Cruise ship air circulation and Covid

[NMTraveller]

I received an e-mail from Cruise Critic that the cruise lines were bringing in fresh air and installing HEPA filters.  It mentioned NCL and another cruise line.  My question is what is Celebrity doing about this issue?  What if anything are they doing so that the ACs don't spread Covid?

[Wine-O]

I've seen some threads on here about the filter system in staterooms, i.e., lots of gunk and crap in the filters and returns.  Maybe now they'll start paying more attention to this.  🍷

[WrittenOnYourHeart]

12 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

I received an e-mail from Cruise Critic that the cruise lines were bringing in fresh air and installing HEPA filters.  It mentioned NCL and another cruise line.  My question is what is Celebrity doing about this issue?  What if anything are they doing so that the ACs don't spread Covid?

 

Celebrity is part of Royal Caribbean Company (Corporation? whatever their new name is) and NCL and Royal are working together in having formed a healthy sail panel (which was in the next paragraph after the leading bits). So they will be working together on these. Given that Royal is who has come up with the "mobile muster" thing, it seems like they will be learning from each other and cooperating on things.

[sptrout]

27 minutes ago, WrittenOnYourHeart said:

 

Celebrity is part of Royal Caribbean Company (Corporation? whatever their new name is) 

FYI - - Royal Caribbean Group

[bouhunter]

13 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

My question is what is Celebrity doing about this issue?  What if anything are they doing so that the ACs don't spread Covid?

How would anyone know?  They aren't going to be sailing for many months and are still working on everything.

[WrittenOnYourHeart]

34 minutes ago, sptrout said:

FYI - - Royal Caribbean Group

 

Thank you.

[PTC DAWG]

1 hour ago, sptrout said:

FYI - - Royal Caribbean Group

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (RCL)

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/rcl?ltr=1

Edited July 27, 2020 by PTC DAWG

[TeeRick]

The corporation changed its name to RCG just recently.  The stock ticker symbol however did not change.

 

About Royal Caribbean Group
Royal Caribbean Group (NYSE: RCL) is a cruise vacation company comprising four global brands: Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, Azamara and Silversea. Royal Caribbean Group is also a 50% owner of a joint venture that operates TUI Cruises and Hapag-Lloyd Cruises. Together, our brands operate 63 ships with an additional 16 on order as of July 10, 2020. Learn more at www.rclcorporate.com or www.rclinvestor.com.

Edited July 27, 2020 by TeeRick

[sptrout]

2 minutes ago, PTC DAWG said:

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (RCL)

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/rcl?ltr=1

They changed their name to "Royal Caribbean Group" a few days ago and even changed their logo. TeeRick beat me to the keyboard LOL.

 

http://www.rclcorporate.com/

[PTC DAWG]

3 minutes ago, TeeRick said:

The corporation changed its name to RCG just recently.  The stock ticker symbol however did not change.

 

About Royal Caribbean Group
Royal Caribbean Group (NYSE: RCL) is a cruise vacation company comprising four global brands: Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, Azamara and Silversea. Royal Caribbean Group is also a 50% owner of a joint venture that operates TUI Cruises and Hapag-Lloyd Cruises. Together, our brands operate 63 ships with an additional 16 on order as of July 10, 2020. Learn more at www.rclcorporate.com or www.rclinvestor.com.

I almost jumped on it when it bottomed around $20....you know what they say about hindsight... 😞

Edited July 27, 2020 by PTC DAWG

[TeeRick]

Just now, PTC DAWG said:

I almost jumped on it when it bottomed around $20....you know what they say about hindsight...

Honestly you might be better off.  I personally would not invest in any single cruise line stock at any price.

[PTC DAWG]

20 minutes ago, TeeRick said:

Honestly you might be better off.  I personally would not invest in any single cruise line stock at any price.

I would have already bailed...take the $$$ and run as Steve Miller says.,  

[C-Dragons]

46 minutes ago, TeeRick said:

Honestly you might be better off.  I personally would not invest in any single cruise line stock at any price.

“You pays your money and you takes your chances”. 😎

[Fouremco]

14 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

I received an e-mail from Cruise Critic that the cruise lines were bringing in fresh air and installing HEPA filters.  It mentioned NCL and another cruise line.  My question is what is Celebrity doing about this issue?  What if anything are they doing so that the ACs don't spread Covid?

 @chengkp75 has posted a lot of excellent information on the ship AC systems. IIRC, the air in your cabin has two sources, one using fresh air and one using recirculated air. The major source is the unit which draws in fresh air and distributes it to multiple cabins to maintain positive pressure. This offsets the constant loss of air through the bathroom venting system, and and the air lost when veranda or cabin doors are opened. As the incoming air is fresh, not recirculated, it has no impact on the spread of COVID-19. The second AC system recirculates the air in your cabin, cooling or heating it to the temperature that you have set on the cabin thermostat. This system is isolated to the individual cabin, simply recirculating that cabin's air and no one else's. Again, no threat of spreading Covid.

 

I'm a little fuzzier on the AC for common areas such as the MDR, theatre, bars, etc.. If their air is recirculated, these common areas would be an obvious target for HEPA filters if they aren't in current use, a point that would not have been missed by Celebrity or any other cruise line.

 

 

[TeeRick]

20 hours ago, Fouremco said:

 @chengkp75 has posted a lot of excellent information on the ship AC systems. IIRC, the air in your cabin has two sources, one using fresh air and one using recirculated air. The major source is the unit which draws in fresh air and distributes it to multiple cabins to maintain positive pressure. This offsets the constant loss of air through the bathroom venting system, and and the air lost when veranda or cabin doors are opened. As the incoming air is fresh, not recirculated, it has no impact on the spread of COVID-19. The second AC system recirculates the air in your cabin, cooling or heating it to the temperature that you have set on the cabin thermostat. This system is isolated to the individual cabin, simply recirculating that cabin's air and no one else's. Again, no threat of spreading Covid.

 

I'm a little fuzzier on the AC for common areas such as the MDR, theatre, bars, etc.. If their air is recirculated, these common areas would be an obvious target for HEPA filters if they aren't in current use, a point that would not have been missed by Celebrity or any other cruise line.

 

 

Thanks for your thoughts here and to chengkp75.   It is interesting if you go back and look at the early studies from China on spread of the virus by AC in a restaurant.  From a wall-mounted ductless AC unit.  Detailed diagrams of the tables emanating from an infected woman show how this happened.  There is a lot of misinterpretation reported from this study.   It does not prove that the virus can survive in building HVAC units.  It proves the obvious that the unfiltered virus can be spread around by simple re-circulation.  This can happen at home if your window AC is not exhausting air but recirculating air for example. Or by ceiling fans.   But somebody in the room needs to be infected and carry a high enough viral load in their respiratory droplets during re-circulation.  I am sure many studies are being done now by HVAC experts to understand if these units can actually harbor the virus and for how long.  But they have heating/cooling cycles not friendly to the virus.  All very interesting.

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/9/20-1749_article