Aus Traveller

I was told by Qantas that they were refunding the whole amount I paid for my flights (B'ne to London and New York to B'ne) and not charging cancellation fees. I did not use points. I booked through Princess EZair so I had to cancel through them. After a long wait on the phone, they said they would refund the whole lot without fees. If it goes as promised 😁 I should get the refund next week. I don't want to be stuck with a credit not knowing if or when I can use it. I was very pleased with the promise of a full refund, but I won't count my chickens until they appear in my bank statement.😁

Strangely, I got a call more than a week ago from my TA to say that the refund for my July cruise is now available. I had only paid the deposit before the sh.. hit the fan about COVID so there wasn't much to be refunded. Today I chased up Princess EZair refund for my international flights. After a run-around and long waits on the phone, I was told the full amount will be refunded immediately. Payment for my hotel in London is supposed to be non-refundable, and I was told a month ago that I would get nothing, but that I should ask again in June. The booking is through QANTAS Hotels. I asked today🙂. I intended to challenge this one through my credit card on the grounds of 'non-supply', but I was told that the whole lot will be refunded within two to three business days. I am really happy about these wins because I don't want credits. We don't know when international travel will be open again, and by the time it does, I might be 'past it'. We have another cruise to get a refund on. It was on 7th April and we have paid the full amount (35 night to Hawaii). Today they said I should phone them again next month. Obviously this one involves more money than the others and we have asked for a refund, not future cruise credit.

In Southern Australia it will be cold in winter. Depending on where you come from you might think it is very cold. However, Northern Australia is lovely in winter and the water would be warm enough to swim.

He has got his pay rise for deflecting blame from the NSW government in the immediate aftermath of the Ruby fiasco, so maybe that is why he has been quiet in recent weeks.😁

I note that the transplant patient passenger and also the lawyer from Shine Lawyers are claiming that the Ruby Princess should never have sailed. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight we would probably all agree, but other ships sailed on that day or close to that day, and they had no problem. An example was the Sea Princess that sailed the same day - no COVID. There were also P&O cruises leaving within a couple of days of the Ruby cruise, but P&O have virtually no international passengers. That was the main difference. There would have been around 900 or more passengers on the Ruby from USA, UK and a few other countries.

I agree with your comment that if the passengers had been held on board the Ruby Princess, it would not have made much difference to the total number of infections in Australia. Quite a while ago, the number of secondary infections in Australia was quoted as 19 people. We do not know how many overseas ones there were. If the passengers were held on board until the COVID tests were done (expedited not left 36 hours), then they would have been mixing and waiting in the public areas, going to the buffet and the dining room etc. Their luggage would already have been collected for disembarkation, so they would not have stayed in their cabins unless ordered to do so. You are correct in saying that there would have been more transmissions within the 2,600 or so passengers. If the passengers were isolated in their cabins, it is most likely there would not have been any further infections. The report by the Japanese Health authorities concludes that there was no transmission from passenger to passenger after they were confined to their cabins. There was limited transmission from passenger to Japanese medical personnel who checked them, and possibly from infected crew to a limited number of passengers.

Love your term 'granddogs'. 🙂 We were invited to our daughter's home for morning tea last Saturday, the first time we have seen her family in a long time.🙂 But, still no hugging allowed because they are still in isolation - no work and no school because of my son-in-law's compromised immune system. My little granddaughters did what they called "Grandma hugs" by wrapping their arms around themselves.

As OzKiwiJJ said, buy a suite on "The World". I don't know how many millions that will cost or what the on-going charges are.

My DIL's sister was one of Queensland's early COVID cases, being diagnosed on 9th March after arriving home from Europe two days earlier. She spent a week or so in isolation in an infectious diseases ward in hospital, then in isolation at home while being constantly tested. She was sick, very lethargic etc. She tested positive for seven weeks, even though by then she wasn't sick, just very tired. After the first four weeks, she was told she was no longer infectious, but she continued to take precautions as if she was until she tested negative.

Our Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said "We believe she got it on the Ruby Princess".

I didn't see any promos, but the 'transplant' passenger stood out to me because of her vehement criticism of Princess when she had chosen not to go to the medical centre, even though passengers were asked to do so if they had symptoms. I am sorry she became ill, but she may have passed the virus on to others.

The woman with COVID got off the Ruby Princess nearly 10 weeks ago. Very strange.

This is the news report: QUEENSLAND Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has revealed there has been one new case of coronavirus recorded in QLD overnight. The case is confirmed as a Cairns woman who was a passenger of the Ruby Princess and is being “monitoring closely”. Ms Palaszczuk said authorities were still trying to work out whether her case stemmed from the cruise ship or whether she contracted it in Cairns. “At the moment we are thinking it was from the Ruby Princess,” the Premier said. The state’s total is at 1057, with 12 active cases. It is truly scarey if someone could be incubating COVID for more than 9 weeks before they became ill. This would be ground-breaking information for medical researchers to understand the disease. Of course, the fact that she was a passenger on the Ruby might have nothing to do with her infection.

Agreed. I seem to recall that Brandee who was on that cruise, reported that they received six separate written health advisories. We were on the Sea Princess from 23rd Feb to 8th March and we received several notices. We were warned to expect delays in disembarkation because the ship expected health checks by government officials: there were none.

Using the link provided above, I read the transcript from the Commission of Inquiry. There is a lot of interesting information. I felt the doctor was at a disadvantage because she was being interview in a location where the IT people on the ship could facilitate the video link, but the medical records they kept asking her about were only accessible on the computers in the Medical Centre. Maybe she should have anticipated these questions and taken hard copies of these records with her when she went to do the interview. The poor quality of the video link made it difficult for everyone involved. One point regarding the Police Commissioner's 'sneezing waiter' theory, the doctor referred to two crew members who had a high temperature at the end of the cruise. One was from Italy and one was from Thailand, both countries that could be a source of COVID. However, they had both been on the ship for months. They could not have been the original source of the infection.