Viability of late season Alaska cruises

[wrongwaywatson]

3 hours ago, Cruise Raider said:

That’s certainly an interesting and proactive approach from your employer.  I believe it’s already a somewhat national policy as isn’t most international travel discontinued for the time being?  But, the doctor’s note for returning cruise passengers ... that one is kind of new to me.  interesting times we are living in.  
 Just curious, did they put an end date to that or is it a TDB.  

 

No end date announced.  Just "until further notice"

[LHARTWICK]

On 4/8/2020 at 12:01 AM, brisalta said:

 

A bit late in the season to say the least.

We also have a September AK cruise booked w/PCL.  We've sailed to AK in September before, and it was just fine.

We know the odds are slim of this cruise actually happening, but we are trying to stay positive.  I rarely look on these boards these days because of all of the negativity about cruising.  😞

[Cruise Raider]

1 hour ago, LHARTWICK said:

We also have a September AK cruise booked w/PCL.  We've sailed to AK in September before, and it was just fine.

We know the odds are slim of this cruise actually happening, but we are trying to stay positive.  I rarely look on these boards these days because of all of the negativity about cruising.  😞

 

We go to Alaska in the first week of September quite often.  We've have fantastic luck with the weather ... a couple of times, we even used an entire tube of sunblock and didn't put on a jacket even once.  It's our favorite time of the year to travel up there.  We've only had bad weather up there twice out of our dozen sailings up there.  Once was in May (we had hot weather one time in May, though) and one time was in mid-late September.  Weather is never guaranteed but, we love going to Alaska in early September.  

[Thrak]

Oddly enough when I looked just now they are still selling May cruises to Alaska. Departing from both the US and Canada. Billed as 40% off. Hard to see how they can be offering these cruises. I think the earliest one I saw was to sail May 13th. Weird.

[Cruise Raider]

6 minutes ago, Thrak said:

Oddly enough when I looked just now they are still selling May cruises to Alaska. Departing from both the US and Canada. Billed as 40% off. Hard to see how they can be offering these cruises. I think the earliest one I saw was to sail May 13th. Weird.

 

I'm actually booked on that cruise and just waiting for Princess to cancel it.  I've spoken to them down at Princess asking when they are going to cancel it and they keep saying they are still working on getting Glacier Bay to open back up for them, still working on getting a waiver for the PVSA, still working on .... well, you get the idea.  I know their reps are just doing whatever they are told to say but, at a certain point in time, they really need to come clean.  I am pretty forgiving but here, they are acting in bad faith when still taking in cash for these sailings they know cannot possibly happen.  I'm sure it has to do with their cash flow issues.  

I'm also booked on a late August sailing for Alaska and even have concerns about that one happening.  

There was a wave of automatic upgrades given to several passengers ... I'm almost wondering if all those sailings are slated for cancellations in the future.  

[Bemidji Ty]

Still hanging on to our mid August 14 day to Alaska out of LA.  Since they changed final payment to 60 days before sailing and we will drive to the port, I think we should have a good idea by early June.

 

Cheers

[Cruise Raider]

2 minutes ago, Bemidji Ty said:

Still hanging on to our mid August 14 day to Alaska out of LA.  Since they changed final payment to 60 days before sailing and we will drive to the port, I think we should have a good idea by early June.

 

Cheers

 

fingers crossed!!  

[Thrak]

2 minutes ago, Cruise Raider said:

There was a wave of automatic upgrades given to several passengers ... I'm almost wondering if all those sailings are slated for cancellations in the future

 

Perhaps it's a good thing that none of my booked cruises have had cabin upgrades. I actually don't really want a change for the November/December cruises as they are all in the same cabin and it's a Caribe balcony. The ones booked next May though would be great to have upgraded. Good thing I booked cabins I am fine with as I doubt they will be upgraded.

[Rancher Dave]

On 4/8/2020 at 1:23 AM, the_thunderbird said:

This!

 

Living in Victoria, where a significant majority of the Continental USA to Alaska ships dock for their Jones Act requirement, that July date is really optimistic. Hopefully this holds true, but we are weathering the storm pretty well here and public opinion is very, very strongly against the industry right now (and somewhat tedious before that to begin with). 

 

Honestly, for a Canadian port it could be tied to whenever there's a vaccine. Or the old school Jones Act gets dumped.  

Now we have the new CDC ban on sailings to and from USA for 100 days or until end of Public Health emergency, likely be August or later. In fact for the lines with ships not yet over poised for AK, (and I didn't go look to see where all the ships are) it is quite possible the AK season will be abandoned by many of the ships. Of course redeployment requires that ports be open to cruise ships and many aren't likely to do so until they feel like ships won't have any possibility of bringing the virus to their island/country.