Do you REALLY think we'll be cruising this year?

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

17 hours ago, hcat said:

I wish our local  NY course wouldn't open this Sat.

Dh works part time in the pro shop and despite many precautions set up to avoid touching people and money,  he will have an increased  exposure risk to Covid..  We have been hermits for 2 months & I am  very nervous. 

 

He loves that job and it helps pay for his golf club  membership in Fla which he hardly used this season...but is the risk worth it?    Folks here in NY are still filling hospital beds and morgues so to me opening up golf here  is insane!

 

My sister works part time in the pro shop at her club.  Private golf clubs were never closed in Florida.  She plays golf almost every day.  It's free for her and she gets her own cart.  She's been just fine.  And she's over 70.

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

3 hours ago, jonthomas said:

Cruise ships are some of the worst places to be .  Until there is a vaccine to eradicate covid, there can be no cruising. Crews can not be in those close quarters and neither can passengers.

 

A vaccine is a year or more away, or maybe not at all. As the  flu vaccine is not totally effective, we could presume neither would a covid vaccine be. 

 

Can a cruise line not go bankrupt without sailing for  one or two years?

 

 

 

If that is your belief, then I would suggest you stop cruising.  We're all adults here and capable of making our own decisions.

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

3 hours ago, jonthomas said:

Cant see how cruise lines can change the tight quarters for crew or passengers. They would have to sail three quarters empty. 

 

Besides, no authority would authorise any kind of sailing without a vaccine or a definite cessation of covid. 

 

 

 

Again, that is your opinion.  I have read reports on other sites that northern Europe ports are considering reopening.

[HxFx]

14 minutes ago, Happy Cruiser 6143 said:

 

Again, that is your opinion.  I have read reports on other sites that northern Europe ports are considering reopening.

It appears you are correct. Here is an ongoing CC article I check regularly for updates to ports:

https://www.cruisecritic.com/news/5097/

 

[jonthomas]

46 minutes ago, Happy Cruiser 6143 said:

 

Again, that is your opinion.  I have read reports on other sites that northern Europe ports are considering reopening.

 

That is definitely my opinion and that of many others here. I will also definitely not cruise until there is a vaccine. Good luck getting to the northern European ports. 

[Pushka]

9 hours ago, deliver42 said:

Cruise lines can change itineraries at any time, virus or not, even while on a cruise.

But celebrity even thought it was ok to change to another country 2000 kms away! Our Rome and Italian ports cruise isn't going to happen. Just cancel it. 

[Pushka]

1 hour ago, HxFx said:

It appears you are correct. Here is an ongoing CC article I check regularly for updates to ports:

https://www.cruisecritic.com/news/5097/

 

That list certainly isn't correct for Australia. I'd not put much faith in it. 

[hcat]

8 hours ago, oceangoer2 said:

I should have added...."open when it's safe to do so"...it's still hard to look at a lovely 'park' and not golf but it is what it is and we're all patient here and happy to have NO cases in our gated community.  We observe the Ontario social distancing policies and will continue to do so until there's a mandate to open up the province.  I'm surprised, however, that NY is allowing courses to open...Your Governor is very much on top of these virus conditions and we are impressed by him and fact based briefings.

We'll see how it works out. Golfers will slip the credit card under a  plexi glass shield,,,like at drugstores and supermarkets,..everyone in masks, lots of sanitizing. Only one golfer  per cart unless married or roomates, special  rules about flag sticks and rakes.   Sounds like  not much fun to me,   but I am not a golfer so I do not fully understand the urge to get out there!  Local govs here need revenues from golf and marinas..also open. 

 

If we have to cruise with  more plexiglass barriers, set distances and masks..not sure how much fun that would be........

[madmacs]

1 hour ago, HxFx said:

It appears you are correct. Here is an ongoing CC article I check regularly for updates to ports:

https://www.cruisecritic.com/news/5097/

 

Very confusing. It says some European ports are open but later on points out that basically the EU plus other countries are closed. It is reported that EU tourism ministers are meeting (virtually) to see how they can open up for tourists in July . August, yet the Spanish government is reported as saying no tourists this year. We will have to wait and see,

[Oceangoer2]

11 minutes ago, hcat said:

We'll see how it works out. Golfers will slip the credit card under a  plexi glass shield,,,like at drugstores and supermarkets,..everyone in masks, lots of sanitizing. Only one golfer  per cart unless married or roomates, special  rules about flag sticks and rakes.   Sounds like  not much fun to me,   but I am not a golfer so I do not fully understand the urge to get out there!  Local govs here need revenues from golf and marinas..also open. 

 

If we have to cruise with  more plexiglass barriers, set distances and masks..not sure how much fun that would be........

you're right....if we have to have plexi all around us, wear masks, etc it will certainly be odd.

[Oceangoer2]

1 hour ago, Happy Cruiser 6143 said:

 

My sister works part time in the pro shop at her club.  Private golf clubs were never closed in Florida.  She plays golf almost every day.  It's free for her and she gets her own cart.  She's been just fine.  And she's over 70.

Since our course is private and only playable to the gated community members, with no cases (so far) of CV19...I had the same thought....we maybe could open and play.  All own and use their own cart so we're somewhat isolated to playing with significant other if that's going to be the criterion.  But on the other hand, anyone out grocery shopping or for any other reason picks up the virus and brings it in, the whole close community could be infected.  So, we're ok here waiting for the province to open up the restrictions, based on science and the medical community.  Good job up to now.

Edited April 29, 2020 by oceangoer2

[HxFx]

47 minutes ago, Pushka said:

That list certainly isn't correct for Australia. I'd not put much faith in it. 

Thanks, good to know! 

[Fouremco]

54 minutes ago, Pushka said:

That list certainly isn't correct for Australia. I'd not put much faith in it. 

Other mistakes include listing Aruba but neither Bonaire or Curaçao. As few (any?) cruises visit only one of the ABCs, this seems to be quite a glaring oversight.

 

Also, under the list of closed ports it states for Norway that "All ports are closed until further notice", yet in the section on open Northern European ports it lists Bergen and several other Norwegian ports. Very contradictory.

 

As you say, it's hard to put much faith in it.

 

[Covepointcruiser]

Maybe we need to go back to that Pakistani article that stated Italy would be closed for the rest of the year.   Maybe if we look at Nigerian newspapers they will be even more accurate!

[npcl]

2 hours ago, Happy Cruiser 6143 said:

 

Again, that is your opinion.  I have read reports on other sites that northern Europe ports are considering reopening.

A report by a cruise focused organization.

 

With one big caveat in the report - the ports are technically open but may be over ridden by national health authorities.

 

Seems a little like the reports that list when cruise lines are going to start sailing by listing the lines current end of cancellation dates.

[Pushka]

And I’d also suggest that while some ports look ‘open’, that may only be for local citizens and for local marine traffic, goods and not cruise ships. 
 

I’d suggest that Australian ports won’t be open to any international cruise lines before 2021. Minimum. 

[Pinboy]

1 hour ago, hcat said:

Only one golfer  per cart unless married or roomates.  

LOL-- There will be a lot of Golf Clubs that will not have enough carts, thus leading to " hundreds " of 4 hour marriages or newly-found roommates every beautiful, sunny day for golf. Not so many on rainy days when the courses will be empty. 

[Fouremco]

46 minutes ago, Pushka said:

And I’d also suggest that while some ports look ‘open’, that may only be for local citizens and for local marine traffic, goods and not cruise ships. 

For example, Canadian ports are open, just not to cruise ships with 500 plus people aboard.

[Pushka]

Our state in Australia (SA) closed its borders to other Australians 🤭 and Australia closed its borders to non citizens at the end of March. 
 

In our State we haven't had a positive result in a week which, other than China 😉 is rare. And yesterday Australia as a whole recorded less than 10 infections and we have a very high per capita rate of testing. Australia has had less than 100 deaths since Covid arrived and our death rate from Covid is very accurately recorded. 
 

This was our State being mentioned in our Australian media today. Our restrictions were probably the least restrictive of all Australia other than our state border closure. 
 

Edited April 30, 2020 by Pushka

[MamaFej]

3 hours ago, Pushka said:

 And yesterday Australia as a whole recorded less than 10 infections and we have a very high per capita rate of testing.

THIS!!!! The number of tests is of little importance. The per capita rate of testing is of great importance!

 

 

[npcl]

20 minutes ago, MamaFej said:

THIS!!!! The number of tests is of little importance. The per capita rate of testing is of great importance!

 

 

Testing in conjunction with a good surveillance and contact tracing, as well as social isolation.

 

Australia is about 36th on the list of tests per capita. Actually lower level of testing than many other places that had far more cases.  More important was that they moved quickly to limit foreign access, limited internal travel, and had very effective contact tracing with pretty tight quarantine process.  The testing is a support function to the surveillance and contact tracing.  Testing for the sake of testing by itself means very little.

 

The key is that they had enough testing for the other programs to work because they had relatively few initial cases that they were able to track.

Edited April 30, 2020 by npcl

[beaveh]

I'm not sure how the tourist industry will get going. I'm sure it will a depend on evaluating risk and reflecting how the rest of the economy opens up. The key thing seems to be maintaining social distancing, so areas where that is possible will be the first to emerge from lockdown.
 

Travel in your home country, with limited opening of hotels, places to eat etc, but will good social distancing will be the first to open. 
It's a bit more complex with European holidays as travel from/ to or through several different countries is sometimes needed, and I think many countries will be nervous about opening their borders to tourists.

 

Flying involves sitting in a confined space with other passages for a period of time... So I think short haul flights will be the first back in the air, but that comes with risk (possibly  less risk than long haul - but not much.) Social distancing on a plane  is pretty impossible.

 

The hotels and resorts themselves will just operate with a lower capacity, keeping crowding down.. But that means holidays will cost more.

 

So for cruises: lower capacity ( so higher costs) , maybe cruises that only visit one country and of a shorter duration ( less than a week )  will be where it all starts. 
 

The one thing the cruise industry doesn't want is another diamond princess, with people quarantined   on a ship, in the media spotlight with COvID numbers steadily rising. They may not survive that a second time round.

 

Anyone know what happens to transatlantic travel during the Spanish flu outbreak?

Edited April 30, 2020 by beaveh

[Pushka]

1 hour ago, npcl said:

Testing in conjunction with a good surveillance and contact tracing, as well as social isolation.

 

And this was our Health Department's motto coming in to this pandemic. Being an island also assisted significantly with border closures. And acting well ahead of when WHO suggested it should happen. 

 

There was an excellent article posted on another forum which describes why cruises were so integral to the spread of this virus compared with plane travel. I tried searching for it yesterday and couldnt locate it.  I'll keep trying.

 

I dont think Ruby Princess will return to Australia, 19 Covid deaths and 700+ Covid infections later....

Edited April 30, 2020 by Pushka

[yorky]

2 hours ago, Pushka said:

And this was our Health Department's motto coming in to this pandemic. Being an island also assisted significantly with border closures. And acting well ahead of when WHO suggested it should happen. 

 

There was an excellent article posted on another forum which describes why cruises were so integral to the spread of this virus compared with plane travel. I tried searching for it yesterday and couldnt locate it.  I'll keep trying.

 

I dont think Ruby Princess will return to Australia, 19 Covid deaths and 700+ Covid infections later....

To my knowledge the virus travelled from China by plane did it not ?

[billydog]

Even if the ports officially  open locals will not welcome cruisers. We are in Dublin, and while avid Celebrity cruisers, would certainly not like to see Celebrity coming in to port here and discharging thousands of people.  I think most people will think the same. We will be down at the port throwing rotten eggs at you!!