Are you afraid of the coronavirus in your next cruise?

[Christine13020]

54 minutes ago, Ava79 said:

...and what if the cookie says that it's better to go to China? 'Cause there aren't many tourists there now, and sellers of cookies need to earn money!

Have fun and enjoy! You are sure to be avoiding crowds but good luck getting a flight back home.

[Ava79]

22 hours ago, Christine13020 said:

Have fun and enjoy! You are sure to be avoiding crowds but good luck getting a flight back home.

Lol perfect 🙂
Btw maybe it's not right to tell this but people who live in huge tourist destinations can sigh with relief without big noisy crowds of tourists now

[Toofarfromthesea]

6 hours ago, Ava79 said:

Lol perfect 🙂
Btw maybe it's not right to tell this but people who live in huge tourist destinations can sigh with relief without big noisy crowds of tourists now

 

And moan in suffering, because without that big noisy crowd of tourists some of them will have a much harder time feeding their families.  

[Boatsie]

Is there anyone who is 75+ years old and has a cruise booked between now and the end of May 2020 going on the cruise and not considering cancelling it?

[That sinking feeling]

9 hours ago, Ava79 said:

Lol perfect 🙂
Btw maybe it's not right to tell this but people who live in huge tourist destinations can sigh with relief without big noisy crowds of tourists now

Do you actually like cruising? Really?

[CruiserBruce]

Did you see the banner across the top of the boards about not starting new corona virus threads? There are many threads on considering your options.

[flamomo]

We have not cancelled our TA, FLL to Southampton, visiting Iceland and Shetland Islands on the way, that begins May 24th.

I am 80 and my travel companion is 77. We are both healthy and active. Plus we are both retired RNs who have cared for many patients with infectious diseases during our lengthy careers, so feel we are knowledgeable about how to take care of ourselves and how to reduce the chances of getting sick from shipboard illnesses.

As things stand at this point, we are not considering cancelling, but understand that, as time goes by and the trending of the spread of the virus, there could be a point where we might feel it necessary to do so.

[idraconis]

That was a prefect and well stated answer. 

[John Bull]

I don't think age has got much to do with it. 

 

If you read the various threads on the subject you'll see that the vast vast majority who are re-thinking their options aren't so concerned about risks to their health, they're far more concerned about their plans being thrown into confusion by flight cancellations, cruise cancellations, port cancellations, and most significant of all the risk of being quarantined in a cabin for days-on-end while the ship sails in circles before disembarkation in a port- or even a country - other than the one for which they'd made onward travel arrangements.

 

Screwed-up plans would actually be less-onerous on the 80+ age group. 

Whilst nobody wants their vacation to be extended by quarantine or screwed-up travel arrangements, there can't be many 80 year-olds who have to be back home for work or school commitments.

 

I'm in a high-risk age group but even if the number of folk infected multiplied by 100 the chances of that including me or my partner would be one in 8,000. And the risk of my demise one in 130,000. That's a risk I'm prepared to take, especially since stay-at-home is no guarantee of avoiding infection.

 

But the potential risks of cancellations, restrictions and associated grief are far far greater than the risk to health.

If we already had a cruise booked & paid-for, especially a low-risk one like flamomo's, we certainly wouldn't cancel. 

But we're not committed to any travel plans at the moment, and that's the way it'll stay until this pandemic turns the corner. Such travel as we'll do in the meantime we'll book at short-notice to avoid disappointment and wasted money. The risks to health won't come into our equation.

 

As per Bruce's comment, all this is pretty obvious already from the multiple threads on the subject.

Perhaps Cruise Critic might automatically switch any OP that mentions coronavirus or Covid-19 all into one combined monster thread. If it doesn't crash the site   

 

JB 

  

[chipmaster]

Europe likely to go into recession, China lost a full quarter, of course POTUS says all is fine.  

 

I'd say cruising will be in the dumps as an industry for at least 1/2 year or more and airlines too, will be interesting to see if bailout will include them or not.

 

I for one will cruise again when I'm confident that the ports don't get shut down, and I won't be locked down for 14 days on ship then another 14 days when I get home.   That will be at least a year or more before this FUBAR situation settles down, no crusing till 2021 for me, unless something amazing comes 

[TravelinGert]

On 2/27/2020 at 8:39 PM, clo said:

Really? I guess I missed that. In addition, people need to realize that there may never be a vaccine. HIV? Viruses (and bacteria) mutate.

A world famous epidemiologist did an interview and said Covid-19 has already mutated several times. I don't recall the exact number he said, but it was less than ten. He said so far all the mutations have utilized the same connection points to human cells so one vaccine would be sufficient for all.

[Leafpeeper]

We took a cruise late February to the ABC islands.   No fear from me.  I think this whole issue is vastly overblown.   We survived the swine flu in 1976 which had extremely severe symptoms.  

 

Why do so many people die from the flu each year?  Probably because they have pre existing health issues. Elderly and infants are always at risk.  I think it is crazy to close down every activity because of a virus unless it has a high mortality rate among people who are not elderly.  

 

Not canceling my trip to Vegas, Tahoe, Glacier National Park and Washington this Spring.

[Harry Peterson]

16 minutes ago, Leafpeeper said:

We took a cruise late February to the ABC islands.   No fear from me.  I think this whole issue is vastly overblown.   We survived the swine flu in 1976 which had extremely severe symptoms.  

 

Why do so many people die from the flu each year?  Probably because they have pre existing health issues. Elderly and infants are always at risk.  I think it is crazy to close down every activity because of a virus unless it has a high mortality rate among people who are not elderly.  

 

Not canceling my trip to Vegas, Tahoe, Glacier National Park and Washington this Spring.

In purely economic terms, you may be right.  There's a cost to protecting people over 60, and the immuno-compromised, and those with existing health conditions, from being killed by this virus.  Much like there's a cost to providing medical care of any sort to people who can't afford to pay.

 

It's a value judgment, isn't it?  Do you pay the financial price or just watch thousands of people die?  Could also be a political judgment......

[crzndeb]

328 million people in the US and 40 deaths.

 

Come on!!

 

And most of those are 10 miles from me. I wash my hands and am not afraid. And BTW, I am in high risk category.

Edited March 13, 2020 by crzndeb

[flyingron]

What I hand't expected was the number of our friends who treat us as pariahs having just returned from a vacation (we actually got off the ship three weeks ago, but we were driving around Australia in the interim).    Some of my wife's associates got outright nasty that she wouldn't just self quarantine herself for the duration.

[cruisemom42]

55 minutes ago, crzndeb said:

328 million people in the US and 40 deaths.

 

Come on!!

 

And most of those are 10 miles from me. I wash my hands and am not afraid. And BTW, I am in high risk category.

 

When I arrived in Italy for a vacation on February 17, there were 0 reported cases of coronavirus (not counting two Chinese tourists visiting Rome). Now there are over 15,000 cases and over 1,000 deaths -- and an additional 1,000+ cases are being reported daily.  This is just taking hold in the US (which has a population about 5x greater than Italy).  People don't seem to understand that there is an exponential growth once the virus gets a certain toehold in the community.

 

Other factors are involved as to whether or not we will see the kind of disaster here that Italy is experiencing, but I certainly would count on a lot more cases than we currently have.

 

(And at the request of my company when I returned, I self-quarantined for 14 days. I thought, and still think, it was overkill, but I try to be sympathetic to the health concerns of others who may not be as healthy as I am.)

 

Edited March 13, 2020 by cruisemom42

[Cee_Jay]

Flyingron needs to look at some official figures.....currently 138,271 cases reported,  of those 62,470 are open and 75,801 are closed.  Of the closed cases 70719 have been cleared and 5,042 have died.  The death rate has just gone up to 7%.  It is virtually imopssible at the moment to get a handle on the numbers since infection spreads before one shows symptoms. Some countries have better health systems than others so yes, some will beat those numbers, just pray your country is one of them or you are looking at seven figure deaths

[Hlitner]

17 hours ago, Leafpeeper said:

We took a cruise late February to the ABC islands.   No fear from me.  I think this whole issue is vastly overblown.   We survived the swine flu in 1976 which had extremely severe symptoms.  

 

Why do so many people die from the flu each year?  Probably because they have pre existing health issues. Elderly and infants are always at risk.  I think it is crazy to close down every activity because of a virus unless it has a high mortality rate among people who are not elderly.  

 

Not canceling my trip to Vegas, Tahoe, Glacier National Park and Washington this Spring.

You may take your trip, but you might find much of Vegas and Glacier National Park closed.  Only time will tell.  There is also a fallacy to your thoughts on closing things down.  A big problem with COVID-19 are the high number of hospital beds needed which must meet isolation standards. Closing down large gathering places slows down the spread of the virus and gives some relief to hospitals and medical workers.  Consider a situation where a person of any age must wait hours for an ambulance to respond to their auto accident, find themselves standing in a long queue outside of a hospital to get treated, etc   And while you may have no fear traveling to the ABC islands, they might have fear of you coming to their island.

 

Hank

[euro cruiser]

I do think there is a lot of overreacting, the supermarkets and big box stores around New York City look like there is (or is expected) a zombie apocalypse.  

 

That said,  I am concerned about those with a cavalier attitude.  I had hoped that when the president and Fox news finally came around to admitting that this is serious that the "it's not an issue" stuff would start to fade.  Not like a coming apocalypse, but as something serious that we're all in together.

[Hlitner]

1 hour ago, euro cruiser said:

I do think there is a lot of overreacting, the supermarkets and big box stores around New York City look like there is (or is expected) a zombie apocalypse.  

 

That said,  I am concerned about those with a cavalier attitude.  I had hoped that when the president and Fox news finally came around to admitting that this is serious that the "it's not an issue" stuff would start to fade.  Not like a coming apocalypse, but as something serious that we're all in together.

DD lives in NYC and texted us a picture of the huge check-out line, this morning, in the 14th St Trader Joes.   Even getting toilet paper is difficult.  Governor Cuomo was on TV this morning with his own warning that folks should prepare for 6-9 months of COVID-19 problems. Folks need to take a deep breath, calm down, and act rationally.   Like most crises this shall past and will eventually be an ugly memory.

 

Hank

[pacruise804]

1 hour ago, Hlitner said:

DD lives in NYC and texted us a picture of the huge check-out line, this morning, in the 14th St Trader Joes.   Even getting toilet paper is difficult.  Governor Cuomo was on TV this morning with his own warning that folks should prepare for 6-9 months of COVID-19 problems. Folks need to take a deep breath, calm down, and act rationally.   Like most crises this shall past and will eventually be an ugly memory.

 

Hank

 

It's not easy here in PA either 😉 Some stores are completely out and others have instituted rationing.

 

I just saw on a CNBC article that NY Governor Cuomo is banning gatherings of more than 500 people.  Does that mean Port of NY is closed?

 

 

 

[chipmaster]

16 hours ago, crzndeb said:

328 million people in the US and 40 deaths.

 

Come on!!

 

And most of those are 10 miles from me. I wash my hands and am not afraid. And BTW, I am in high risk category.

 

A good read for you 

 

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

 

Sadly the US started mitigation too late, we are a few weeks away from an Italy situation in 4 to 5 states, will be sad, the situation is already cast and set.

 

With National Emergency today, suspect National Guard and other agency activation and response as "necessary"

 

Edited March 13, 2020 by chipmaster

[Leafpeeper]

When more people die from Corona than the flu, then I will take it seriously.   Doubt that will happen with Spring approaching and people outdoors every day.  

 

Swine Flu was much more serious to me cuz it was killing every age group.  People over 80 are at high risk for death every day.  I am guessing more will die from falling.  

 

Looking forward to seeing my son in Vegas for Memorial Day and my sister in WA state in June.   BTW, National Parks were recommended for Spring Breakers cuz activities are outdoors.  I assume that the Beaches near me on Cape Cod will be packed this summer.  Restaurants near us are busy this week, which really amazed me.  People probably need a drink to relax.  Don't worry.  Be Happy!!!

[sfaaa]

4 hours ago, pacruise804 said:

 

It's not easy here in PA either 😉 Some stores are completely out and others have instituted rationing.

 

 

 

 

 

When stores are out of beer & wine, that's when I will go into code 3 panic mode.

[Leafpeeper]

  I think we stayed in Lynnwood last time we visited my sister in Everett.  Hope to stop at Tulalip while we are there.  Gonna take the Mukilteo Ferry.  Hope the whales don't blow their germs on me!