Italy Closed to Visitors till Years End

[Jimbo]

29 minutes ago, fla gang said:

Cruise was booked for August and NCl told them they couldn't transfer to anything from Italy for the remainder of 2020.

Sounds like a wise move.

[MADflyer]

6 minutes ago, bobmacliberty said:

@MADflyer - Any rumors on when Madrid may reopen for international travelers?  My daughter was living there, teaching English.  She flew back to the States the day before the lockdown began, but left a few things of value in her flat.  She wants to fly (at my expense 🙄) back to retrieve her stuff (and of course visit friends).  We're telling her to pay someone to, when they are able to do so, ship her stuff back here.  Will be cheaper than flying.  If it will be several months before she is allowed to fly in, her lease will expire and she will have no choice.

 

If she was living and working in Spain she may have a residency card. Travel is allowed, if absolutely necessary, and she may need to check with authorities if the residency card is of use in this matter as that can get quite bureaucratic.

 

Her travel might be able to be deemed not tourism related in this case. Europeans have attempted to enter the country for necessary travel but then caught moving to a vacation rental property and there fined and put on a return flight. 

 

Aena the Spanish airport authority updates directions frequently concerning travel during the state of emergency. Changing the language in the search (buscar) section will change the whole page to English. 

 

http://www.aena.es/csee/Satellite?Language=EN_GB&c=Microsite_FP&cid=1445453934814&d=DesktopES&pagename=AenaInforma

 

Madrid Airport info

 

http://www.aena.es/en/madrid-barajas-airport/index.html

 

http://www.aena.es/en/passengers/coronavirus-covid-19.html

[taglovestocruise]

4 hours ago, John&LaLa said:

 

Friends don't let friends fly Norwegian 😉

 

I hope things work out

Seems a little harsh.  We have flown twice Lax to Barcelona non stop. We went for their business/ premium class which included access to the One World Lounge.  Made our choice based on price, both times the Premium seats were under $650.00.  I will say I would never fly in economy, those were the tightest cramped seats I have ever seen, I guess you get what you pay for as those one way flights LAX to Barcelona are as low as $232.00pp.  Now we need to decide if we even need any seats for our upcoming OCT 25 Allure cruise and the following TA back home.  Booked Jetblue FLL to LAX for Nov last week, it is all up in the air. Glad you made it back home from Barcelona last month with little difficulty. 

[Coralc]

We're not booking anything else for the Allure TA until the end of July when final payment is due. I need more definitive information. And the Norwegian meeting is next week I think. In CV-19 time, 3 months is a really long time. 

[Ought To Be Cruising]

13 hours ago, mek said:

They also canceled NE cruises way before 30 days that started in Montreal.  I was booked on the 6/7 Empress sailing and received notification about 4 weeks ago and was offered a full refund or a 125% FCC>

 Are you still posting about cruises before Sept. 1 We leave from Montreal in Sept. but have not heard anything about cancellations. 

[John&LaLa]

1 hour ago, taglovestocruise said:

Seems a little harsh.  We have flown twice Lax to Barcelona non stop. We went for their business/ premium class which included access to the One World Lounge.  Made our choice based on price, both times the Premium seats were under $650.00.  I will say I would never fly in economy, those were the tightest cramped seats I have ever seen, I guess you get what you pay for as those one way flights LAX to Barcelona are as low as $232.00pp.  Now we need to decide if we even need any seats for our upcoming OCT 25 Allure cruise and the following TA back home.  Booked Jetblue FLL to LAX for Nov last week, it is all up in the air. Glad you made it back home from Barcelona last month with little difficulty. 

 

We all have our comfort levels, I just don't like their business model. Regardless of price I'd just prefer to fly a legacy airline. They honor each others tickets when problems happen. And as far as I know, when I was looking to book the Allure flights, Air2Sea had stopped offering Norwegian as an option. 

[MADflyer]

The G20 Tourism Ministers met last Friday the 24th of April in a virtual meeting hosted by the Saudi Arabian tourism minister. 

 

While the United States disbanded that department of tourism in 1981 and then further reduced government function in  1996, I guess the Tourism Advisory Board of the Department of Commerce would represent the United States. Does anyone know? 

 

The EU Tourism Ministers met yesterday the 27th of April.

 

The articles appearing in member countries mostly talk about the focus on domestic tourism, a possible COVID-19 passport and the focus on international travel after September of 2021. I have not seen any mention of the cruise industry at all so far. 

 

It is interesting that Saudi Arabia is coordinating so much with the G20 and in other tourism organizations. One fear I have noticed mentioned is that the Saudis will take over a number of companies in the travel sector all around the world in the crisis. 

 

 

[dbcassidy]

Here is the latest information from the Italian Government. It sounds like no American entry to Italy until at least the end of June: https://www.esteri.it/mae/resource/doc/2020/05/dpcm_20200517_eng.pdf. See articles 6 and 7.

 

When do you think we will see an update from RCI?

dpcm_20200517_eng.pdf

[Biker19]

Just now, dbcassidy said:

When do you think we will see an update from RCI?

Maybe later today.

[pspercy]

On 4/27/2020 at 3:59 PM, John&LaLa said:

 

Heading over empty is my guess, and then to Galveston instead of Jewel.

 

My guess is Jewel heads to Amsterdam or Copenhagen to try and slavage the Brilliance crossing.  But ends up in Florida instead of Boston

 

Total unfounded guesses, of course

  

Hope not !

Jewel is doing >7dy trips out of Galveston , what a miracle. We're booked on its first after the TA, 11dy "Panama Peek" and Cartagena, also our first aft balcony so if it gets axed DW and I won't be happy 😞

 

[crazyank]

BBC world news this morning: (21 May)

 

Italy has announced that all airports will open on 3 June 2020,  

 

Nothing yet about cruise ports

[steamboats]

Barcelona - largest port in the Med - has opened for ferries. No cruise ships until June 7th so far...

 

Italy opens up on June 3rd including airports but for EU countries only. Not for non EU international travelers.

 

steamboats

[dutchclogs]

16 minutes ago, steamboats said:

Barcelona - largest port in the Med - has opened for ferries. No cruise ships until June 7th so far...

 

Italy opens up on June 3rd including airports but for EU countries only. Not for non EU international travelers.

 

steamboats

Are there any limits on number of people gathering together?  Thinking of excursions...

[LXA350]

2 hours ago, dutchclogs said:

Are there any limits on number of people gathering together?  Thinking of excursions...

 

Social distancing rules will apply all over Europe also in Italy where Restaurants are opening next week. Same will apply for beaches etc; hence also for excursion programs restrictions will apply. 

[Jimbo]

I think right now Italy would be one of the last places anyone would want to go to right now anyway isn't.  I mean they had it the worse.

[dutchclogs]

45 minutes ago, LXA350 said:

 

Social distancing rules will apply all over Europe also in Italy where Restaurants are opening next week. Same will apply for beaches etc; hence also for excursion programs restrictions will apply. 

 

Yes, I was thinking here in Holland we have a limit of no more than 30 persons in a cinema,  indoor restaurant etc from 1st June at 1.5 m distancing.

Am  bemused that Italy may be open to EU countries but we still have a stop on non essential travel to Italy order in place?

[LXA350]

8 minutes ago, Jimbo said:

I think right now Italy would be one of the last places anyone would want to go to right now anyway isn't.  I mean they had it the worse.

 

Italy has the situation now under control and numbers continue to go down. Hence if this trend continues nothing will speak against visiting countries such as Italy or Spain as of July or August.

[LXA350]

1 minute ago, dutchclogs said:

 

Yes, I was thinking here in Holland we have a limit of no more than 30 persons in a cinema,  indoor restaurant etc from 1st June at 1.5 m distancing.

Am  bemused that Italy may be open to EU countries but we still have a stop on non essential travel to Italy order in place?

 

The EU seems to be working on finding a common solution, hence traveling between the countries including for tourism might very soon be possible again within the EU / Shengen area.

[Jimbo]

29 minutes ago, LXA350 said:

 

Italy has the situation now under control and numbers continue to go down. Hence if this trend continues nothing will speak against visiting countries such as Italy or Spain as of July or August.

And you think they are reporting correctly? yeah okay..

[steamboats]

45 minutes ago, Jimbo said:

And you think they are reporting correctly? yeah okay..

 

Why do you think they might not report correctly?

 

They have been hit extremely hard and they also had pretty tough restrictions and they started later to losen them...

 

The only region which opened up a week earlier was South Tyrol. They had some single hot spots (mainy skiing areas where the virus spread - brought in by people from Lombardia and other hard hit regions and then spread amonst the skiers which brought it also to Bavaria/Germany). But there are valleys where there was nothing or just a single case.

 

steamboats

[Jimbo]

15 minutes ago, steamboats said:

 

Why do you think they might not report correctly?

 

They have been hit extremely hard and they also had pretty tough restrictions and they started later to losen them...

 

The only region which opened up a week earlier was South Tyrol. They had some single hot spots (mainy skiing areas where the virus spread - brought in by people from Lombardia and other hard hit regions and then spread amonst the skiers which brought it also to Bavaria/Germany). But there are valleys where there was nothing or just a single case.

 

steamboats

Just reports like this, you could find more on the internet.

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/italy-coronavirus-deaths-likely-much-higher/

[LXA350]

42 minutes ago, Jimbo said:

Just reports like this, you could find more on the internet.

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/italy-coronavirus-deaths-likely-much-higher/

 

If we get started with this we don't even have to talk about China or other countries. To bring things back into persective; looking at the situation in Italy you are probably currently safer in Rome or Milan than in NewYork City or Washington DC.

[steamboats]

16 hours ago, Jimbo said:

Just reports like this, you could find more on the internet.

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/italy-coronavirus-deaths-likely-much-higher/

 

That´s the same for the US... And the number of total deaths has nothing to do with the fact that the curve is going down in Italy and new infections are pretty low.

 

steamboats

[Sunshine3601]

On 5/21/2020 at 12:45 AM, pspercy said:

  

Hope not !

Jewel is doing >7dy trips out of Galveston , what a miracle. We're booked on its first after the TA, 11dy "Panama Peek" and Cartagena, also our first aft balcony so if it gets axed DW and I won't be happy 😞

 

We did that same itinerary this january on serenade for 12 nights.  Loved having the overnight in aruba.   I hope you get to do thst sailing.  It was one of our favorite caribbean itineraries.   

[Seville2Cabo]

On 5/20/2020 at 9:45 PM, pspercy said:

  

Hope not !

Jewel is doing >7dy trips out of Galveston , what a miracle. We're booked on its first after the TA, 11dy "Panama Peek" and Cartagena, also our first aft balcony so if it gets axed DW and I won't be happy 😞

 

We hope not too.  We are on the Jewel in March - Galveston to Barcelona.