Cruise ship bookings for 2021 are already on the rise despite multiple COVID-19 outbreaks

[clo]

10 hours ago, K32682 said:

There are two risks with the FCC with the first being that the cruise line goes through bankruptcy protection and your FCC is rendered worthless.  The second risk is that the cash value of your FCC that covered a specific itinerary will only cover half of it due to fare increases when the travel restrictions are lifted. 

I'm dealing with that with a canceled Norwegian Air flight to a canceled cruise. Norwegian Air was already in really serious financial shape and this may put them under. I wrote their CEO a couple of days ago after not hearing from them in a month after my refund 'request.' I'll do the best I can do and then I won't worry about it any more.

[ilikeanswers]

3 hours ago, clo said:

I'm dealing with that with a canceled Norwegian Air flight to a canceled cruise. Norwegian Air was already in really serious financial shape and this may put them under. I wrote their CEO a couple of days ago after not hearing from them in a month after my refund 'request.' I'll do the best I can do and then I won't worry about it any more.

 

Norway is part of the EU, maybe this will help?

EU air passenger rights

[clo]

18 minutes ago, ilikeanswers said:

 

Norway is part of the EU, maybe this will help?

EU air passenger rights

Actually it's not a member. But - and maybe I got this info here - USDOT has authority over foreign airlines who fly here and their ruling is that with a canceled flight the airline is required to offer a refund not just a voucher for future travel. So, of course, I 'mentioned' that - wink, wink. If I don't hear back in a few more days I'll contact the CC company and file a claim. And thanks for speaking up.

[ilikeanswers]

3 minutes ago, clo said:

Actually it's not a member. But - and maybe I got this info here - USDOT has authority over foreign airlines who fly here and their ruling is that with a canceled flight the airline is required to offer a refund not just a voucher for future travel. So, of course, I 'mentioned' that - wink, wink. If I don't hear back in a few more days I'll contact the CC company and file a claim. And thanks for speaking up.

 

I had another look and it seems I was wrong but they still say they do guarantee the same rights as the EU. That must be where I got confused:

Passenger RIghts Norway

[clo]

10 minutes ago, ilikeanswers said:

 

I had another look and it seems I was wrong but they still say they do guarantee the same rights as the EU. That must be where I got confused:

Passenger RIghts Norway

Thanks a ton for this. I'll sure be checking it out also.

[flowslow]

Looking forward to cruising this 2021. When this pandemic ends, people will definitely start cruising again, no doubt about that. 

[clo]

7 minutes ago, flowslow said:

When this pandemic ends, people will definitely start cruising again, no doubt about that. 

How do you define "end"? And what about a vaccine? Five years? Ten? More?

[ontheweb]

8 hours ago, clo said:

How do you define "end"? And what about a vaccine? Five years? Ten? More?

Hasn't every pandemic in the past come to an end? I know I started the thread on how did the Spanish flu pandemic end without a vaccine.

[Joebucks]

On 4/16/2020 at 3:33 PM, navybankerteacher said:

People keep forgetting that cruising is a non-essential activity.  It is way down on the list of activities that need to get restarted.  Non-emergency medical treatments which are now in abeyance,  educational institutions, facilities which manufacture necessary products, local public transportation, local businesses which serve peoples NEEDS while providing employment and income to workers, long distant travel (much of which is necessary - the list goes on.   And way down at the bottom is cruising - which puts lots of people in close and repeated contact - totally unnecessarily. 

 

It is is absurd to even think about restarting cruising until AFTER all more significant activities can be brought back on line - and only  then when it can be made safe — and because it is not as important as virtually any other activity, that level of safety should be all the higher.  Even slight risk of disease transmission which might have to be accepted in more important activities should not be tolerated in something like cruising.

 

Development of effective prevention (most likely widespread vaccination) and effective treatment for those cases where vaccine might be ineffective are essential preconditions for restarting utterly non-essential travel.

 

I wouldn't say you are completely wrong. No one NEEDs to cruise. There are many people who would challenge your cutoff of what is essential and what is not. No one NEEDS a lot of things. We don't have cruises out of the US just because. If there wasn't a big gain from those markets, why would 17 US states have cruise ports?

 

If you're going to bring up local business providing employment and income, cruises drive the same thing. What about all of those employees at the port, customs, food delivery, coast guard, restaurants, Uber, hotels, gift shops, etc? Do they need cruising?

[Charles4515]

 
I wouldn't say you are completely wrong. No one NEEDs to cruise. There are many people who would challenge your cutoff of what is essential and what is not. No one NEEDS a lot of things. We don't have cruises out of the US just because. If there wasn't a big gain from those markets, why would 17 US states have cruise ports?
 
If you're going to bring up local business providing employment and income, cruises drive the same thing. What about all of those employees at the port, customs, food delivery, coast guard, restaurants, Uber, hotels, gift shops, etc? Do they need cruising?

We don’t need a few million people to die. Until there is a vaccine/treatment or the virus dies out it would be irresponsible to go on a cruise. By nature cruises involve close contact. There are plenty of infrastructure projects that can be started to employ those who were employed in local businesses that existed because of the cruise industry.


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[K32682]

10 hours ago, flowslow said:

Looking forward to cruising this 2021. When this pandemic ends, people will definitely start cruising again, no doubt about that. 

 

Even if people are willing to cruise it remains to be seen if there will be as many ships to cruise on, what the fares will be and whether there is any place to go.    

[clo]

1 hour ago, Charles4515 said:

We don’t need a few million people to die. Until there is a vaccine/treatment or the virus dies out it would be irresponsible to go on a cruise. By nature cruises involve close contact. There are plenty of infrastructure projects that can be started to employ those who were employed in local businesses that existed because of the cruise industry.

I just read a long, long article about a ton of things that need to be done when the time comes. And that time will involve priorities. They covered everything I could possibly think of and towards the end talked about different kinds of entertainment and specifically mentioned cruises and the difficulty of creating - cause it doesn't exist now - a safe environment. This was based on the FACT that the likelihood of a credibly tested, successful vaccine is certainly more than a year away. Maybe many years, maybe never. I think people who refuse to accept that have their head in the sand. Just my opinion.

[navybankerteacher]

One “wild card” is whether something like the UK’s Air Passenger Duty might start being applied to ship travel from the UK as it already does apply to air travel (and possibly from other countries).  It is calculated on a couple of sliding scales:  a higher surcharge for flights longer than 2000 miles, and a higher surcharge for more comfortable seats.  The rationale is to protect the environment;   but it certainly does contribute to government revenues — for a noble reason.

 

If it makes sense to tax air travel, much of which is necessary, wouldn’t it also make sense to tax unnecessary cruise ship travel in much the same way?  So much per day on the ship, and different rates for insides, ocean views, balconies, and suites.

[lenquixote66]

2 hours ago, clo said:

I just read a long, long article about a ton of things that need to be done when the time comes. And that time will involve priorities. They covered everything I could possibly think of and towards the end talked about different kinds of entertainment and specifically mentioned cruises and the difficulty of creating - cause it doesn't exist now - a safe environment. This was based on the FACT that the likelihood of a credibly tested, successful vaccine is certainly more than a year away. Maybe many years, maybe never. I think people who refuse to accept that have their head in the sand. Just my opinion.

I read that the earliest for a vaccine will be October 2021.Perhaps as long as it took to find a cure for cancer.Oh ,wait a moment ,our scientists have yet to do that.

[gerryuk]

1 hour ago, navybankerteacher said:

If it makes sense to tax air travel, much of which is necessary, wouldn’t it also make sense to tax unnecessary cruise ship travel in much the same way?  So much per day on the ship, and different rates for insides, ocean views, balconies, and suites.

Cruise lines are flags of convenience, who is going to introduce such a tax, Liberia? Is every island that a cruise ship visits going to introduce such a tax? As for the scheme in the UK, the tax collected does nothing to offset climate change, it just boosts government coffers. 

[navybankerteacher]

14 minutes ago, gerryuk said:

Cruise lines are flags of convenience, who is going to introduce such a tax, Liberia? Is every island that a cruise ship visits going to introduce such a tax? As for the scheme in the UK, the tax collected does nothing to offset climate change, it just boosts government coffers. 

There seems to be no problem in collecting the tax from non-UK airlines -  it would be a matter of controlling people boarding ships at UK ports - anyone who’s boarding pass does not show evidence of the tax being collected would not be permitted to board.  It would be difficult for the UK to be the sole country, because ships would simply no longer sail from there (I visit England almost every year, but have not yet paid the APD either because we sail home or travel elsewhere before flying home) - but it could easily become applied EU-wide - or even generally world wide. 

 

Of course at present it does nothing to effect climate change — but it can be (and is) presented as a noble effort to save the planet —- which surely does need saving from a number of the polluting practices of the cruise industry.

 

Through 2019, the UK has been taking in about 3.5 billion UK Pounds annually from this effort.

Edited April 19, 2020 by navybankerteacher

[SRF]

On 4/17/2020 at 12:01 PM, clo said:

By "we" do you mean your family unit? If so, that's how we feel. We were never avid cruisers and returned to it a couple of years ago as the only way to 'do' Antarctica. Loved Hurtigruten so booked a Norwegian coastal cruise. Then Oceania for the Rio/BA start/finish. Then felt a little hooked. But this event has allowed us to step back and ponder.  We pretty much have decided we'll be happier doing two or three cities/destinations.

 

I cruise to be on the ship. Not to go to the ports.  If I want to go to somewhere, I GO there, and stay a while to enjoy it.

[SRF]

On 4/18/2020 at 9:57 PM, ilikeanswers said:

 

I had another look and it seems I was wrong but they still say they do guarantee the same rights as the EU. That must be where I got confused:

Passenger RIghts Norway

 

That is great, until the company has no assets to provide ANYTHING. 🙂

[clo]

35 minutes ago, SRF said:

 

I cruise to be on the ship. Not to go to the ports.  If I want to go to somewhere, I GO there, and stay a while to enjoy it.

So are you one of those Caribbean folks? When I've looked at cruise brochures I'm focused on the ports and it seems that many are either places we've already been or places we're not particularly interested in.

[ontheweb]

39 minutes ago, clo said:

So are you one of those Caribbean folks? When I've looked at cruise brochures I'm focused on the ports and it seems that many are either places we've already been or places we're not particularly interested in.

The cruise we had booked and have now cancelled for this summer actually had places we have never been and seemed interesting. It was a Norwegian fjords cruise.

[Charles4515]

So are you one of those Caribbean folks? When I've looked at cruise brochures I'm focused on the ports and it seems that many are either places we've already been or places we're not particularly interested in.

I do the Caribbean to do the sun, beaches and snorkel. Of course the ships are part of it. But I was tiring of the mega ships. We do a group cruise every year and the group had already decided on an all inclusive as the group spends most of the time at beaches or pools. Last two years Oasis class had gotten old and Royal Caribbean food had become trash. Luckily for me that we decided that so I had zero bookings when Covid broke except a no deposit wait list on Oceania. If I ever cruise again it will be on something like Oceania or Azamara. Whatever replaces them if they go under. NCL is in pretty bad shape. RCCL is in a little better shape. The order they have canceled sailings is telling. Carnival may be the only line left.


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[drsel]

On 4/16/2020 at 9:00 PM, lenquixote66 said:

Do we really know how people get it ? My best friend who died last week was not in the company of anyone who knowingly had the virus.He was in excellent health and a Hall Of Fame Athlete.

Is this the friend whose wife was a nurse and gave it to him

[clo]

15 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

 

I do the Caribbean to do the sun, beaches and snorkel. Of course the ships are part of it. But I was tiring of the mega ships. We do a group cruise every year and the group had already decided on an all inclusive as the group spends most of the time at beaches or pools. Last two years Oasis class had gotten old and Royal Caribbean food had become trash. Luckily for me that we decided that so I had zero bookings when Covid broke except a no deposit wait list on Oceania. If I ever cruise again it will be on something like Oceania or Azamara. Whatever replaces them if they go under. NCL is in pretty bad shape. RCCL is in a little better shape. The order they have canceled sailings is telling. Carnival may be the only line left.


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Thanks for bringing up all-inclusive. We've never done one but know plenty of people who have. It seems like a super alternative to a cruise with many things being way better. And someone here recently quoted a price including business class air from Canada that was so extraordinary that I wanted to sign up. And I hate the sun 🙂

[clo]

27 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

The cruise we had booked and have now cancelled for this summer actually had places we have never been and seemed interesting. It was a Norwegian fjords cruise.

We did a Norwegian coastal cruise a year ago and adored it so much that we were doing the NB as part of a bigger trip. But it was canceled. We were booked on Hurtigruten, on a ship with only 100 pax.

[navybankerteacher]

45 minutes ago, clo said:

Thanks for bringing up all-inclusive. We've never done one but know plenty of people who have. It seems like a super alternative to a cruise with many things being way better. And someone here recently quoted a price including business class air from Canada that was so extraordinary that I wanted to sign up. And I hate the sun 🙂

All-inclusives are not the only (or even the best) alternative to cruising.  Certainly in some places (like Jamaica) they might be the better option,  but we have found places like Oyster Bay Beach Resort (our favorite because it is right on a beautiful beach ) on islands like St. Maarten to be the best.  In stead of buying into a meal plan (which can be pretty dreary) you use your own kitchenette for many meals, and eat out anywhere on the island when  the mood takes you - including, possibly, on site restaurants:  less expensive and more enjoyable.  (It was a great place at which to shelter in place when the island was over-run by thousands of bus-riding yahoos on heavy port-call days (up to 25,000 at a time).