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Interim guidance for restarting cruise operations


Aspidestra99
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  • 4 weeks later...

It looks like it's been a bumpy start for the cruise ships that have resumed operations so far.

 

From the accounts I've read, the first "Blue Cruises" on Mein Schiff 2 have gone well. However, some other early starters (or attempted early starters) haven't gone quite so well.

 

AIDA has had to postpone their plans to restart on AIDAperla (Aug 5) and AIDAmar (Aug 12) pending approval from Italy to resume operations. And then there was the recent announcement from CLIA extending the suspension of US cruises through October 31st.

 

More concerning are the recent reports I've seen of COVID-related incidents on four ships that had resumed operations.

1. Hurtigruten's Roald Amundsen (Norway)

2. SeaDream I (Norway)

3. Paul Gaugin (Tahiti)

4. UnCruise's Wilderness Adventurer (Alaska)

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I read the new EU document.  I'm not buying the hand sanitizer argument.  Not even a little.  I don't wipe down my mail and groceries.  It's like a conspiracy theory that won't die.   The idea you will catch COVID-19 from the tea maker handle in your room from the guests that left this morning is just not right.   Or maybe you have a 24 hour turnaround if it makes people more comfortable . 

 

On the other hand the virus spreads nicely via droplets inside of 1.5 meters.   So elbow to elbow at the bar- yep.  Theater when full yep.  Table of eight strangers - yep.  To or from the waiter- indeed.  Dancing with a new partner you just met - yep.  Do virus particles come from the orchestra horn section?  

 

So we need to turn back the clock on cruising- not to November of 2019.  But to November of 1919.    You still have a majestic liner but the close personal service we are used to - nope.  

 

It would need to be a blank sheet of paper.  Not last year's business plan.  The Germans seem to have the right idea.  It will be like space travel.  The check in would include a photo of you wearing a face mask properly.  You have to assume the person next to you in line is a super-spreader.  Half the tables in the MDR go in the warehouse ashore.  Can we dine outdoors?  Can the HVAC dampers be adjusted for more outside air?  A select few can opt-in to cruise the rest can watch on TV.      

 

I have no access to the financial reports- but can you make money say on the QM2 with 1000 passengers vs having the ship parked?

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I feel pretty sure that the authorities are taking their cues from the expert scientists across the world, who have spent years understanding the way viruses of many kinds can be transmitted.  Clearly how long virus particles remain on surfaces varies depending on the surface and which virus it is.  Can virus particles be placed on a tea maker handle, or door handle by someone who is shedding virus, and wiping a hand across their face or mouth shedding billions of viruses - yes most certainly. If you touch that surface before the virus becomes inactive and then touch your eyes or mouth or nose can you then be infected - certainly - and the experts have been working to understand roughly how many virus particles you need on your mucus membranes for covid-19 to become infected - the figure I saw was around a hundred.  Compare that with typical flu, which needs around 1000 viruses on your membranes, or norovirus which needs around 10 only, and you will see that covid-19 is a pretty infectious virus. Hand hygiene is essential, and is needed without forgetting a few times to sanitise. If someone infected, even when they aren't aware, and may not have symptoms, then either coughs, or breathes heavily due to singing, shouting, dancing, jogging or other reasons and isn't wearing a mask then they can eject an aerosol spray of viruses a lot further than 1.5 metres - so wearing a mask will protect others around someone who is infectious. But wearing a mask won't protect you very much especially if any air around you can be drawn in between the mask and your nose or mouth - and in any event masks don't cover your eyes - which have lovely mucus membranes only too willing to accept viruses in aerosol droplets arriving from some nearby who is infected. So the key factors in keeping yourself protected are not being close to other people and rigorously washing hands and sanitising.  Any shortcuts whether to washing, or touching newly arrived grocery bags could put you at risk of being infected.  Of course out of any set of 1000 grocery bags there will only be a few that may have been touched by an infected person before you touch it - so it is a bit like playing Russian Roulette if you decide not to take the precautions of using gloves, and allowing a 72 hour decontamination period.  However the real change will come with the availability of a covid-19 vaccine that has minimal serious side effects and protects someone vaccinated for a reasonable period of around a year - so let's hope that one of the many vaccine candidates does pass the full set of trials through phase 3 - and is produced in enough doses to protect the majority of people across the globe - even if an annual jab is needed, like the flu jab, each year, that will allow life to return to much closer to the previous normal than any of the current necessary precautions to try to limit transmission. The sooner there is a vaccine, the lower will be the global death toll - and we can all get back to cruising without having serious concerns about the consequences of booking a cruise and being on board.

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13 hours ago, ew101 said:

...I have no access to the financial reports- but can you make money say on the QM2 with 1000 passengers vs having the ship parked?

That's a question that Cunard would love to have an answer for.  Would 1000 passengers be willing to pay the fares needed for QM2 to be viable despite having the on board experience that you just described?  Remember that's not just the fares paid by 1000 passengers. Only 1000 passengers would be spending money in the bars, shops, and spa.  (And you can forget revenue from the spa if that has to stay closed.)   

 

For passengers who dine only at a table for two and mostly keep to themselves the experience would be tolerable.  For those who enjoy large tables, ballroom dancing with Gentleman Hosts, and socializing with strangers it would be a pretty isolating experience. 

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Spot on, BlueRiband.  We would all like the answers right now, but this is one of those classic situations where the answers to the questions are simply not known right now. Hopefully it won't be too long before the answers become at least partially clearer!

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On 8/7/2020 at 7:12 AM, ew101 said:

I have no access to the financial reports- but can you make money say on the QM2 with 1000 passengers vs having the ship parked?

Can you "make" money?  No.  Can you, with proper planning of pax count, crew count, itinerary (speed and distance), lose less than when non-operational?  Most likely.

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24 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Can you "make" money?  No.  Can you, with proper planning of pax count, crew count, itinerary (speed and distance), lose less than when non-operational?  Most likely.

Funny, I've been thinking for a while now that in the short term the resumption of cruising will be less about making money and more about cutting losses.

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13 minutes ago, Colin_Cameron said:

Funny, I've been thinking for a while now that in the short term the resumption of cruising will be less about making money and more about cutting losses.

I don't believe that when cruising restarts, that any line, or any specific ship, will show a profit for at least a year, but being operational, and having revenue coming in, will slow the bleeding of capital.

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1 hour ago, chengkp75 said:

I don't believe that when cruising restarts, that any line, or any specific ship, will show a profit for at least a year, but being operational, and having revenue coming in, will slow the bleeding of capital.

Now that I think about it we actually do have access to the annual reports online.  The question is - if you say ran a 5 day cruise to nowhere on the QM2 out of Southhampton.  You could maybe cobble together a crew from the other ships.  You would get maybe $1M in fares and onboard revenue for 1200 passenger trip.  If you spend less than that in new cash expenses, then it makes sense, as so many costs are fixed in the cruise business.  So say $500,000 goes back in the bank to write checks against that you don't have to borrow.  On the other hand if you get an outbreak aboard it is more bad PR.  I was surprised to see how little the debt and interests costs were as a percent of revenue.    

 

https://www.carnivalcorp.com/static-files/ddd975ba-cef0-43fe-9bf9-bb4c376ed914

 

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Having read the various new on board protocols issued by a number of cruise companies that are planning limited cruises around Europe we have come to the conclusion that cruising has now become an experience that is to be avoided. Mask wearing in supermarkets is bad enough but having to wear one throughout the ship would be unbearable. Add in the distancing at meals and all social events as well as the probability that many of the ports will refuse docking and where they do shore excursions will be severely limited and one has to say that lobbing ££££££s into a “holiday” that would be nothing more than moving from A to B in the most unpleasant way imaginable makes no sense.

We are due to take part of the world cruise in February (the start is ex Southampton in early January). Even if it does sail - unlikely in my opinion - we would not want to be part of a cruise with such restrictions. 

Edited by Roger Ackroyd
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7 hours ago, Roger Ackroyd said:

Having read the various new on board protocols issued by a number of cruise companies that are planning limited cruises around Europe we have come to the conclusion that cruising has now become an experience that is to be avoided. Mask wearing in supermarkets is bad enough but having to wear one throughout the ship would be unbearable. Add in the distancing at meals and all social events as well as the probability that many of the ports will refuse docking and where they do shore excursions will be severely limited and one has to say that lobbing ££££££s into a “holiday” that would be nothing more than moving from A to B in the most unpleasant way imaginable makes no sense.

We are due to take part of the world cruise in February (the start is ex Southampton in early January). Even if it does sail - unlikely in my opinion - we would not want to be part of a cruise with such restrictions. 

Roger that!  All of these guidelines which intend to make the ship safer strip away many of the aspects we enjoy.  I have a January TA booked and there is less than a 50:50 chance that it will happen.  When final payment comes due I'll cancel rather than sail under the those conditions.

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On 8/7/2020 at 3:57 PM, mcloaked said:

I Any shortcuts whether to washing, or touching newly arrived grocery bags could put you at risk of being infected.  Of course out of any set of 1000 grocery bags there will only be a few that may have been touched by an infected person before you touch it - so it is a bit like playing Russian Roulette if you decide not to take the precautions of using gloves, and allowing a 72 hour decontamination period.  

There is just not recent data here supporting surface transmission.  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32648899/

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1 hour ago, ew101 said:

There is just not recent data here supporting surface transmission.  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32648899/

 

That article is dated 10th July.  This one is dated 16th July and includes more recent evidence of surface data for viral rna on surfaces, as well as some data on cruise ship outbreaks: https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/sars-cov-2-orofecal-transmission/  It makes sense to take precautions given the numerous outbreaks that have occurred in quite a number of places where it was thought the incidence rate and level of transmission was under control. In order to keep the incidence level and spread as low as possible all available methods of reducing the likelihood of infection need to be done concurrently, and that includes not only social distancing, strict personal hygiene and wearing of masks, but also sanitisation of surfaces and good ventilation.

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46 minutes ago, mcloaked said:

 

That article is dated 10th July.  This one is dated 16th July and includes more recent evidence of surface data for viral rna on surfaces, as well as some data on cruise ship outbreaks: https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/sars-cov-2-orofecal-transmission/  It makes sense to take precautions given the numerous outbreaks that have occurred in quite a number of places where it was thought the incidence rate and level of transmission was under control. In order to keep the incidence level and spread as low as possible all available methods of reducing the likelihood of infection need to be done concurrently, and that includes not only social distancing, strict personal hygiene and wearing of masks, but also sanitisation of surfaces and good ventilation.

This article is more up to date than mine.   I read it.   " SARS-CoV-2 has been shown to contaminate and survive on certain surfaces, but currently, no reports have directly demonstrated fomite to human transmission"

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Sure, but in this case absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence of surface transmission - so it might be better to be safe than sorry - though of course people can decide not to take any precautions and hope for the best. The choice is entirely up to the individual.  I guess the real test would be to have a community where everyone was meticulous in social distancing, wearing of masks, and personal hygiene, but then had a large buffet and let all the serving staff touch as much as they like, and all the customers touch the serving implements and even food like fruit, as well as no sanitisation of tables, chairs, door handles and or the cutlery, and see if the rate of covid infection goes higher than a similar eatery where nobody is permitted to touch things, and sanitisation of surfaces is meticulous. Then repeat this for several dozen restaurants or cruise ships. Would you be prepared to volunteer for the experiment where there is assumed no surface contamination problem? I wouldn't!

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There are passengers who historically, sanitise as much as they can of their stateroom when first entering, wiping down the phone, the TV controllers etc with special wipes.

The there are others, such as ourselves who wash our hands at every opportunity, have a healthy respect for personal hygiene and don't get hung up on 'catching something'.

 

When Cunard stats sailing again, it will be under strict hygiene regulations. Those and our own personal sanitising programme will be enough for us and I can't see Cunard starting up again until sometime next year. Hopefully by then, herd immunity will suffice if a vaccine hasn't been found.

 

 

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40 minutes ago, mcloaked said:

Sure, but in this case absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence of surface transmission - so it might be better to be safe than sorry - though of course people can decide not to take any precautions and hope for the best. The choice is entirely up to the individual.  I guess the real test would be to have a community where everyone was meticulous in social distancing, wearing of masks, and personal hygiene, but then had a large buffet and let all the serving staff touch as much as they like, and all the customers touch the serving implements and even food like fruit, as well as no sanitisation of tables, chairs, door handles and or the cutlery, and see if the rate of covid infection goes higher than a similar eatery where nobody is permitted to touch things, and sanitisation of surfaces is meticulous. Then repeat this for several dozen restaurants or cruise ships. Would you be prepared to volunteer for the experiment where there is assumed no surface contamination problem? I wouldn't!

 

Not terribly enticing, I agree, but I think I'd be more worried about catching Norovirus. But I suppose if everyone really,were meticulous...

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21 minutes ago, Victoria2 said:

There are passengers who historically, sanitise as much as they can of their stateroom when first entering, wiping down the phone, the TV controllers etc with special wipes.

The there are others, such as ourselves who wash our hands at every opportunity, have a healthy respect for personal hygiene and don't get hung up on 'catching something'.

 

When Cunard stats sailing again, it will be under strict hygiene regulations. Those and our own personal sanitising programme will be enough for us and I can't see Cunard starting up again until sometime next year. Hopefully by then, herd immunity will suffice if a vaccine hasn't been found.

 

 

 

We too are meticulous without being  paranoid about catching something.  Of course the risk is never zero - but equally having a nasty illness can really make a big difference to the enjoyment of a cruise.  Even having a bad sore throat for 4 or 5 days in a two week cruise will make it not as much fun and pleasure. Having Norovirus means  usually 'only' a day or two of being truly stateroom-bound and feeling extremely unwell. But having covid-19 could mean a lengthy hospital stay in a country well away from your usual expectation of healthcare level, as well as a long recovery of months, plus the anxiety of a large medical expenses bill even if it will eventually be covered on insurance with costs being reclaimed. It isn't at all clear that herd immunity will be there for covid-19 any time soon.

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1 hour ago, mcloaked said:

Sure, but in this case absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence of surface transmission 

With just over 20 million cases globally, if we have not seen any proven cases of surface transmission by now there are none.   It is commonly felt that viruses are similar- they are really not.  Noro is not readily spread by breathing or talking as an example.  

 

Edited by ew101
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6 minutes ago, mcloaked said:

 

We too are meticulous without being  paranoid about catching something.  Of course the risk is never zero - but equally having a nasty illness can really make a big difference to the enjoyment of a cruise.  Even having a bad sore throat for 4 or 5 days in a two week cruise will make it not as much fun and pleasure. Having Norovirus means  usually 'only' a day or two of being truly stateroom-bound and feeling extremely unwell. But having covid-19 could mean a lengthy hospital stay in a country well away from your usual expectation of healthcare level, as well as a long recovery of months, plus the anxiety of a large medical expenses bill even if it will eventually be covered on insurance with costs being reclaimed. It isn't at all clear that herd immunity will be there for covid-19 any time soon.

Let's face it, nothing is clear about Covid apart from it's got the world in a tizzy and the experts can't agree.

 

Not sure what the world population is, but in a years time I will be very interested to see the percentage of that population who have succumbed, purely to the virus. 

 

I'll take a bet it will be very very low.

 

If the ships are sailing, I'll take my chances, on a well run ship, with stringent hygiene regulations. I am not going to live, fearing Covid so much that my life will be continually compromised. This year has been my non holiday year. Next year, hopefully, will compensate.

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1 hour ago, Victoria2 said:

Let's face it, nothing is clear about Covid apart from it's got the world in a tizzy and the experts can't agree.

 

Not sure what the world population is, but in a years time I will be very interested to see the percentage of that population who have succumbed, purely to the virus. 

 

I'll take a bet it will be very very low.

 

If the ships are sailing, I'll take my chances, on a well run ship, with stringent hygiene regulations. I am not going to live, fearing Covid so much that my life will be continually compromised. This year has been my non holiday year. Next year, hopefully, will compensate.

 

Currently there are about 7.8 billion people in the world.  There have been around 20 million cases of covid19 as confirmed tested which is about a quarter of a percent of the world's population.  As far as the official statistics go it seems that the number of covid deaths is approaching a million. (https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/geographical-distribution-2019-ncov-cases), so the deaths overall are around one twentieth of the number of cases. Of course the number of cases and deaths is likely to somewhat higher than the official statistics.  This is the number that has happened in mainly in the past half year even though there were some cases in the first few months before March. Whether or not that becomes several percent of the world's population after a couple of years depends so much on how people across the world react and behave, as well as whether effective treatments become available, and how soon a vaccine that does protect people for a reasonable period becomes widely available and accepted.  

 

So yes percentages are low - but the numbers are big and the impact on the activities of the people across the world is huge. For those whose loved ones have died the personal impact is not sensibly measurable. Let's hope this virus really is brought under control for all our sakes.

Edited by mcloaked
typo
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8 minutes ago, mcloaked said:

 

Currently there are about 7.8 billion people in the world.  There have been around 20 million cases of covid19 as confirmed tested which is about a quarter of a percent of the world's population.  As far as the official statistics go it seems that the number of covid deaths is approaching a million. (https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/geographical-distribution-2019-ncov-cases), so the deaths overall are around one twentieth of the number of cases. Of course the number of cases and deaths is likely to somewhat higher than the official statistics.  This is the number that has happened in mainly in the past half year even though there were some cases in the first few months before March. Whether or not that becomes several percent of the world's population after a couple of years depends so much on how people across the world react and behave, as well as whether effective treatments become available, and how soon a vaccine that does protect people for a reasonable period becomes widely available and accepted.  

 

So yes percentages are low - but the numbers are big and the impact on the activities of the people across the world is huge. For those whose loved ones have died the personal impact is not sensibly measurable. Let's hope this virus really is brought under control for all our sakes.

The big picture is that the Americas - north and south (Canada excepted) have so far failed where Europe and Asia has, partially, succeeded in at least holding back the tide.

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