CNBC: Carnival to restart Cruises in phases August 1st

[TLG40]

https://www.carnivalcorp.com/news-releases/news-release-details/carnival-cruise-line-announces-plan-phase-service

 

 

I wonder if they are going out with full ships? 

[Joe817]

13 minutes ago, koolkat327 said:

I read the release and I understand which ships are cruising...my question was prior to the pause in cruising were there additional ships scheduled to cruise out of these specific ports or are the ships listed as cruising from these ports on 8/1 all the ships scheduled out of these ports?  Did they just limit it to ports or did they also further limit the ships selling out of these ports?  I'm not up on which ships are currently sailing from which locations.

I can only address the ships that sail out of Galveston. Currently, the only ships that sail from Galveston are the Dream, Vista and Freedom. 

[bingomamma19]

5 minutes ago, TLG40 said:

https://www.carnivalcorp.com/news-releases/news-release-details/carnival-cruise-line-announces-plan-phase-service

 

 

I wonder if they are going out with full ships? 

We are on the Breeze for August 15th....I would love it if they had less than full....it would be nice to get a seat or chair when we wanted.    I know this will be the only time we could ever experience that :):)

[Stick93]

3 minutes ago, bingomamma19 said:

We are on the Breeze for August 15th....I would love it if they had less than full....it would be nice to get a seat or chair when we wanted.    I know this will be the only time we could ever experience that :):)

If they cruise with less people its because there will have to be less chairs. I assume each chair will be a certain number of feet away from the others and there will be restrictions at bars to prevent crowding and people next to each other. I don't think it will be a win win  for anyone thinking going with less people will be less of an issue. I also have to think the less people means less staff as well as they will have t be put in the mix and distanced as well. 

 

I would love to see a picture of what is happening once people get on the ships - Although its also not far fetched to think they may extent it past August also. 

[bingomamma19]

1 minute ago, Stick93 said:

If they cruise with less people its because there will have to be less chairs. I assume each chair will be a certain number of feet away from the others and there will be restrictions at bars to prevent crowding and people next to each other. I don't think it will be a win win  for anyone thinking going with less people will be less of an issue. I also have to think the less people means less staff as well as they will have t be put in the mix and distanced as well. 

 

I would love to see a picture of what is happening once people get on the ships - Although its also not far fetched to think they may extent it past August also. 

i will let you know when we are onboard!!

[vpearlkc]

8 minutes ago, Joe817 said:

I can only address the ships that sail out of Galveston. Currently, the only ships that sail from Galveston are the Dream, Vista and Freedom. 

It looks like Galveston is keeping all three of its ships. Maybe they are reducing cruises from Florida because it has been hit harder by the pandemic.

[Honolulu Blue]

1 hour ago, toad455 said:

Curious to hear more details. More or less, what kind of screening process will they have before boarding? What ports will allow ships in? What are the itineraries? What's the capacity % they're implementing?

 

I'm sure we'll hear more as we get closer to August, but these are my best guesses (keeping in mind that they're no more likely to be accurate than anyone else's best guesses):

 

• Screening process - sister line Princess released a white paper on this a few weeks ago which can be downloaded at https://www.princess.com/news/notices_and_advisories/notices/coronavirus-update.html .  I'm assuming Carnival's guidelines will be close to this.
• Ports - I'm not aware of anything open in the Caribbean yet; we'll see what's open in August and beyond
• Itineraries - I think they're assuming no changes; we'll see
• Capacity limits - Pack 'em in as tight as they can!!  😁  I think they're hoping social distancing is just a bad memory by then.

I am thankful to Carnival that they do have a plan and have made it public, even though it's likely to change.

[toad455]

I do feel it's best if they limit capacity on these ships in the beginning just to see how things go.

[HLGW60]

I think it is a safe bet to keep watching the CDC no-sail orders as a guide on what may be cancelled in the future.

[mustardgirl]

We have Aug 28th magic booked (booked and paid for long before coved-19) 

i feel like this is me now....lol

 

 

[skittl1321]

Do these ships have approval from the ports? (Yes, I know no one on this board knows this answer...rhetorical)  How many of these will end up as cruises to nowhere?

[vpearlkc]

I think it could be very weird on the first few cruises. People turning their faces away to avoid each other in narrow hallways. Scared cruisers running from their tables when someone close by has a little water go down the wrong way and goes into a coughing spasms. People with common colds slinking around sucking on cough drops trying to avoid temperature checks so they don't have to spend the rest of the cruise in their cabins. Angry mobs of locals cursing at cruisers at ports of call to go back to the ship and quit spreading the virus. Just some thoughts.

[Honolulu Blue]

3 minutes ago, skittl1321 said:

Do these ships have approval from the ports? (Yes, I know no one on this board knows this answer...rhetorical)  How many of these will end up as cruises to nowhere?

 

I doubt Carnival has approval from anyone for this plan at this point - not the local port authorities, not the countries they will be heading to, and certainly not the CDC/USCG.  At this point it's a proposal that needs a lot of things to go right in order to be executed on time.

 

That said, I can't see the U.S. making exceptions to their prohibitions against cruises to nowhere for this.

[dallasdan]

I have a feeling that most of the Caribbean countries are going to be screaming for cruise ships to return sooner than August.  Some of those places depend on the cruise industry for their local economy.  The official CDC order expires on July 24, if I remember correctly.

[bingomamma19]

13 minutes ago, Honolulu Blue said:

 

I doubt Carnival has approval from anyone for this plan at this point - not the local port authorities, not the countries they will be heading to, and certainly not the CDC/USCG.  At this point it's a proposal that needs a lot of things to go right in order to be executed on time.

 

That said, I can't see the U.S. making exceptions to their prohibitions against cruises to nowhere for this.

Half moon cay has no residents...so that is always an option.    I read that St thomas is accepting tourists and ships as of june 1st....that port is already on our list for our Breeze August 15th cruise.

[ECCruise]

25 minutes ago, vpearlkc said:

I think it could be very weird on the first few cruises. People turning their faces away to avoid each other in narrow hallways. Scared cruisers running from their tables when someone close by has a little water go down the wrong way and goes into a coughing spasms. People with common colds slinking around sucking on cough drops trying to avoid temperature checks so they don't have to spend the rest of the cruise in their cabins. Angry mobs of locals cursing at cruisers at ports of call to go back to the ship and quit spreading the virus. Just some thoughts.

I can't imagine a more unappealing way to travel.

Thanks, but cruising simply is not that important to me.  Would literally prefer sheltering at home than that type of cruise.

And yes, expect the angry mobs you mention.  We experienced just such a situation on Reunion Island and it isn't a pretty picture.

[Honolulu Blue]

4 minutes ago, bingomamma19 said:

Half moon cay has no residents...so that is always an option.    I read that St thomas is accepting tourists and ships as of june 1st....that port is already on our list for our Breeze August 15th cruise.

 

HMC may not have residents, but they have workers who come from other parts of the Bahamas.  I'm sure their government would not be thrilled about an outbreak coming from some dirty cruisers (not you of course).  I read that the Bahamas have a 5 stage plan for opening their islands to tourism.  Cruise ships are welcome again at stage 5 and they're currently at stage 1.  They could flip through those stages quickly, but maybe they won't.  I still think the private islands and mostly private cruise ports (e.g. Amber Cove & Costa Maya) will be some of the very first destinations to reopen to passengers, but there's always a chance they won't.

 

I wish you well and hope you get to have all the experiences you want on your cruise, and none of the experiences you don't.

[vpearlkc]

9 minutes ago, ECCruise said:

I can't imagine a more unappealing way to travel.

Thanks, but cruising simply is not that important to me.  Would literally prefer sheltering at home than that type of cruise.

And yes, expect the angry mobs you mention.  We experienced just such a situation on Reunion Island and it isn't a pretty picture.

 After 5 weeks and counting of sheltering with at least 2 more to go, who knows? Maybe an angry mob screaming at me would be an improvement. I guess my cabin fever is out of control.

[ECCruise]

Just now, vpearlkc said:

 After 5 weeks and counting of sheltering with at least 2 more to go, who knows? Maybe an angry mob screaming at me would be an improvement. I guess my cabin fever is out of control.

Plus that doesn't even factor in the 6 ports that refused us entry at all, most with less than 48 hours notice.  Or the disembarkation port that refused us, requiring the company to scramble to find a new disembarkation port.  Or having to change air/hotel/car reservations 3 times (with 1-2 hours with each vendor each time on the phone).

Thanks but no thanks.  Plenty of food here, Netflix and Hulu.  Neighborhood social distancing driveway meetups. 🙂

Literally couldn't pay me to go on a cruise until this all shakes out.

[Cruising_Addict]

22 minutes ago, Honolulu Blue said:

 

HMC may not have residents, but they have workers who come from other parts of the Bahamas.  I'm sure their government would not be thrilled about an outbreak coming from some dirty cruisers (not you of course).

 

You are correct, they do have workers that come to help with things like cleaning the cabanas, working the water shuttles, opening the souvenir stores and running the tours, but I'm sure Carnival can come up with another plan to allow ships to still stop there if the Bahamian people cannot help.  Like no tours, no souvenir stores, using the life boats for shuttling, etc.  It would certainly be better than nothing.

Edited May 4, 2020 by Cruising_Addict

[outdoors27]

Wanted to say thank you to the OP for posting this as I still have not received my official cancellation email from Carnival for my June 27th sailing on the Panorama.  Having that said because I saw this I already placed a hold on a 6 day sailing on the Horizon out of Miami. Now I have not read the entire thread other than about the first 10 posts, but what my PVP told me that they will be sailing the ship at 50 percent capacity so they are only doing holds for less than 24 hours.  I needed this so I can check my work schedule.  We'll be getting $600.00 OBC for our two cabins as well so that $1200 should pay for grats and our drinks.  Take care everyone.

[kathy49]

55 minutes ago, skittl1321 said:

Do these ships have approval from the ports? (Yes, I know no one on this board knows this answer...rhetorical)  How many of these will end up as cruises to nowhere?

I think   people willing to invest and  sail this summer need to be prepared for a cruise to nowhere. Time will tell.

[dsnutz]

Stinks that Charleston and Sunshine couldn't be in this list. 4/4 cancelled, moved to 6/22 cancelled, moved to 8/8 now cancelled. Was hoping third time to be the charm but guess not. Guess it’ll be refund for us sadly, no way DW will let me go for a round 4. My 8 y/o is the one who’s gonna be crushed😢

[glrounds]

Actually relieved my Aug PANORAMA cruise is cancelled. If "social distancing" is going to be the rule of the day onboard, I'm not interested. With all the mayhem, confusion and turmoil that will produce, I'll wait for the vaccine.

[joeyancho]

2 minutes ago, glrounds said:

Actually relieved my Aug PANORAMA cruise is cancelled. If "social distancing" is going to be the rule of the day onboard, I'm not interested. With all the mayhem, confusion and turmoil that will produce, I'll wait for the vaccine.

I really don't see how social distancing can even be a thing on a cruise.  The hallway is narrow.  If they close the buffet the dining room will be more crowded than ever.  The open decks are wall to wall people.  The whole experience is just one big crowd stuck together for 7 days.