Here’s the bottom line on deciding to cruise for now

[farawayatsea]

I would be careful who you're standing beside before you take a deep breath!!

[bama4cruisin]

Thank you!  Well said!

[Jim_Iain]

9 hours ago, goofysmom99 said:

Today I realized my TA wouldn't be paid if I were to cancel now.  I'm hoping that if I do have to cancel at the 11th hour, she will have received commission.  This is her entire livelihood.  This is so awful for so very many.  I realize I have it easy and need to quit thinking so much about myself.  

 

•  

 

Very good point but in reality I believe she will not get her commission regardless of timing if you cancel and get a refund.    While you may have paid your cruise in full I believe (and could be wrong) that the commission is not payable until you take the cruise.    Even if paid, I would suspect they would claw it back as the cruise line would be compensating an agent and not receiving a purchase to pay the commission on.

 

 

[villauk]

12 hours ago, julia said:

Finally...  please think globally. To cruise or not is a first world problem

 

 

Yes, especially after you read this sobering story from an Italian doctor - deciding to cruise or not seems so insignificant:

https://nypost.com/2020/03/10/italian-doctor-at-heart-of-illness-shares-chilling-coronavirus-thoughts/

[goofysmom99]

8 minutes ago, Jim_Iain said:

 

Very good point but in reality I believe she will not get her commission regardless of timing if you cancel and get a refund.    While you may have paid your cruise in full I believe (and could be wrong) that the commission is not payable until you take the cruise.    Even if paid, I would suspect they would claw it back as the cruise line would be compensating an agent and not receiving a purchase to pay the commission on.

 

 

Looks like agents will now be protected if cancellation is past 100% penalty point.  That's a relief!

[Jim_Iain]

Just now, goofysmom99 said:

Looks like agents will now be protected if cancellation is past 100% penalty point.  That's a relief!

That is a nice.    I had not heard that  and I'm sure the agents appreciate being compensated after all of their hard work.

 

[jcpc]

20 minutes ago, Jim_Iain said:

 

Very good point but in reality I believe she will not get her commission regardless of timing if you cancel and get a refund.    While you may have paid your cruise in full I believe (and could be wrong) that the commission is not payable until you take the cruise.    Even if paid, I would suspect they would claw it back as the cruise line would be compensating an agent and not receiving a purchase to pay the commission on.

 

 

In the past Celebrity would pay agency commissions after final payment was made and prior to the actual sail date.  I believe commission payments were made bi-weekly.  If a particular cruise was not taken and money was refunded,  the agency would get a commission recall statement from Celebrity and the recall amount was deducted from the next payment the agency received from Celebrity.  In the "old days" when you could get a a reduction in fare after final payment was made the commission recall statements were plentiful!!  If the cancelled cruise was in 100% penalty phase (i.e. no money returned to customer) then the agency kept the commission money.  Of course, all this may have changed in recent years.

Edited March 10, 2020 by jcpc

[happy cruzer]

We cancelled a refundable deposit cruise for Aug 2020.  Having the flu on a couple of cruises in the past and seeing the quarantine/restrictions in place when many have the flu, helped us decide not to risk it at this time.  Also do not want that deposit hanging out there if the cruise lines have financial trouble.  Gambling that the price to travel will go down when we decide to do so.

 

Totally agree, if you are at risk, don't cruise.

If you don't want to risk quarantine, then you need to decide if cruising at this time is a good idea.

 

For us, we will not cruise until things are more settled.  If it never settles out, we will never cruise again.

 

Just like there a multiple options in cruising such as which line to cruise, there are travel/vacation options.

 

Just wondering what the lines will do to survive?  Price reduction, better cancellation policies (already seeing this), better sanitation efforts, etc.?  They need to do something to confindence the public that cruising has no more risk than other forms of travel.  What will happen to costs vs. land based options?

[happy cruzer]

Love the idea of taking a deep breath; however some of the advice is not logical.

 

Stay off the phone, well.... How about using email to cancel?  Did so this morning. 

 

Worrying about the TA or the cruise lines' bottom line.... not so much they did not worry when business was good and raised prices.  Bottomline - travel is a business that has ups and downs; including the possibility of bankruptcy (in which you could lose your deposit).

 

We all have different concerns.  Overall the idea to calm down and think logically is sound.

[katrina915]

Yes.  And can we start hearing good things?  Cruises that are going, land trips, etc...

[OuiOnboard]

25 minutes ago, happy cruzer said:

Worrying about the TA or the cruise lines' bottom line.... not so much they did not worry when business was good and raised prices.  Bottomline - travel is a business that has ups and downs; including the possibility of bankruptcy (in which you could lose your deposit).

You pretty much summed my position. The key word is BUSINESS...no more..no less..nothing personal.

[lostchild]

12 hours ago, goofysmom99 said:

Today I realized my TA wouldn't be paid if I were to cancel now.  I'm hoping that if I do have to cancel at the 11th hour, she will have received commission.  This is her entire livelihood.  This is so awful for so very many.  I realize I have it easy and need to quit thinking so much about myself.  

 

•  

My TA is Costco Travel.  I think it is okay if Costco does not make any commission from my cancellations as they have already made enough from selling all the toilet papers!

[markeb]

Looks like we've had thread merge, which was probably inevitable, although the parent thread now is the bottom line on deciding to cruise and the child thread was the try to be positive thread. Oh, well.

 

I tend to stay out of these threads. I'm not a physician; Homo sapiens is not a species I can diagnose or treat, and no one should take too much medical advice from an unknown screen name with a Bruce Springsteen avatar. The rest of the zoological world has a lot of Coronaviruses...

 

This is from the Washington Post; I saw a similar article on NBC today, but haven't looked for others. I do expect more of this. I'd like to see a letter to the editor in the New England Journal or Lancet, but haven't yet. It's something that those of us who've had any experience with Coronaviruses in any species have been wondering about and concerned about. Right now, it's just another data point, and needs to be understood fully, but it may complicate decisions for the "healthy pick a decade cruiser".

 

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/10/coronavirus-is-mysteriously-sparing-kids-killing-elderly-understanding-why-may-help-defeat-virus/

 

Part of this is very much why overly equating the disease with influenza is dangerous. Influenza kills the young and old disproportionately, and that's generally explained by the maturity and competence of the immune system. COVID-19, like SARS, is sparing children, although they do apparently get the virus and may well be able to transmit. There are probably multiple factors involved in the "healthy pick a decade" case fatality rates (to avoid the over 70 argument that occured in another thread), and research will probably ultimately show that some had concurrent disease, some had smoking related pathology, and some had lung damage (especially in China) from pollution, but the preliminary concern of researchers is that the disease has an "inappropriate immune response" component. Too much of the wrong response. That's probably not immunosuppression, although immunosuppression with age may still play a role, but it's something seen in a lot of the more severe coronaviruses. One theory mentioned briefly here is that the immature immune system of the very young doesn't allow that inappropriate response (there are other possible  reasons as well; it may seem like this has been going on forever, but we're very early in understanding both the virus and the disease). If it holds, understanding your individual risk of severe disease, as differentiated from infection, will be much more complicated. It also may open the door on treatments aimed at controlling the response, not necessarily the virus. Unfortunately parts of this phenomena have also complicated most efforts to make a Coronavirus vaccine.

 

Presented as a data point for awareness. If you're in an age related risk category, right now no one has an answer for you. But watch and listen and understand the risk decisions you're making thinking flu or noro may be more challenging as more data comes out. The good news is some of the hysteria is dropping off, and some thoughtful, preliminary research is getting into the media. Which does fit the theme of slow down and think logically.