Who will still cruise with Princess...I think many in these groups won’t

[ontheweb]

11 minutes ago, d9704011 said:

It would be interesting to read resistk’s explanation of the reason but I doubt it will be forthcoming.  As usual though, you’re engaged in a bit of sophistry of your own.  I don’t believe there is any reliable evidence that the coronavirus was spread through the ship’s air conditioning system.

In fact, there are posts by ship engineer chengkp75 that refute the theory that it was the air conditioning that spread the virus on ships.

[drsel]

In fact, there are posts by ship engineer chengkp75 that refute the theory that it was the air conditioning that spread the virus on ships.

Cheng is the expert, also chief engineer and one of the most reliable experts.

 

so if he says that it could not have spread through the conditioning, then there has to be another way that is spread

I wonder how it spread though.

 

 

 

 

 

[drsel]

It would be interesting to read resistk’s explanation of the reason but I doubt it will be forthcoming.  As usual though, you’re engaged in a bit of sophistry of your own.  I don’t believe there is any reliable evidence that the coronavirus was spread through the ship’s air conditioning system.

I would hope not. 

I "thought" that it spread through the air conditioning, ONLY because I read it on one of the threads here on cruise critic.

 

someone else has stated on another thread that this is the way it spread on diamond Princess.

 

I personally have no idea how it spread and I am not engaging in any sophistry.

 

 

 

 

[Expat Cruise]

Yes they have not handled the refunds well.....Anyone who has followed Princess and refunds knows this. But will still cruise with them, do not want to give up cruising and Princess is the best of the main stream cruise lines.  But we will be cruising 100% for our benefit and Princess will see very little in the way of extra revenue from us.

 

[drsel]

I will still cruise on Princess.

Most certainly.

 

In fact I am really looking forward to my next cruise on Princess and planning to book one more also.

just waiting for a big price drop

 

 

[Grego]

Normally, just looking at how this thread was framed I would be inclined to post a response to each of the speculations that were made (except for the one referring to folks in the high risk category) but it would be a waste of time because it won't change anyone's opinion they might have.

We are Princess stakeholders having been on 45 voyages with them and have many great relationships both in Santa Clarita and aboard the various ships and have booked voyages in January and March next year.  The cruise line will adapt to whatever is necessary to provide safety to passengers and crew.  It is up to us to do our part to be safe, adapt to the changes and to have the best experience possible.

Until then, we will not waste our time speculating on what the future will look like.

 

 

[nbsjcruiser]

27 minutes ago, drsel said:

Cheng is the expert, also chief engineer and one of the most reliable experts.

 

so if he says that it could not have spread through the conditioning, then there has to be another way that is spread

I wonder how it spread though.

 

 

 

 

 

I think I can guess on that. 3-5K people, jammed together in a tube, shoulder to shoulder at the buffet, butt to cheek at embarkation or disembarkation, sitting with strangers in the Dining Room, socializing at the bars, practically sitting on each other's laps around the pool, etc. If you were to be asked to design a lab simulation, isolated from the rest of the world, to see how in real life this virus could spread, you could hardly do better than a cruise ship.

[BabySarge]

3 hours ago, NSWP said:

Hi Ann, if you have my e mail, please contact me, i lost yours, it is re Mary. Thanks. les

Hi Les, I only have Mary's; can I use that?

[ontheweb]

2 hours ago, nbsjcruiser said:

I think I can guess on that. 3-5K people, jammed together in a tube, shoulder to shoulder at the buffet, butt to cheek at embarkation or disembarkation, sitting with strangers in the Dining Room, socializing at the bars, practically sitting on each other's laps around the pool, etc. If you were to be asked to design a lab simulation, isolated from the rest of the world, to see how in real life this virus could spread, you could hardly do better than a cruise ship.

I think you can add to that that even after passengers were forced to stay in their cabins, they still had to eat. Meals were served to them by crew members who may very well have been infected. The crew generally lives in very close quarters, so it is very likely that the virus spread easily among them.

[jagoffee]

5 hours ago, nbsjcruiser said:

Although I did have a battle with Princess to get my deposit back, I will cruise with them again. The question is when? It wont be this year (obviously) and it wont be next year either. We've been on 30 cruises and have enjoyed them all but my rules for getting back on a cruise ship again are fairly short

1. Vaccines - no vaccine, no cruise. Its as simple as that. If I can't get a vaccine then I'm not going to risk cruising or flying for that matter.
2. Vaccines part II - if there is a vaccine then cruise lines will have to insist that any cruiser must be vaccinated or they can choose not to cruise. Without this guarantee, I cannot take a chance on a breakout on a ship. Even though I could technically be protected if I get a vaccine, the thought of aimlessly floating around the ocean while I'm locked in my cabin is as appealing as non-stop prostate exams.
3. Virus breakout plans - unless the cruise lines have hard written plans on what they're going to do in case of a breakout, count me out. I'll need to know that if there is a breakout, the ship can speedily dock somewhere, disembark everyone and get them home. Without that, I can't take the risk of spending 3 weeks on a ship as people around me get sick.

That's pretty much it for me. Once those 3 issues have been dealt with to my satisfaction, I'll look at cruising again.

You have some tough requirements, which is obviously your choice.  You would want to make sure that any vaccine is proven to be very effective.  I would “guess” that unless you modify your requirements, that you will may never cruise again. Lot’s of other vacation choices.

[voljeep]

4 hours ago, nbsjcruiser said:

 shoulder to shoulder at the buffet, butt to cheek at embarkation or disembarkation, sitting with strangers in the Dining Room, socializing at the bars, practically sitting on each other's laps around the pool, etc

You go out at night and eat up bars where the people meet
Face to face, dance cheek to cheek
One to one, man to man
Dance toe too toe
Don't move to slow, 'cause the man from Mars
Is through with cars, he's eatin' bars
Yeah, wall to wall, door to door, hall to hall
He's gonna eat 'em all
Rapture, be pure
Take a tour, through the sewer

[npcl]

4 hours ago, ontheweb said:

I think you can add to that that even after passengers were forced to stay in their cabins, they still had to eat. Meals were served to them by crew members who may very well have been infected. The crew generally lives in very close quarters, so it is very likely that the virus spread easily among them.

It the case of the Diamond the analysis done indicates that most of the passenger cases were infected prior to the quarantine (or from infected cabin mates during the quarantine).  The cases among the crew however, most were infected during the quarantine when the crew was still working and generally interacting in close quarters.

[NSWP]

6 hours ago, BabySarge said:

Hi Les, I only have Mary's; can I use that?

Yes please, i will get it, thanks Ann

[nbsjcruiser]

6 hours ago, jagoffee said:

You have some tough requirements, which is obviously your choice.  You would want to make sure that any vaccine is proven to be very effective.  I would “guess” that unless you modify your requirements, that you will may never cruise again. Lot’s of other vacation choices.

Valid points but even if there is not a working vaccine, the general consensus is that it will run its course in 3 years. And you're right, there are other choices. We always vacation in Florida for 5 weeks or so in the fall. While we're not doing that this year, we hope to at least do that next fall. Time will tell.

[muffydawg]

Forget uncertainty around which ports the ship will visit, what about even uncertainty over EMBARKATION? Imagine two couples book a Caribbean voyage. All four show up for check-in at Port Everglades. The cruise is supposed to stop in the USVI, so according to this CC news item, as a condition of BOARDING the ship all four must show "proof" of a negative COVID-19 test. One person gets a positive; the remaining three test negative. 

 

Would the three people who tested negative drive to Port Everglades, embark and leave the fourth person behind? Who in the world would even BOOK a cruise under those circumstances? Oh sure, the person denied boarding might get their $ "refunded" in the form of a FCC but what about the other three? 

 

Then there's the "oh, we don't accept test results from THAT company....

 

IMHO this has not been well thought out...

 

https://www.cruisecritic.com/news/5530/

[memoak]

11 minutes ago, muffydawg said:

Forget uncertainty around which ports the ship will visit, what about even uncertainty over EMBARKATION? Imagine two couples book a Caribbean voyage. All four show up for check-in at Port Everglades. The cruise is supposed to stop in the USVI, so according to this CC news item, as a condition of BOARDING the ship all four must show "proof" of a negative COVID-19 test. One person gets a positive; the remaining three test negative. 

 

Would the three people who tested negative drive to Port Everglades, embark and leave the fourth person behind? Who in the world would even BOOK a cruise under those circumstances? Oh sure, the person denied boarding might get their $ "refunded" in the form of a FCC but what about the other three? 

 

Then there's the "oh, we don't accept test results from THAT company....

 

IMHO this has not been well thought out...

 

https://www.cruisecritic.com/news/5530/

I really think it will not be tests at embarkation but proof of vaccination 

[rdsqrl]

15 minutes ago, memoak said:

I really think it will not be tests at embarkation but proof of vaccination 

Agree.  A test result is meaningless, unless the test is conducted right there at the pier and the result is forthcoming immediately.  What's the point of bringing to the pier a test result taken even just the day before?   In the intervening 24 hours, the passenger tested has (assuming the "usual" FLL routine I have!) visited Total Wine and/or Walgreen's, gone out to dinner at a restaurant, perhaps visited the hotel bar for a nightcap (or two -- don't judge; I'm on vacation).  Plus, the next morning, perhaps breakfast in the hotel, and another quick dart across the street to Walgreen's for the inevitable forgotten item (toothpaste.  It's always toothpaste with me.  I could write a book about how I've forgotten toothpaste all around the world.).   All those places obviously come with the danger of exposure to the virus, making yesterday's negative result the very definition of old news. 

 

 

[suzyed]

7 hours ago, voljeep said:

You go out at night and eat up bars where the people meet
Face to face, dance cheek to cheek
One to one, man to man
Dance toe too toe
Don't move to slow, 'cause the man from Mars
Is through with cars, he's eatin' bars
Yeah, wall to wall, door to door, hall to hall
He's gonna eat 'em all
Rapture, be pure
Take a tour, through the sewer

Who knew that Blondie had such vision!?

[suzyed]

I'll need to know that if there is a breakout, the ship can speedily dock somewhere, disembark everyone and get them home. Without that, I can't take the risk of spending 3 weeks on a ship as people around me get sick.
 

That would be nice but sometimes that is beyond the control of the cruise company.  For example, on the Coral,  Princess TRIED to get us all off but flights were cancelled, countries refused entry and in some cases wouldn't even let the ship sit in port or even get near the port!

[npcl]

34 minutes ago, rdsqrl said:

Agree.  A test result is meaningless, unless the test is conducted right there at the pier and the result is forthcoming immediately.  What's the point of bringing to the pier a test result taken even just the day before?   In the intervening 24 hours, the passenger tested has (assuming the "usual" FLL routine I have!) visited Total Wine and/or Walgreen's, gone out to dinner at a restaurant, perhaps visited the hotel bar for a nightcap (or two -- don't judge; I'm on vacation).  Plus, the next morning, perhaps breakfast in the hotel, and another quick dart across the street to Walgreen's for the inevitable forgotten item (toothpaste.  It's always toothpaste with me.  I could write a book about how I've forgotten toothpaste all around the world.).   All those places obviously come with the danger of exposure to the virus, making yesterday's negative result the very definition of old news. 

 

 

The tests will have some screening value but will not catch all.  Even a test taken on the pier and analyzed immediately will not catch every case.  If someone was infected a day or two before would likely get a negative test result.  Even on the first days of symptoms with current tests 38% test negative on their first day of symptoms.

 

The best way to use testing is not to catch every case, but more as a baseline for the population.  If you test and get not positives and you passengers are coming from an area with relatively low case counts (like Germany with 1 new case per day per 100,000 population) and if you get no positives the odds are the cruise is pretty safe. If one the other had you get a number of positives 4 or 5 then there is a good chance an infected person might have slipped through with a false negative.  In the case of the US we are currently getting about 15 new confirmed cases per day per 100,000).

[caribill]

15 hours ago, drsel said:

 

someone else has stated on another thread that this is the way it spread on diamond Princess.

 

 

 

 

As I understand it, there was no passenger spread once the Diamond Princess passengers were confined to their cabins (except for one couple that insisted on mingling on their connecting balcony with the people in the next cabin).

 

All the spreading was done while people interacted before the confinement.

 

Yes, daily reports shows an increasing number of passengers testing positive, but that was because testing was slow and these were the first time people were being tested.

[caribill]

15 hours ago, drsel said:

 

In fact I am really looking forward to my next cruise on Princess and planning to book one more also.

just waiting for a big price drop

 

 

 

Don't hold your breath.

 

CCL Corp (and other cruise companies) report that bookings for next year are equal to or ahead of what they had been for this year at this time a year ago.

 

[matadams4u]

Hopefully a vaccine will be available and people will feel safe to travel.  I can’t travel because my company has an international travel ban and we need to keep the employee population safe.

 

For many people cruising is just one part of their entertainment portfolio.  Also for many we are just accumulating PTO and trying to put our travel savings to good use with not a lot of choices - there is only so much deferred home maintenance.

 

For me the gym is considered to risky, but my membership is not that expensive and they will be there after this.  My Regal Cinema pass isn’t good without an open theatre - I certainly hope the movies I’ve missed will be on a flight or cruise when the time comes.  The season tickets to the performing arts center keep getting donated back -  ok I miss seeing Hamilton for the second time and was looking forward to the season but it feels good to help out.  Besides I have great seats.  My four year membership for excess tickets to shows might not be good for some time but just one set of tickets over the next four years will pay for my membership.  My ticket request for my AHL team season ticket has not been processed so I’m thinking hockey might be out for the foreseeable future.  My planned safaris to Malaysia and Uganda are pretty much off for the moment.  All I’m left with is membership in the Foundation Room with the House of Blues with no shows to be seen, but dinner once or twice a month with friends and a little entertainment.  So although I don’t get as much out of my membership at least there is something and I am supporting the local community.

 

My point is - we all lead very fortunate lives to be able to cruise and see the world.  I have been really trying to support local businesses and still make progress on my personal goals.  For most of us our entertainment support system is pretty diversified plus family and friends.  Right now things are pretty disrupted and I have not felt upset with leaving funds with my normal suppliers (including Princess).  My hope is they will come back stronger and always remember the vote of confidence during hard times.  
 

It is certainly good for people to rethink there options during times like this.  It is good to stretch and ponder new experiences.  That type of creative thinking gets us through the difficult times.  As for Princess - yes I will be back.

 

 

[caribill]

4 hours ago, rdsqrl said:

Agree.  A test result is meaningless, unless the test is conducted right there at the pier and the result is forthcoming immediately.  What's the point of bringing to the pier a test result taken even just the day before?   In the intervening 24 hours, the passenger tested has (assuming the "usual" FLL routine I have!) visited Total Wine and/or Walgreen's, gone out to dinner at a restaurant, perhaps visited the hotel bar for a nightcap (or two -- don't judge; I'm on vacation).  Plus, the next morning, perhaps breakfast in the hotel, and another quick dart across the street to Walgreen's for the inevitable forgotten item (toothpaste.  It's always toothpaste with me.  I could write a book about how I've forgotten toothpaste all around the world.).   All those places obviously come with the danger of exposure to the virus, making yesterday's negative result the very definition of old news. 

 

 

 

And all of those possible points of contact with the disease would be too soon for the virus to show up in any test at embarkation. At least two days after exposure would be needed for the tests to be valid.

 

So not only is yesterday's negative result not useful, neither is today's negative test result.

[nbsjcruiser]

14 hours ago, muffydawg said:

Forget uncertainty around which ports the ship will visit, what about even uncertainty over EMBARKATION? Imagine two couples book a Caribbean voyage. All four show up for check-in at Port Everglades. The cruise is supposed to stop in the USVI, so according to this CC news item, as a condition of BOARDING the ship all four must show "proof" of a negative COVID-19 test. One person gets a positive; the remaining three test negative. 

 

Would the three people who tested negative drive to Port Everglades, embark and leave the fourth person behind? Who in the world would even BOOK a cruise under those circumstances? Oh sure, the person denied boarding might get their $ "refunded" in the form of a FCC but what about the other three? 

 

Then there's the "oh, we don't accept test results from THAT company....

 

IMHO this has not been well thought out...

 

https://www.cruisecritic.com/news/5530/

To add a little more complexity to your excellent post, imagine that those 4 people dropped their cars off at the garage at Port Everglades and hopped the shuttle to the ship with 10 or 15 other people. Now those 10 or 15 other people have been exposed. Might the cruise ship deny them boarding as well? I bet they would.

 

Your post only highlighted to me how difficult it will be to even get people on a ship let alone sail safely. There are waaaaaay too many negative variables that will be impossible to police until there is a working vaccine. Once that happens, it seem obvious to me that the only way a ship can sail safely will be to insist that all potential passengers show proof of inoculation against Covid. Even then, in the US you know someone is going to fight that in court because "freedom" and all. 

 

Too many potholes. My head hurts just thinking about it. 

Edited August 17, 2020 by nbsjcruiser