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It makes no difference. Antarctica is not restricted to port or starboard and, in any case, you will spend little time in your cabin.

This page will help and is updated as things change: https://www.hurtigruten.co.uk/practical-information/coronavirus-update/sailings-and-cancellations/

I don't think they do offer upgrades, but I may be wrong.

However, when is your trip booked for and are you aware of the mandatory 10 day quarantine on entering Norway at the moment?

You may want to have a look at current cancellations at https://www.hurtigruten.co.uk/practical-information/coronavirus-update/sailings-and-cancellations/.

7 minutes ago, kimanjo said:

 

Are those percentages, for the total cabin capacity ( ship sailing full) , or a percentage of percentage of capacity???

Just raw percentages. I haven't allowed for any of the 125 rooms being put out of use to reduce capacity or being occupied by staff as I don't have any way of knowing how many that would be.

Check how many trips are booked by starting a booking on the website and go through all of the options for a room level by level.

Argentina remains closed at the moment.

Even in normal times, there are relatively few scientists in that part of Antarctica where Hurtigruten cruises and, due to Covid, they are being reduced to an absolute minimum at the moment. They are not helped solely by Hurtigruten but by all of the companies so are not dependent on just one. However, It's doubtful that they would want to board a ship which has a constantly changing pool of potential for the virus and then find themselves falling in a few days later!

After Hurtigruten's serious failings on Roald Amundsen in the Arctic earlier this year their reputation for Covid safety is far from what anyone should reasonably expect.

Hurtigruten are refusing to delay final balance payments. You will almost certainly have to pay, wait for the sailing to be cancelled (you might want to have a look at just how full the ship is at the moment to get a feel for the likelihood of cancellation) and then wait for a refund.

To give you an idea of current capacity, Hurtigruten's Fram has just four Antarctic cruises left in the season. She currently has 55%, 46%, 31% and 26% of her rooms booked on each of those four cruises with an average 39% booked (those figures assume that all rooms are available and none are occupied by staff). I cannot see how Hurtigruten would send her all the way south with those numbers, especially as the last of the four cruises leaves her in Valparaiso.
 

23 minutes ago, fatcat04 said:

Novel in this case means it is a completely new strain of an existing virus. Coronavirus in many forms (the common cold being one as are SARS and MERS) has been with us probably since viruses evolved to infect humans or did whatever viruses did to get here. If this disease had been brought to us on a meteor (think Andromeda Strain) and had been completely foreign to Earth, sure, we would have no immunity, no nothing, but the simple fact is some people are not getting the illness despite exposure and science wants to know why. Obviously if scientist are developing serologic tests and the WHO is saying do these tests now, they feel this information concerning the varied immune response inside hot spot communities is of great import to the treatment and management of this disease. You might try reading the article I posted from STAT.

It is a completely new strain, so effectively a new virus. Immunity to previous strains does not carry over. There is no immunity to Covid-19. That some have been exposed to it (to what extent?) without apparently being infected (there is a wide range in the way different people respond) does not mean they have immunity. That is the message from our government's experts.

There is no point in playing down just how serious it is.

I will leave the subject there.

16 minutes ago, fatcat04 said:

Truth is, medicine doesn't know that.

 

 

It is a novel virus: it is new and so there can be no existing immunity to it. This is the clear advice from our experts who have long and distinguished experience of dealing with viral issues around the world.

On 3/12/2020 at 1:40 AM, dot73 said:

The U.K. is exempted so U.S. citizens will just fly to London from various parts of Europe and fly home. 

They don't need to. They are exempted from the EU/Schengen ban.

On 3/11/2020 at 2:20 PM, blackfoot said:

Sad, this is a media event- it's the latest version of the FLU! This flu season( 2019/2020) 19,000 have died( approx 120/day) in the USA- and this Flu season is considered to mild- These are the facts and not sourced by CNN!

Covid-19 is not flu. There is some immunity to flu in the population but Covid-19 is a novel virus and there is zero immunity to it. It is much more dangerous than flu and to downplay that is not helpful.

We have seen the lights on several occasions in several different locations and have seen green, silver (grey?) and red with the naked eye. Beautiful!

You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank.

For those who haven't a clue what this is about...

https://www.google.co.uk/url?q=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DVKHFZBUTA4k&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiRjfOfqvHdAhUL04MKHUOKAqwQtwIwAXoECAoQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2pOZi8mgnSO9FQtj6RJDB0

Yes it is easy to launch into a spiel of a Monty Python nature - "Rough? You don't know rough" !

AKA the Yorkshireman sketch. We're not all like that though. Well, not quite.

Don't forget that the presence of stabilisers doen't mean you will feel their benefit in all weather. If there's ice around then they are tucked out or harm's way rather than allow the ice to remove them!

Five of us have now separately pointed out that the substantive discussion in this thread is a year old, that the thread to which a (bare and unexplained) link was posted to is also a year old. Necroposting simply confuses.

So four have wasted their time as, for those who are not hard-of-reading, the first observation was clear enough.

Confusion? Dates are quite clearly displayed.

A year old? Then why bother to keep coming back to add nothing other than an expression of your disapproval which not everyone shares?

And I really must leave it there. There is little point in continuing with someone who appears to want to regulate CC and who is unable to accept that there is more than one point of view.

Very annoyed that the necessity for a doctor to sign the forms (and the detail of the questions which in some cases are well outside what a GP would know about you eg.when did you last visit a dentist, what is your aptitude, physical and endurance, for the cruise).We don't have a regular doctor at all. I expected a health declaration of course but was assuming it would be like the SS form when we went to the Arctic a few years back, detailed but but no doctor needed. As well, I can see doctors refusing to sign as they may be leaving themselves open to litigation if something went wrong. The fact that the necessity for doctor is hidden in the small print of the T &Cs and that the form is not available to view before booking is perhaps the worst thing. Undecided as to what to do now. Had we known before we probably would not have booked.:(

Access to medical help in Antarctica is neither easy nor speedy (it's very different from the Arctic) and self-declaration of fitness to travel there is not a good idea. It would be a pity if you were to deprive yourself of Antarctica because you were averse to having to visit a doctor to review your medical history and have your fitness to travel assessed.

Drake Lake on each of our trips.

Lake, or Shake, you won't know until the time and it's not worth worrying about: it's what happens on the way to the most amazing place.

No, that's done by making useful posts to live threads with relevant up-to-date information that helps other CCers.

But you have repeatedly responded in this thread, which you view as dead, and added no 'relevant up-to-date information that helps other CCers'. Despite your assertion, the thread does link to another thread and so provides a more complete picture of an issue, an issue which may repeat when weather affects travel plans as it often does.

Best to leave it there as I have better ways to spend my time.

Is it really that important? Or is this how to increase post count into the 20 thousands!

But that thread is also a year old. There's no new information in it.

There is new information in the thread as it now links to another which tells another side of the same complaint. It may be a year old but that doesn't mean it's not useful to anyone undertaking some research. That's why old threads are left available and not deleted.

Not sure why post #18 pulled up a thread a year old, and added nothing new.

Because that thread references this thread and shows that the problem wasn't quite the disaster it was presented as.

If you have an Aldi, look out for their cold weather clothing. Good value and it works.

I note from comments on FB that some of the pax currently onboard are not happy campers at missing the passage.

Then they should not have booked an *expedition* cruise!

We have had experience of this lack of understanding with expectations that the itinerary would be followed to the letter and the minute, wildlife would turn up as if we were visiting a zoo, even down to complaints that we had landed on a rocky beach!