What is it going to take to restart Cruises?

[CruiserBruce]

7 minutes ago, clo said:

As someone here wrote, an MD I believe, there's no guarantee of a vaccine. Period. And what if COVID is more like the common cold for which there is no vaccine but with more dire consequences.

 

And let's face it: a cruise is a nice to have, not a need to have. No matter what anyone says. There are alternatives for vacations.

Too much focus on spread by cruising!!! Latest figures show about 550k cases in the world. I doubt cruising is responsible for 1% of those, probably not even .1%. How about air travel?

 

I have seen some recent info on the possibility of vaccine as being pretty high, as the disease thus far has not mutated much...certainly nowhere near as much as flu, which is why we need to get a different flu shot each year.

[drsel]

OP has very good points. I feel that cruises will resume a few months after the curve flattens.

[clo]

3 minutes ago, drsel said:

OP has very good points. I feel that cruises will resume a few months after the curve flattens.

And what if the curve returns? And then flattens and then returns? Like our seasonal flu but seemingly more contagious and lethal.

[drsel]

Lets hope for the best

[Hlitner]

2 hours ago, drsel said:

OP has very good points. I feel that cruises will resume a few months after the curve flattens.

Do you think that ports will magically welcome cruise ships because of a "flat curve?"  

 

Hank

[Honolulu Blue]

3 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

Too much focus on spread by cruising!!! Latest figures show about 550k cases in the world. I doubt cruising is responsible for 1% of those, probably not even .1%. How about air travel?

 

I agree with your overall points, but the Diamond Princess had over 700 cases when that quarantine ended, which is over 0.1% of the current cases by itself.  You might be able to get to 1% by counting cases that were spread by those currently on ships, those that were on the Grand Princess before and during its evacuation, the other ships that had cases and disembarked them, and those that were infected by those that were on those ships.

 

Air travel, of course, can be linked to most cases as of now because they either came back by air and picked up an infection from where they were, or they were infected on the plane or in the airport itself.  Those are much harder to track than cruise ships.

[clo]

59 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

Do you think that ports will magically welcome cruise ships because of a "flat curve?"  

 

Hank

And now we have another outbreak on another ship. 

[Hlitner]

4 minutes ago, clo said:

And now we have another outbreak on another ship. 

We assume you are referring to the HAL Zaandam and Rotterdam situation.  I fear this will quickly become a world wide story, given that there have now been 4 reported deaths on the Zaandam.  The story could easily become even bigger then the Diamond Princess stories.

 

And by the way, it is not just about ports refusing cruise ships but we now have the Panama Canal Authority refusing at least one ship permission to transit.

 

Hank

[clo]

4 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

And by the way, it is not just about ports refusing cruise ships but we now have the Panama Canal Authority refusing at least one ship permission to transit.

 

This is a very big deal IMO. Now that the 'authorities' have figured out what they need to and what they can do, they're doing it. Just like the virus itself, we've learned a whole lot in a short period of time. Remember when we used to 'elbow bump'? No joke.

Catherine

PS: I started it here because of the breadth and depth of the issue. Bigger than any one company.

Edited March 27, 2020 by clo

[chipmaster]

Vaccine, the only hope here so far is the mutations of COVID19 seem to be limited.  Unlike to cold and flue that has many variants and mutations making a cocktail vaccine less than 100% effective.  Hopefully COVID19 won't mutate much more and then the worlds collective medical come to a 99% effectiveness.

 

To start any cruise the original poster forgot the number 0.  World getting back to some normal!!!!

 

That has two phases:

Enough countries get out of outbreaks and re-outbreaks.    Even China is no where near that after four months 

Western world is where China was in January and I'd say the US states are still not uniform in doing what we need.  US will lag the rest of the world in recovery of any kind because of this

Then the Southern Hemisphere and Africa haven't even started into this.

 

Then next year we'll have a northen hemisphere resurgence.   Of course maybe we get luck and a vaccine appears.

 

Till we close the above don't even need to talk about normal leisure vacation where we put thousands of people in close proximity for a week sharing elevators, stairs, dining rooms, pools ( mostly older high risk folks ) and traveling from all over the world bring the bug /sickness dejour.

 

Cruising will not be close to anything we 've remembered every again.  Kind of like flying before 9/11 and now, cruising in 2023 will never bey like 2019, sigh.  I rather enjoyed my 2019 cruise

 

 

We will be where Italy is now in about three weeks, everyone remember Italy was barely making the news beginning of March with Lockdowns starting.   Sad what it has come to, and cruising will not be on anyone's mind for a long time. 

 

Edited March 27, 2020 by chipmaster
added two pictures

[clo]

2 minutes ago, chipmaster said:

normal leisure vacation

If I've shared this here before I apologize. This doesn't just apply to natl and state parks but really life.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/hiking-coronavirus-national-parks-communities/2020/03/24/7cd516d4-6d32-11ea-aa80-c2470c6b2034_story.html?fbclid=IwAR3nIbk3W4ga_SFauu5lM2hHtnq78JhO7EWG1jQC6nZX4eorxECTVfClEHg

PS: I'm not a germophobe. I drink tap water straight out the faucet 'almost' all over the world. But having started my professional life in a lab at CDC I listen and read and change my lifestyle.

[clo]

7 minutes ago, chipmaster said:

where Italy is now

They just saw their highest daily jump in deaths. 969

 

https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-03-27-20-intl-hnk/h_eb15b53d642a11815b9afff5d1863b37

[ed01106]

Chipmaster, You are being utterly unrealistic in your assessment we will be in the same situation as Italy in three weeks.

 

Best case it will take two weeks for the US death toll to reach 9000.  One week is more likely.

[iancal]

It is not simply the virus and time to let it run it's course.

 

There are, and there will be serious economic consequences.  These will not disappear overnight.  I expect some long lasting economic impacts.  A recessions certainly.

 

Cruises for many are not a necessity.  It may be well and good for retirees like ourselves however I suspect for many working people it may take them some time to recoup financially from this.  Not months, but perhaps a year, two years.  It will take some extremely attractive financial impacts to  get this segment on a ship in the medium and longer term IMHO.

Edited March 27, 2020 by iancal

[clo]

Just now, iancal said:

Cruises for many are not a necessity.  It may be well and good for retirees like ourselves however I suspect for many working people it may take them some time to recoup financially from this.  Not months, but perhaps a year, two years.

Again, apologies if I'm being redundant. We're retired and our IRA has lost a huge amount. When this happened in '08 one of the bigger things we did was to stop traveling. We've already canceled a cruise for Sept. for mainly that reason. The money we have is (hopefully) going to have to last a long time so we can make some sacrifices now and celebrate later. In '08 it took us 18 months to recover. 

[iancal]

That may be so.  But as retirees many of us do not any mortgage payments, loan payments, car payments, or children to support, children to help through post secondary.   Or one unemployed member of a two income family.   On our list cruising might be number 8.  On our children''s list it may be number 36.  Not to mention healthcare costs for those not covered by medicare.

 

Huge difference.

Edited March 27, 2020 by iancal

[clo]

7 minutes ago, iancal said:

That may be so.  But as retirees many of us do not any mortgage payments, loan payments, car payments, or children to support, children to help through post secondary.    On our list cruising might be number 8.  On our children''s list it may be number 36,

 

Huge difference.

Who were you replying to please?

[chipmaster]

1 hour ago, iancal said:

That may be so.  But as retirees many of us do not any mortgage payments, loan payments, car payments, or children to support, children to help through post secondary.   Or one unemployed member of a two income family.   On our list cruising might be number 8.  On our children''s list it may be number 36.  Not to mention healthcare costs for those not covered by medicare.

 

Huge difference.

 

How does your retirement kitty look?  Last I check rental income will plummet, housing will be flat at best and stock market and bond markets and interest rates are a wreck.

[clo]

1 hour ago, chipmaster said:

 

How does your retirement kitty look?  Last I check rental income will plummet, housing will be flat at best and stock market and bond markets and interest rates are a wreck.

Ten years ago when my late mother-in-law was in a very nice senior/assisted living place in Reno the cost was $5k/mo for an apt and two meals a day. We've had that data filed away for future reference. Nowadays it wouldn't be hard to spend $100k/yr for that. We've found a gorgeous place in Seattle with loads of on and off-site activities. We're realistic enough to know that it's unlikely we'll go from traveling to dead in one fell swoop so that's a factor for us. We're actually on their (likely three year) waiting list cause it's so great.  So when our 'accounts' lost A LOT of money recently we reverted somewhat to post-'08 MO.

[Joebucks]

16 hours ago, chipmaster said:

 

Cruising will not be close to anything we 've remembered every again.  Kind of like flying before 9/11 and now, cruising in 2023 will never bey like 2019, sigh.  I rather enjoyed my 2019 cruise

 

 

 

Forgive me because I did not fly much before 9/11, so I can't recall what it used to be. Are you referring to the TSA and security? What about cruising will change so much that it will never be close to anything we remembered?

[Hlitner]

57 minutes ago, Joebucks said:

 

Forgive me because I did not fly much before 9/11, so I can't recall what it used to be. Are you referring to the TSA and security? What about cruising will change so much that it will never be close to anything we remembered?

I will jump in.  Years ago I can remember going to the airport about forty minutes before flights, waiting with loved ones at the gate, and even standing outside on the tarmac at some smaller airports.  There was no security, no rules on what could be in your carry on, etc.

 

As to what will happen to the cruise industry, the first issue is whether it can even survive.  Most cruises depend on having ports to visit, and one possible outcome of the current situation is that many ports will stay closed to cruise ships.  Also consider that there is a large niche of the cruise industry that depends on seniors and especially retirees who have both the time and money for longer exotic cruises.  NCL and others recently made it clear they were willing to toss seniors under the bow.  Soon, the big question for those same lines will be whether we seniors will toss the cruise industry under the waves.  This would likely result in the few remaining lines/ships sticking to short cruises with few ports.

 

I do think that the short, less than 2 week, Caribbean cruise will continue and the Alaskan cruise market will once again thrive.  I fear that the European cruise market will completely collapse as many destination ports adopt strict guidelines or simply ban cruise ships.  Places like Venice, Dubrovnik, La Spezia, Porto, Lisbon, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, etc.  do not need ships to survive and may decide that the real economic winners are the land visitors who stay in hotels, eat in restaurants, fill the cafes, etc.  We also suspect that the smaller luxury ships/lines will do fine because their small size is more acceptable in exotic ports and can be easily controlled.  

 

Hank

[Nic6318]

22 hours ago, drsel said:

OP has very good points. I feel that cruises will resume a few months after the curve flattens.

 

Hi

 

There is an issue with general statements like this. It doesn't seem to acknowledge the global aspect of the problem.

 

The concept of waiting for the curve to flatten only works for certain situations. It also is only looking at a specific area. Unless you are talking about having waited for the curve to flatten globaly then countries won't even be considering opening their borders. 

 

Look in China, where they are glad to say how incidences of the virus has come under control in the city of Wuhan, they are still continuing to limit movement of people within the greater province. Even within their own country they aren't willing to allow free movement.

 

My main points are that you can't have cruising (as we have known it) at all until countries (all) open their borders. After that, people will have to feel reasonably safe. So, for me, that could take some time. 

[chipmaster]

2 hours ago, Joebucks said:

 

Forgive me because I did not fly much before 9/11, so I can't recall what it used to be. Are you referring to the TSA and security? What about cruising will change so much that it will never be close to anything we remembered?

 

Let's start with whats coming with RealID, what you can/can't take on the airplane, etc. etc.the long lines at the airport, and time.

 

For cruising I think much more screening instead of just a simple question form when you get on, maybe temperature at a minimum maybe even a on the site swap, would you feel comfortable with someone taking your blood or swabbing you?

 

I think the cruise will have lots of changes in protocol.  Lots more evasive cleaning of public spaces, self serve buffets will have to change and dining protocol will also tighten up where menus and need sanitation and servers wearing gloves for each round and between customers.    Customers treated like they might have a disease.

 

Or asked another way would you cruise again knowing the Grand/Diamond/MS Zaandam

 

[ed01106]

I too remember flying before 9/11.  

 

I suspect that the short term impact to cruise ships will be much more severe than 9/11 to airlines.  But long term cruises won’t see as much in the way of permanent changes.

 

Short term - Airlines were shutdown for less than a week before resuming. Cruises may be shuttered for more than a year.

 

Long term - The risk of terrorism will never go away, so the 9/11 security measures will never go away.  At some point Covid-19 will be no bigger of a concern than the spanish flu, small pox, measles or the black plague.  (might take 5 years, but it will happen).  There maybe some permanent changes such as an increase in hand washing stations and closer monitoring of people suspected of being sick.  But I doubt there is a permanent doctors waiver for older folks or health testing before boarding. 

[ed01106]

14 minutes ago, chipmaster said:

 

Or asked another way would you cruise again knowing the Grand/Diamond/MS Zaandam

 

 

Yes, but it won’t be until https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/. Is reporting new cases from yesterday worldwide is under 1000 and either declining or holding steady.