Cruise Critic Exclusive Interview With Arnold Donald

[Joe817]

Mods, if this is covered somewhere else, please feel free to move it. This is the first I've seen of it. I got it in an email today at 5:13 Central Time:

 

"Carnival Corp. CEO Arnold Donald: Science Will Drive Cruise Changes and Return Dates

In an exclusive interview with Cruise Critic, Donald said it's too soon to tell what exact changes cruisers will see on ships once they return to service, but he vowed that whatever protocols are put in place would follow guidelines put out by global health authorities such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization."

 

https://www.cruisecritic.com/news/5366/?et_cid=3334830&et_rid=268269734&et_referrer=nav_site_login_us

 

It's a long read but a good one. 

 

[BlerkOne]

Some interesting points clarified.

 

1-Aug is not a hard start date - it could be sooner or later.

 

Masks may be required, much depends on regulatory agencies.

 

Buffets aren't going away but likely will be modified

 

Room service might be mandatory one night

 

But nothing really has been decided. It depends on the virus, regulatory agencies, and of course, customer demand.

 

 

[Joe817]

The mandatory room service one night jumped out at me. I thought that odd, but I can kinda, sorta see their point. 

 

Most of what I got out of it, was a what I've been saying, 'it's too soon to tell', and wait and see. They don't know what they don't know. 

[Organized Chaos]

• What's made his corporation reluctant to announce hard and fast changes is that the information about the virus keeps evolving, week by week, Donald said.

I like that statement. This situation is fluid and has changed regularly since the onset. Carnival isn't going to overreact and institute major changes and measures when there's still a lot of time to see how this thing plays out. I also got the impression that he was kind of saying, we'll listen to the experts, but even the experts have been changing their minds repeatedly, so we're not going to base our comeback on present-day data when future data will more than likely be different.

 

One of the changing perceptions he mentioned was temperature checks. Personally, I think those are practically a waste of time. Those handheld infra-red thermometers detect surface temperature, not body temperature. I'll tell you why that could be a problem. We cruised on the Horizon in March, the last Horizon sailing before the shutdown. I had helped our shuttle driver get our luggage out of the van (5 big bags) and I had lifted our bags up on the conveyor and back down again. I was hot and worked up a sweat by the time I got to Mr. Temperature Checker. He pointed it at my forehead and couldn't get a good read. He asked me to wipe my brow (remember, I was hot and sweating) and took another reading. He let me go, but I know the surface temp. of my forehead was above normal. Not because I had COVID, but because I was hot. They could've easily made something out of it because of their temperature check, but it wouldn't have been an indication of the virus.

What they're looking for are people with fevers, but there's a couple flaws in that logic. People can have the virus, be contagious, and not yet reached the stage of showing symptoms (e.g. fever). People can also be one of the estimated 30% who have the virus, are contagious, but are asymptomatic. In both those groups of people, they're contagious but temperature checks are useless.

 

In the end, the only thing they know is that they don't know yet. So people can speculate till the cows come home. It don't mean squat until we hear it from them and/or people start experiencing it first-hand. Thanks for sharing, Joe.

Edited May 29, 2020 by Organized Chaos

[jimbo5544]

Some parts were carryover from the Porthole vid, but a good article over all.  My friend says it best tho, 

5 hours ago, Organized Chaos said:

 

 

In the end, the only thing they know is that they don't know yet. So people can speculate till the cows come home. It don't mean squat until we hear it from them and/or people start experiencing it first-hand. Thanks for sharing, Joe.

 

[jimbo5544]

I think the mandatory room service one night concept on a Carnival ship untenable. 

[Honolulu Blue]

20 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

I think the mandatory room service one night concept on a Carnival ship untenable. 

 

I've always thought Carnival's room service was weak.  The only way I could see this as a net positive for me is if it forces them to expand their room service menu options.

[jimbo5544]

12 minutes ago, Honolulu Blue said:

 

I've always thought Carnival's room service was weak.  The only way I could see this as a net positive for me is if it forces them to expand their room service menu options.

It would be an epic fail. 

[richfret]

Glad we got it all cleared up.  So for sure and without a doubt, cruising in the future is a definite maybe.  When will be determined later.  How is based on maybe and later.  Now that that is settled, I will take off my mask, spray the keyboard and watch past cruise videos.  Then it's off to breakfast to sit by myself in a nearly empty restaurant and read the abbreviated menu.  Almost sounds like a cruise.  

 

Now don't chew me out for being pessimistic.  It's the times.

[Roger88]

Arnold Donald is one of the nicest persons in the industry I know. I like the interview a lot. He is as always being very honest, clear and straight forward. As long as he remains the president the things will go the right direction. Its hard to imagine anyone else on his place. Moreover, If I am not mistaken he has been a president of one of the biggest charitable organizations. I am sure it has its impact on his work he does for Carnival 

[secondchance]

I applaud him for stepping up and telling it exactly like it is. Unfortunately right now, nobody knows.  In addition, I appreciate the fact that he has stated that August cruises are not set in stone which should offset all the criticism should they be canceled.

[jimbo5544]

2 hours ago, secondchance said:

I applaud him for stepping up and telling it exactly like it is. Unfortunately right now, nobody knows.  In addition, I appreciate the fact that he has stated that August cruises are not set in stone which should offset all the criticism should they be canceled.

Until the CDC waves the magic wand, nothing is guaranteed.  

 

[Organized Chaos]

9 hours ago, Honolulu Blue said:

I've always thought Carnival's room service was weak.  The only way I could see this as a net positive for me is if it forces them to expand their room service menu options.

 

At the very least, I think they'd need to make the entire room service menu free. It wouldn't go over well if they forced everyone to do it and still charged for half the menu.

[Lee Cruiser]

12 hours ago, jimbo5544 said:

I think the mandatory room service one night concept on a Carnival ship untenable. 

I would be curious to know if that mandatory room service night included items from the MDR menu for that night.  That is the only way I see it working.  I would probably okay with it if they did that.

[Lee Cruiser]

19 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

Some interesting points clarified.

 

1-Aug is not a hard start date - it could be sooner or later.

 

 

 

 

I caught that as well.  But I take that to mean later rather than sooner.  Since they have already cancelled all June and July cruises, it would certainly be hard to suddenly bring those back.

[BlerkOne]

1 hour ago, Lee Cruiser said:

I caught that as well.  But I take that to mean later rather than sooner.  Since they have already cancelled all June and July cruises, it would certainly be hard to suddenly bring those back.

 

Yep, they can't uncancel a cruise. I suppose they could potentially sneak in a non-rev cruise the last few days of July for a soft start. It is likely that the start will be sometime after the first.

[Banditswife]

Interesting article.  We are just playing the wait & see how things unfold.  Our May cruise was canceled & we have another booked for Nov.  I will say this:  CCL refunded all our $ for our May cruise.  It took several weeks, but it did get done with no hitches other than time.  I will sail again when the CDC says it is safe.  Like someone else said- there are risks to every thing we do.