Are we sailing? The silence is deafening :(

[Cruizlovers]

Maybe this has been addressed in another post but I've not seen it.  We are booked on the Edge April 19th to ROME from Ft. Lauderdale.  I cannot find any information about cancellation or rerouting of this transatlantic voyage.  Communication with our travel agent has been very generic and NO communication from Celebrity.  I understand they are inundated but anything is better than nothing in terms of passenger confidence and planning.  Anyone on their transatlantic have any communication directly from their travel agent or Celebrity?  Thanks in advance!

[Fouremco]

As the website is still taking bookings and as Celebrity's restrictions only encompasses travel in Northern Italy, I'd say it's still a go as of today. If the CDC and Department of State expand their current travel advisories to include Rome, I'm sure you'll see Celebrity follow suit, in which case they will either change the disembarkation port to Barcelona, or elsewhere in the Med, or will cancel the cruise. The latter possibility is far less likely IMO.

[NordicPrince]

Yesterday the U.S State Department issued a Level 3 travel advisory about travel to Italy. Travel to Italy is to be avoided due to serious risk risk to health - period.. That should give you all the information you need to know

[Hllb]

25 minutes ago, NordicPrince said:

Yesterday the U.S State Department issued a Level 3 travel advisory about travel to Italy. Travel to Italy is to be avoided due to serious risk risk to health - period.. That should give you all the information you need to know

That really doesn't. Until Celebrity cancels the cruise, the OP won't know if they get their money back, or get diverted somewhere else.  Getting diverted throws a major wrench into other travel plans.

[kenevenpar]

26 minutes ago, NordicPrince said:

Yesterday the U.S State Department issued a Level 3 travel advisory about travel to Italy. Travel to Italy is to be avoided due to serious risk risk to health - period.. That should give you all the information you need to know

I believe the wording is nonessential travel.

[Fouremco]

19 minutes ago, NordicPrince said:

Yesterday the U.S State Department issued a Level 3 travel advisory about travel to Italy. Travel to Italy is to be avoided due to serious risk risk to health - period.. That should give you all the information you need to know

To be accurate, the Department of State issued a revised, two-level advisory, a Level 3 (Reconsider Travel) for Italy as a whole, and a Level 4 (Do Not Travel) for the Northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto.

 

[BigAl94]

Italy reports 466 new cases of coronavirus and 27 new deaths, raising total to 2,502 cases and 79 dead

[Jim_Iain]

35 minutes ago, kenevenpar said:

I believe the wording is nonessential travel.

 

And the other word is "Reconsider".   This doesn't diminish the OP concerns but I don't think Celebrity will make any announcement until closer to the cruise.  

 

Personally I feel the cruises will continue but may depart from a different port and may have a modification of itinerary.

 

Edited March 3, 2020 by Jim_Iain

[RickT]

To the OP, while everyone appreciates your concern you need to understand Celebrity (and the world) is dealing with an issue not seen since SARS with information changing daily.  Any change/update Celebrity would make now would be based purely on speculation.

 

While it may be of little consolation to you, things will become clearer the closer you get to your sail date.  Ultimately that won’t help you sleep at night but Celebrity will do their best to make the right callas soon as they can.  You are also in a position to make the right call for yourself but I suspect it would be prudent to wait.

 

Good luck.

[MamaFej]

OP, if you haven't already, you might want to consider joining your cruise's roll call. In my experience, any changes made to cruises get reported in the roll call almost as soon as the very first person hears about them. 

 

Good luck to you.

[angela miller]

I have just gotten off the phone with Celebrity for the third time. I called them 2 days ago and was told That I could move reservation because of the circumstances  without penalty, but I would need to go through my travel agent. My travel agent then called and was told no. I called again and was told a supervisor would call me... they did not. Just got off the phone with them again. This time got through to a supervisor. She said at this time the cruise is still scheduled and Celebrity is aware of the latest developments, I had been given the wrong information that I could reschedule. Interestingly she said Celebrity does not have Italy as a Travel 3 advisory against travel.

[Cruizlovers]

As the OP, my frustration remains intact despite all the good (and not so good) advise.  Yes, we have read all of the official websites and realize that a visit to Rome is probably not a great idea unless something changes.  My point is that there is no communication from Celebrity and obviously calling Celebrity directly and getting wrong information is disconcerting at the least.  I am hearing crickets from my travel agent.  Some of us have plans that involve arrangements other than the cruise i.e. airline reservations, hotel reservations and for us three AirBnB reservations (paid) in Rome, Florence and Venice.  These are things that are our responsibility but we as of today are in limbo on what to do.  Just venting at this point I guess.  Thanks for listening.  Good luck to all of us! 

[Fouremco]

3 minutes ago, angela miller said:

Interestingly she said Celebrity does not have Italy as a Travel 3 advisory against travel.

That's consistent with CDC and State's advisories for Italy as a whole. The Veneto and Lombardy regions are of greater concern to these agencies, as reflected in their most recent advisories. Celebrity's Travel Alert actually goes a bit further, and includes the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy as well.

[jelayne]

OP we are on the same cruise and this topic has been heavily discussed on the Roll Call since day the virus started spreading.    We are cautiously moving forward with planning for the cruise.  If and when Celebrity changes the itinerary or cancels the cruise then we can alter our plans. 

Calling Celebrity is a futile exercise, should there be a change they will send a notice to your TA who is responsible for communicating with you.  As Mama Fej said the first person on the Roll Call who hears of a change will post it.

 

In the meantime come join us on the Roll Call lots of fun activities are being planned for our sea days.

[jelayne]

8 minutes ago, Cruizlovers said:

As the OP, my frustration remains intact despite all the good (and not so good) advise.  Yes, we have read all of the official websites and realize that a visit to Rome is probably not a great idea unless something changes.  My point is that there is no communication from Celebrity and obviously calling Celebrity directly and getting wrong information is disconcerting at the least.  I am hearing crickets from my travel agent.  Some of us have plans that involve arrangements other than the cruise i.e. airline reservations, hotel reservations and for us three AirBnB reservations (paid) in Rome, Florence and Venice.  These are things that are our responsibility but we as of today are in limbo on what to do.  Just venting at this point I guess.  Thanks for listening.  Good luck to all of us! 

 

 Many of the folks on the TA cruise have post cruise plans some are planning to go with the plans they have others are changing or like us cancelling our post cruise plans..  We have cancelled our trip to Milan & fortunately we had a refundable hotel & our air home was booked with miles so just a charge to reinstate the miles.  We do have some non-refundable expenses and they were committed to prior to the virus so they will be covered by our insurance, if in fact Milan is still a Level 3 or 4 at the time we were to be there.   We decided we would not be comfortable going to Milan even if the virus had slowed down significantly so we cancelled those plans.

[Silkroad]

19 minutes ago, Fouremco said:

That's consistent with CDC and State's advisories for Italy as a whole. The Veneto and Lombardy regions are of greater concern to these agencies, as reflected in their most recent advisories. Celebrity's Travel Alert actually goes a bit further, and includes the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy as well.

Actually both the CDC and US State Department have Italy at level 3 as of 29 February, and the State Department has the Veneto  and Lombardy regions at level 4, so I am surprised that Celebrity hasn’t updated their records.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Silkroad

[Fouremco]

3 minutes ago, Cruizlovers said:

My point is that there is no communication from Celebrity and obviously calling Celebrity directly and getting wrong information is disconcerting at the least.  I am hearing crickets from my travel agent.

What exactly would you like Celebrity or your TA to do? At this point in time, the cruise has neither been cancelled nor modified, so what information would you like Celebrity to send you? Would life be any easier if you got an email today confirming that the cruise is still scheduled? Your TA hasn't provided you with updated information either, because there is no updated information to be provided.

 

I appreciate the fact that you are venting, but you need to ask yourself why. You seem to be upset about the lack of communication, but at this point there's simply nothing to communicate. In the mean time, go join @jelayne and @MamaFej on the roll call.

 

 

[Fouremco]

2 minutes ago, Silkroad said:

Actually both the CDC and US State Department have Italy at level 3 as of 29 February, and the State Department has the Veneto  and Lombardy regions at level 4.

Yes, exactly as I laid out in post #6. The approach taken in Celebrity's Travel Alert is consistent with these advisories.

[Silkroad]

2 minutes ago, Fouremco said:

Yes, exactly as I laid out in post #6. The approach taken in Celebrity's Travel Alert is consistent with these advisories.

I understand. It was your response to Post #13 that confused me, because that person stated that Celebrity was not at level 3🙂

[Fouremco]

1 minute ago, Silkroad said:

I understand. It was your response to Post #13 that confused me, because that person stated that Celebrity was not at level 3🙂

As Celebrity doesn't actually use levels, but instead bases the actions it takes on the government advisories, I purposefully said that its Travel Alert was "consistent with" the advisories. My intent was to avoid confusion, not create it.

[MamaFej]

@Fouremco, I'm not on this sailing, I was just trying to be helpful. I've found roll calls to be a wealth of information. Indeed that's how I met @jelayne as she and I have similar (great) tastes in cruises, and have three booked together next fall. We've never planned to cruise together, it has just worked out that way.

 

We will be on one of the new Millennium sailings at the time of this Trans-Atlantic. At least, I think I will. Stuff could change between now and then, but it's a while from now, and much could change between now and then. Stressing out over it won't change what will happen or not happen. 

[mnocket]

My bet is that they already know they will re-route to avoid Italy, but will wait until you are halfway across the Atlantic before they will announce the itinerary change.

[az_tchr]

2 hours ago, RickT said:

To the OP, while everyone appreciates your concern you need to understand Celebrity (and the world) is dealing with an issue not seen since SARS with information changing daily.  Any change/update Celebrity would make now would be based purely on speculation.

 

While it may be of little consolation to you, things will become clearer the closer you get to your sail date.  Ultimately that won’t help you sleep at night but Celebrity will do their best to make the right callas soon as they can.  You are also in a position to make the right call for yourself but I suspect it would be prudent to wait

 

Good luck.

It is a bit over 6 weeks till your cruise. A lot can and likely will happen between today and sailing date. Nobody has any idea what the future will bring regarding Corona.

Thus, I ask a question- What would you like them to say? Would them saying, as of today we have no idea what the situation will be in the future for Corona, be helpful?

A change if needed is not likely before 3/17 - 30 days out.

Edited March 3, 2020 by az_tchr

[cruiserchuck]

Celebrity presumably does not know if the cruise is going to take place.  Plus, any delay in modifying/cancelling the cruise benefits them, so there is not much reason for them to do anything now.  I assume they are hoping things get better soon, and the cruise can take place as scheduled.  

[Ontario Cruiser]

Please don't keep phoning Celebrity. Your TA wil be notified as soon as they know. We are on the Infinity crossing April 25th and we will accept where ever they go. Need a vacation where we don't cook our meals or make our beds.

So be patient and check your rollcall.

Sherrill OntarioCruiser