Deployment 2021-22 booking season begins

[MichellePerth]

4 hours ago, Saab4444 said:

Not in 2020!

Ovation 2020 fjords 

[Jack McGowan]

1 minute ago, MichellePerth said:

Ovation is quantum class and I personally cruised the fjords on her in 2019. She is doing the fjords this season as well. 

Oh sorry I meant the Norwegian Fjords

[Saab4444]

3 hours ago, MichellePerth said:

Ovation 2020 fjords 

We talked about possible Southampton departures and Norwegian Fjords.

[travelgoddess1]

I sincerely hope that none of you ever has your home defended by firefighters.  IMO, they deserve more than a free cruise.

[geoff2802]

Link to thread for anyone interested in the re-deployment of Quantum: 

I think she will leave the region for months at least.  

Perhaps they will bring forward her deployment to Alaska by a year, after a break to mitigate any risk of virus on board.  I can't see them offering a repo cruise departing from any port in Asia, regardless of where she is going.  

The timing might allow for some US west coast cruises though.  

Not sure if they can secure the necessary Alaskan approvals and port slots at short notice.  

Edited February 16, 2020 by geoff2802

[geoff2802]

Update... It now appears that Quantum is relocating to home port in LA for a while.  

[twangster]

Millennium has added some new Pacific Northwest and Alaska starting April 20.  Some nice itineraries and good prices.  Those are after she does the free cruises for first responders operating from CA.

 

Quantum is showing in the app that she is moving to Los Angeles.  She still has her originally scheduled cruises listed but now also lists some LA based cruises overlapping with the original Singapore cruises as shown in the app.  

 

March 8 - 12 Singapore  
March 9 - 13 Los Angeles next port Catalina
March 13 - 18 Singapore
March 16 - 20 Los Angeles next port Catalina
March 18 - 22 Singapore
March 20 - 23 Los Angeles next port Ensenada 
March 22 - 27 Singapore
March 23 - 27  Los Angeles next port Catalina
March 27 - 30 Singapore
March 30 - Apr 3  Los Angeles next port Catalina
Mar 31 - Apr 3 Singapore
Apr 3 - 6 Los Angeles next port Ensenada 

 

Perhaps they'll have Quantum do some Pacific Northwest and Alaska runs as well in the same time frame as Millie.

 

Or perhaps it's a Royal tech glitch and Quantum isn't coming to America at all.

Edited February 16, 2020 by twangster

[mugtech]

Would love to travel Asia to LA, but guessing the TP will be passengerless.

[WaveSplasher]

7 hours ago, twangster said:

Millennium has added some new Pacific Northwest and Alaska starting April 20.  Some nice itineraries and good prices.  Those are after she does the free cruises for first responders operating from CA.

 

Quantum is showing in the app that she is moving to Los Angeles.  She still has her originally scheduled cruises listed but now also lists some LA based cruises overlapping with the original Singapore cruises as shown in the app.  

 

March 8 - 12 Singapore  
March 9 - 13 Los Angeles next port Catalina
March 13 - 18 Singapore
March 16 - 20 Los Angeles next port Catalina
March 18 - 22 Singapore
March 20 - 23 Los Angeles next port Ensenada 
March 22 - 27 Singapore
March 23 - 27  Los Angeles next port Catalina
March 27 - 30 Singapore
March 30 - Apr 3  Los Angeles next port Catalina
Mar 31 - Apr 3 Singapore
Apr 3 - 6 Los Angeles next port Ensenada 

 

Perhaps they'll have Quantum do some Pacific Northwest and Alaska runs as well in the same time frame as Millie.

 

Or perhaps it's a Royal tech glitch and Quantum isn't coming to America at all.

If they are really doing this, I wonder when royal will start informing the guests who are booked on the original cruises leaving Singapore

[critterchick]

11 hours ago, geoff2802 said:

Update... It now appears that Quantum is relocating to home port in LA for a while.  

And yet Royal are still selling March cruises from Singapore. I’d love to see that change to LA.

[jbethel11]

On 2/15/2020 at 9:01 AM, travelgoddess1 said:

I sincerely hope that none of you ever has your home defended by firefighters.  IMO, they deserve more than a free cruise.

So do Police Officers and EMT! It is absurd that Royal doesn't even offer a discount for them, like MSC does (10%). I have never seen the rates go down when I apply "Police and EMT".

[jbethel11]

2 hours ago, critterchick said:

And yet Royal are still selling March cruises from Singapore. I’d love to see that change to LA.

Do you see this lasting into August 2020? Would love to sail Quantum from LA!

[twangster]

4 minutes ago, jbethel11 said:

Do you see this lasting into August 2020? Would love to sail Quantum from LA!

 

I think a lot depends how this virus evolves over the coming weeks and months.  

 

Royal's prefered direction forward is to get their ships back operating their originally scheduled cruises ASAP.  

 

If Asian ports continue to close over the coming weeks and ban cruise ships Royal will be forced into moving their ships somewhere else to offer last minute cruises and casino comps to minimize their losses.   In this scenario how the virus progresses looking through April and early May will dictate how long Royal has to keep their ships somewhere else.  

 

If the virus settles down and cases begin to drop in a significant way then they likely not do something as drastic as moving a ship to another continent.

 

What they are doing right now is a self-imposed isolation absent of guests so that these Asian based ships are "clean" for more than 14 days.  With that accomplished they can put more options on the table and see what makes the most sense as this evolves.

 

It's a fluid situation.

 

[Ourusualbeach]

12 minutes ago, twangster said:

What they are doing right now is a self-imposed isolation absent of guests so that these Asian based ships are "clean" for more than 14 days. 

Did you read about the passenger on the Westerdam who tested positive despite the ship being virus free for over 14 days.  Throws a whole new wrinkle into this 14 day period everyone has been following. 

[twangster]

Just now, Ourusualbeach said:

Did you read about the passenger on the Westerdam who tested positive despite the ship being virus free for over 14 days.  Throws a whole new wrinkle into this 14 day period everyone has been following. 

 

Yeah.  This is exactly the type of news that can cause a significant change in direction overnight. 

 

On Friday they left work thinking they had certain options on the table. This morning half of those plans will be off the table.  Time to come up with contingency plans F through I.   

[Tall-Cruiser]

7 hours ago, WaveSplasher said:

Quantum is showing in the app that she is moving to Los Angeles.

 

I'm curious as to why RCI doesn't consider sailings out of San Francisco. Since Quntum is considered a cold weather ship I would think the weather in the SF Bay Area would be better suited for it. I think Carnival and Princess sail out of SF. 

[BaikG]

I’m not sure but I also know that there aren’t a lot of cruises from SF compared to Southern California. I believe that only Princess operates 1 ship over the summer out of SF and in addition, there really isn’t anywhere to go from SF on a short cruise as the ship would have to visit Canada or Mexico to comply with the PVSA.

[ONECRUISER]

46 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

Did you read about the passenger on the Westerdam who tested positive despite the ship being virus free for over 14 days.  Throws a whole new wrinkle into this 14 day period everyone has been following. 

Agree. While ago thought there was a case of around 18day getting it after exposure. 

[MichellePerth]

3 hours ago, ONECRUISER said:

Agree. While ago thought there was a case of around 18day getting it after exposure. 

I think its more a case of someone had it and had mild symptoms or was asymptomatic.  They did pick up a lot of people from Hong Kong.  That's why they were the turned away repeatedly. 

[ONECRUISER]

21 minutes ago, MichellePerth said:

I think its more a case of someone had it and had mild symptoms or was asymptomatic.  They did pick up a lot of people from Hong Kong.  That's why they were the turned away repeatedly. 

Was in the News, cant remember exactly when. Was a traveler, not Cruise Passenger.

[Tall-Cruiser]

4 hours ago, BaikG said:

I’m not sure but I also know that there aren’t a lot of cruises from SF compared to Southern California. I believe that only Princess operates 1 ship over the summer out of SF and in addition, there really isn’t anywhere to go from SF on a short cruise as the ship would have to visit Canada or Mexico to comply with the PVSA.

 

It always seems odd that Princess, Carnival and Norwegian make it work in the West Coast yet RCI cannot (or does not want to).  The enhanced deployment in Alaska recently, i.e, the adding of Ovation seemed due to the fact that NCL brought some of is newer ships there. 

[MichellePerth]

45 minutes ago, ONECRUISER said:

Was in the News, cant remember exactly when. Was a traveler, not Cruise Passenger.

No, sorry.  What I mean is that as Hong Kong was still open to Chinese and the HK population is more likely to have it as well, that there was likely an infected person who got on at Hong Kong.  They either had mild symptoms or were completely asymptomatic and the (I believe) 83 yo American lady caught it.   

 

So people with no symptoms or very mild symptoms can go about their daily life, infecting others without being aware of it.  They can have it and get better, all without knowing they ever had it. 

This is very worrying as it means the virus can be passed on over long periods of time without anyone being aware there's a problem. 

I hope I explained myself better this time. 

 

What sort of freaks me out is I have been on ships where there has been a norovirus going around.  They will take precautions but they are really surface level.  They will only give you packets of salt and pepper in the MDR but still have menus touched by the previous diners. They also have chairs that people sit on and grab underneath to scoot forward. Do they ever sanitise the chairs, especially in those hidden areas.  IMO they need to have a massive increase in hand sanitiser stations throughout the ship.  For example, if you want to sanitise your hands between touching the tongs in the windjammer and eating your food, you have to put your food down and walk up to the front of the massive area.  There should be auto sanitising stations in every dining cluster in the windjammer.  Possibly a serenading trio in the MDR where they give those interested a squirt. 

[twangster]

31 minutes ago, Tall-Cruiser said:

 

It always seems odd that Princess, Carnival and Norwegian make it work in the West Coast yet RCI cannot (or does not want to).  The enhanced deployment in Alaska recently, i.e, the adding of Ovation seemed due to the fact that NCL brought some of is newer ships there. 

 

Carnival has often put its oldest and smallest metal in Long Beach.  They are deviating from that with Panorama but that's probably because it has been built to accept shore power.  I've looked at Princess from CA but only because they are often pretty cheap. 

 

To compete Royal would have to drop prices when that same ship can earn more elsewhere.  It makes little sense to participate in a market and lose money.  It's a matter of where can a ship make more money. 

 

There was a question if a mega ship could be successful in Alaska.  Timing also worked out because Spectrum entered the Asian market freeing up Ovation for the May - September period.  If they didn't put Spectrum in China when they did they might have not put Ovation in Alaska when they did.  NCL had success with the Bliss so with Ovation now available they slid her into Alaska the following year.  If Spectrum had been built a year or two earlier they might have beat NCL in the Alaska mega-ship race.

 

Like Alaska they might not put a mega ship like Quantum into CA when Quantum can make more money in Asia but if the ship is available with Asia closed timing might benefit the CA market.

Edited February 17, 2020 by twangster

[Tall-Cruiser]

@twangster Those are all very valid points and thanks. 

[dreadpirate3]

Hi, looking for cruises out of Tampa for fall 2021. When will those be released?