ships while Covid is around.

 

But I've never seen anyone un-challenged at the gangway.

A real pain cos as well as sanitising both hands you also need to present your seapass and hold onto purchases & kids & bits & bobs. But the gangways are ALWAYS manned, and I've seen nobody get by without a dose of sanitiser.

 

JB 

 

Have you cruised Norwegian?  I have said since this started that they have missed a golden opportunity to do some commercials and whatnot with their "washy-washy" crew, pre-pandemic they have them  in front of the buffet and during popular times I've seen them at the front of the main dining rooms. - I was on the Escape in 2017 and saw 1 of those crew members follow a man in the buffet and stop him to spray his hands after he walked past them and the automatic dispenser.  

On 8/22/2020 at 4:21 PM, bschmoll said:

I recently read and article about passengers being left at a port of call because they left the controlled excursion bubble the cruise ship had arranged in the port of call. This made me wonder if this is going to be how cruises will operate in the coming months until there is a vaccine. Are we all going to be forced to either stay within the cruise lines bubble? Does this mean that for the foreseeable feature we will no longer be able to walk off the ships, hop in a taxi, and explore on our own? I noticed in some advertising material NCL had sent out that they alluded to this controlled port experience as well. I have a cruise booked in early Dec 2020 and had planned to scuba dive almost every day, but if I am limited to ship excursions this will not be possible and I feel like it's not the vacation I had originally booked. I understand that these are trying times and perhaps even a limited cruise would be better than no cruise, but I probably wouldn't have booked it if I would have known they were going to significantly change the way ports of call work.

The only cruise line I adamantly follow about their protocols is NCL since that's what I mainly sail on, but check to see if the cancellation policy has changed.  

On 8/26/2020 at 1:15 PM, chipmaster said:

 

I just flew and visited a city in the Mid-West, I'd say a very Red state, the compliance for mask on the airplane, airports( two stops ), and even out and about in stores/restaurants/outside  was good, but for their were always a  few people that wore down their mask, no enforcement.... Funny I know the pictures don't represent everything but the theme in the US is always see non-compliance at a higher rate than pictures I see of some other countries and cultures. 

 

US is indeed number #1 in freedom/individualism as well as cases and deaths, hmm a correlation?   

 

Hopefully the cruise lines get the message, no compliance walk the plank!  I have little sympathy for people who can't sacrifice a little for the common group good, simply stupid or selfish, or both.    

 

Main 2 problems with mask mandates is that they are stupidly setup:  little children are not required to wear them - those are the little disease carrying vessels that regularly touch their mouths, pick their noses and then immediately touch shared surfaces.  And now govt. officials are putting ridiculous restrictions on it highlighting most people's fears of being "okay" with the original mandates. Look at Texas, the mandate is that as long as there are more than 20 cases of COVID19 in a county the mask mandate is in effect - Harris county (where Houston is located) has a population over 4.7 million, Dallas county population over 2.5 million, Austin county population over 2 million - even with a vaccine those places are likely to never see a period of time with less than 20 positive cases. 

On 8/27/2020 at 6:54 AM, drsel said:

CND works out to a discount of $62.50 per person on a 6 night Cruise or longer.

but I think Norwegian prices their Cruises at least $65 more than the competition, so the CND does not have significant benefit.

You should buy it on board if you insist on cruising only with Norwegian.

Buying the certificates onboard is what makes them worthwhile as you get the onboard credit. I've done this many times, they are $250 each, if you buy 1 you get $100 OBC, if you buy 2 you get $250 OBC - which means you if you buy 2 certificates you are basically buying 1 and getting 1 for free.

Has anyone heard if the Leonardo ships will have studio cabins?   

2 hours ago, Motegi said:

 

Exactly,  there are many European cruise lines departing from a variety of ports in the Mediterranean so I’m sure that there will be options available to fit the dates needed.

 

If it were me I would definitely be looking at the options on MSC right now.  

 I would look at MSC, from what I've heard they honor your Latitude's status with NCL.

So I'm booked on the Bliss in October 2019 to go to Mazatlan however NCL does not even list this port off their main site, I wonder if this advisory has anything to do with it?

https://www.ncl.com/shore-excursions

5 minutes ago, croix153 said:

I would guess that a 7 day would be long enough to get to Cozumel and back. I'm booked a 5 day western Caribbean on the 11th. That will certainly turn into a Bahamas itinerary. 

I beg of them not to take me to Cozumel again, I've been so many times I've stopped spending time/money on excursions. I make excursion to Senor Frogs, shots are 2 for $5 a cheap buzz while people watching is far more interesting that seeing Cozumel fish...again 

But if the ship is having problems and they are making the gamble to only do short distance cruises, would they really go from Orlando to Cozumel?  I would think it would be shorter to go to 1 or 2 of the Virgin Islands vs. going across the whole Gulf of Mexico and hope that nothing else mechanically goes wrong.

11 minutes ago, croix153 said:

I'm pretty sure something is amiss. Tugs at every port, she hasn't exceeded 15 knots. 

 

I wouldn't be surprised if all cruises get changed to bahamas cruises until she makes it back to the Mediterranean. Just doesn't have the speed to make Caribbean itineraries. 

 

Carnival did something similar with the liberty back in 2017. Rather than repair the ship, just repurposed for shorter bahamas cruises. 

I'm scheduled to leave on the Epic on Saturday, if their plan is to swap everyone out to 5-day terrible Bahamas cruises (I have 0 love for the Bahamas) then they should have made that decision and give everyone the opportunity that they gave the sailing that left on the 16th, take a refund or get a credit do the 5-day.   

But if they do the itinerary switch, what would the ports be and would they keep them 7 days or swap out to 5 days?  Doing a 5-day itinerary what would they possibly do with the 2 extra days,  do mechanical patch jobs? 

4 minutes ago, don't-use-real-name said:

 

 

 

 

Not exactly the same backyard ocean but when you depart Victoria BC and your next port is Seattle

just what the heck do you do when you could easily cover the distance in a couple hours but instead

you putt putt all night in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound. I would guess that arriving in

the wee hours of the night is not fashionable when there is no one to tie your ship up and unload

guests and get transportation to who knows where.

I was on a ship positioning cruise a few years back - we left Catalina Island and the next port was

26 miles away across the sea Long Beach - so what did we do we putt putt all night down the

Mexican coast doing nothing turning around and coming back for the morning scheduled arrival.

So you leave Miami Ft Lauderdale or PC and your next stop is at the other end of the ship what do

you do - well killing time is the game - Casino open - Shows on - Restaurants serving - Gift Shops

and Duty Free to browse and snare a buy or simply lounge around grab a drink and enjoy the cruise !

And then that No Room in Inn factor - - - not even a tender.

Last year I was on the Breakaway for a 9-Day Baltic and when the ship was sailing between St. Petersburg and Helsinki and from Stockholm to Copenhagen the ship was moving so slow, what stunk about it was both Helsinki and Stockholm we had to be back on the ship at an early hour.  

57 minutes ago, CruisingNole said:

It’s my understanding that after a few hundred people got sick from Noro on Oasis last month, 100% of passengers received a full refund. NCL can and should do better than what they’ve offered.

To me there's a difference between 'health compromised' like with Noro and you didn't get to go to the originally planned itinerary but by what we've heard everyone still had full access to on-board amenities.  

4 minutes ago, Kev_of_Ar said:

LOL I was on the Escape Jan 2018 that was supposed to do this route and got rerouted to western but was my 1st so was happy 🙂

 

This will be my 13th cruise overall, so in 12 cruises only 3 have been a non-Western Caribbean itinerary, I've been there done/that.  I'm a born and raised Texan, well a 7-day cruise out of Texas can only go so far so it was always Western Caribbean, NCL used to call it Texaribbean.   The Western Caribbean is beautiful however I'm ready for some different ports. 

1 minute ago, Kev_of_Ar said:

She is scheduled to leave tomorrow for a 5 day cruise back Sat to pic me up :

Picking me up as well!  

So what's comical about the debacle the last week with the Epic for me is that I've been trying to do this itinerary for several years but hurricanes and their aftermath keep happening, so I found the sailing on the 23rd with air included for a super great deal in December and thought 'ha - it's before hurricane season' I'll have zero issues going...and then the last week happens.  I told my TA that if the sailing on the 23rd gets cancelled she is to refuse to book the Tortola/St. Thomas/GSC itinerary for me again because I'm obviously not meant to go there.   

8 minutes ago, johare said:

 

Yes, but though they are limping along, they have passed several foreign ports that they could have made a stop at. Will they be given a waiver when they actually make a choice not to stop in order to attempt to stay as close as possible to a schedule? The weather isn't stopping them. The ship is capable of making a stop. NCL is just choosing to save time if they skip Freeport.

Well if the ship still has some mechanical issues, NCL could possibly argue that they needed to get back to the home port vs. risking a stop somewhere and potentially getting stranded.  Given that they are not going to sail the ship again until Monday vs. Sunday and that they haven't had their foot on the gas to make it into PC at a decent hour on Saturday where they could at least unload the current group of passengers and help reduce the compensation they are giving out makes me believe that there is still some kind of issue with the ship

23 minutes ago, AL3XCruise said:

 

That was my understanding.  It makes me wonder if there was an issue distributing sufficient power given several engine/generators were offline, though I don't know enough about how those systems are set up to speculate too much.  

 

Hopefully the Chief has time to stop by and give us some knowledge!

We should know more tomorrow once the engineers have been able to diagnose the issues and hopefully be able to make speedy repairs.  

I ate dinner a couple of nights with people who had food allergies and they had let the cruise line know beforehand and each night they were given a 'menu' of things to choose from that could meet their needs

3 hours ago, Colorado Beach Bum said:

What a bummer. We are supposed to depart Februray 23rd. Keep us posted 

I'm set to go on there as well, it's funny at work this afternoon the attitude was "it's only 12 days away, it's so close", now the attitude is "they have 12 days, unless the engines are completely irreparable it should be fine"