US cruising in early January (speculation)

[bouhunter]

5 hours ago, LXA350 said:

 

The government should implement strickt rules and whoever does not wear a mask in places where required a fine of USD 1'000 should apply with very frequent controls.

Our police are being attacked by bricks and fire bombs and almost no one even gets arrested for that.  Not too likely they're going to turn into the mask police.......

[Pratique]

Just now, Milwaukee Eight said:

It is

It's OK, we can always start another one.

[Milwaukee Eight]

Just now, bouhunter said:

Our police are being attacked by bricks and fire bombs and almost no one even gets arrested for that.  Not too likely they're going to turn into the mask police.......

Exactly but people in areas without issues are clueless. They like to wish their will on others. 
 

I’m surprised this thread has lasted this long. 
 

M8

[Pratique]

6 minutes ago, Milwaukee Eight said:

Exactly but people in areas without issues are clueless. They like to wish their will on others. 
 

I’m surprised this thread has lasted this long. 
 

M8

What are you afraid of?

[A&L_Ont]

 

3 hours ago, Oxo said:

MadMax is now here

 Forget the laws, go back to the 'ole' West. We don't need laws bc we can't enforce them. LOL 

WHY work,  pay taxes?

Wednesday Thursday Friday 

Is next?

 

“All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos, ruined dreams, this wasted land. But most of all, I remember the times when we used to cruise and talk about it on CC... Gone now, swept away... it was here, in this blighted place, that we learned to live again”.
 

Opening narration in Mad Max Two, The Road Warrior with a small liberty taken by me.😉

 

[John&LaLa]

6 minutes ago, A&L_Ont said:

 

 

“All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos, ruined dreams, this wasted land. But most of all, I remember the times when we used to cruise and talk about it on CC... Gone now, swept away... it was here, in this blighted place, that we learned to live again”.
 

Opening narration in Mad Max Two, The Road Warrior with a small liberty taken by me.😉

 

 

Perfection

[Biker19]

9 hours ago, bouhunter said:

Literally thousands of posts here now about vaccines.  

Most threads never get to 1K posts.

[Kbonner]

Alright, back to the subject matter: I think US cruising in early January is only allowed on Route 66 (speculation)

[ipeeinthepool]

6 hours ago, A&L_Ont said:

 

 

“All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos, ruined dreams, this wasted land. But most of all, I remember the times when we used to cruise and talk about it on CC... Gone now, swept away... it was here, in this blighted place, that we learned to live again”.
 

Opening narration in Mad Max Two, The Road Warrior with a small liberty taken by me.😉

 

 

Awesome 

[TheMastodon]

10 hours ago, RETNAVY1996 said:

I worked for a person that had his masters in statistics and he once told me that a good statistics person can come up with the numbers they want if they know what they are doing.  His bottom line was never trust someone who gives you statistics, they get their source for the statistics from where they want.  Just like most polls will not give you the verbatim questions asked when reporting numbers.  
 

Welcome to the party Navy1996 - big fan of the greatest military branch the world has ever seen.  You guys kick ass.

 

I feel like I’m beating a dead horse when it comes to analyzing the data of Covid19.  I’ve made some nice virtual friends along the way though.  My opinion on this thing is established and I’ll leave it at that!!

[Welly9]

16 hours ago, bouhunter said:

Our police are being attacked by bricks and fire bombs and almost no one even gets arrested for that.  Not too likely they're going to turn into the mask police.......

Seriously though! Unbelievable we are talking about this and want Police to police masks! almost an oxymoron!

[Milwaukee Eight]

4 hours ago, Welly9 said:

Seriously though! Unbelievable we are talking about this and want Police to police masks! almost an oxymoron!

I agree. The most ridiculous thing I hear in these times. 
 

M8

[TheMastodon]

3 hours ago, Milwaukee Eight said:

I agree. The most ridiculous thing I hear in these times. 
 

M8

Eh some of the opinion pieces I read in Wash Post/NYT make this seem normal. 

[2chiefs]

6 minutes ago, TheMastodon said:

Eh some of the opinion pieces I read in Wash Post/NYT make this seem normal. 

Consider the source

[TheMastodon]

18 minutes ago, 2chiefs said:

Consider the source

Yes indeed.  However, my mind will always be open to opposing opinions ( not w/ cruising - will never leave RCL). That’s only reason why I read those publications.  I have seen them change over the past 4-5 years though.  Pretty sad.  Twitter/social media drives them. 
 

 

[Biker19]

The cruise line CEOs are certainly pushing for it:

 

Cruise line CEOs aggressively called for a smart return to service during a meeting of the Miami-Dade County Tourism and the Ports Committee on Thursday morning.

 

Arnold Donald, CEO of Carnival Corporation said the company had been working non-stop with governments, health authorities, medical and scientific experts and stakeholders across the globe to develop science-based COVID-19 protocols. He pointed to Costa Cruises, the company’s Italian brand, which returned to service this week in Italy.

 

Donald noted that the return to service would see the cruise industry manage risk without impact to communities.

“We want no one to experience a greater risk on a cruise ship than they would in shoreside activities,” he said, noting the company was committed to working closely with the CDC. However, he said the industry pause had generated a tsunami of negative effects on economic impact and employment.

 

The urgency for the industry to come back and have the opportunity to operate is key, noted Miami Port Director and CEO Juan Kuryla, noting the industry was resilient.

 

Rick Sasso, chairman of MSC Cruises USA, said that the company’s protocols put in place in Europe had been thus far working successfully aboard the Grandiosa now on its fourth cruise since restarting in July.

Frank Del Rio, CEO of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, was the most vocal, noting it is safe to cruise in America and the industry has been too quiet.

 

“All we are asking for is the opportunity to demonstrate we take this very, very seriously. Health and safety are buzz words we hear every day but that has been the backbone of our industry forever.

 

“Enough is enough,” Del Rio continued. “It’s been more than six months. We as an industry, we as a society, have learned a lot on how to live alongside COVID. “

Del Rio said the company’s Healthy Sail Panel in collaboration with Royal Caribbean Group was a week to 10 days away from submitting its plan.

 

Michael Bayley, president and CEO of Royal Caribbean International, said the Caribbean was also being highly impacted, with over 40 countries highly dependent on cruise calls for economic impact, originating on ships leaving from Miami

[yogimax]

7 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

The cruise line CEOs are certainly pushing for it:

 

 

Of course... their salaries, bonuses and perks are directly tied to it.  Reading Del Rio's comments would lead me to avoid NCL at all costs!

[A&L_Ont]

I posted the comments below on the staff returning thread, based upon what I heard yesterday in the conference presentation.  If, and that’s a big if, the time frames of hearing back from the CDC are similar to the last time and the Chief saying it takes approximately 2 months to man a ship we might not be sailing in January. Let’s hope it isn’t the case.

 

 

All the cruisers can hope for is the industry puts forward an effective plan on September 18th/21st and that the CDC will accept it.  We need to keep for fingers crossed that it will be responded to faster than the 14 weeks it took last time, before they responded.  Then it can be put into action.

 

14 weeks from Sept 18th is December 25th.

The 2 months approx. needed to staff a ship from that date is February 19th.

 

In the meantime one can hope that rates continue to go down and there is some success with the vaccines by then as well.  All we can do is cross our fingers and stay safe in our daily actions.

 

[A&L_Ont]

6 hours ago, yogimax said:

Of course... their salaries, bonuses and perks are directly tied to it.  Reading Del Rio's comments would lead me to avoid NCL at all costs!

I would have done that on most days.  On live reviews the food pics from the pubs on their ships which are named after him look so good. Looks way better than Sorento's at 2am. 😉

[BND]

On 9/9/2020 at 9:01 PM, RETNAVY1996 said:

I worked for a person that had his masters in statistics and he once told me that a good statistics person can come up with the numbers they want if they know what they are doing.  His bottom line was never trust someone who gives you statistics, they get their source for the statistics from where they want.  Just like most polls will not give you the verbatim questions asked when reporting numbers.  
 

You don't have to be a statistician to know that.  Numbers can be manipulated to say anything you want.   Our county just reports out numbers and breaks them up by positive cases (numbers and %), numbers tested, how many by zip code. population by zip code, deaths by age groups,etc.  So, there are ways to get actual numbers.  The problem comes in when someone  takes those numbers and turns them into something and/or someone takes numbers and puts them in a report without context.  Most news stories are done that way, they have an agenda.   Polls are only as good as the questions asked and how they are asked.  I hate yes/no polls because the questions are usually written in such a way to get the answer they want.  

 

My DH works with a guy (degreed engineer so lots of math) who has been analyzing the data to death.  It drives him crazy to read the numbers reported out because they leave out important info and are reported incorrectly a lot of the time.  My oldest son took college level probability and stats in HS (went to the Governor's Science and Tech HS) and then he double majored in math and astronomy in college and uses his degrees in his job, and his instructor in HS had a MS in stats.  She showed them all kinds of ways that stats are manipulated daily.  

 

I've looked at the death rates from COVID-19 based on numbers reported out and while people are making a lot of noise about the US, our death rate is lower than a lot of other countries.   But, you don't see that.  What you see is 190K people without any context (age, health status prior, etc).  

Edited September 11, 2020 by BND

[Pratique]

2 hours ago, A&L_Ont said:

I posted the comments below on the staff returning thread, based upon what I heard yesterday in the conference presentation.  If, and that’s a big if, the time frames of hearing back from the CDC are similar to the last time and the Chief saying it takes approximately 2 months to man a ship we might not be sailing in January. Let’s hope it isn’t the case.

 

 

All the cruisers can hope for is the industry puts forward an effective plan on September 18th/21st and that the CDC will accept it.  We need to keep for fingers crossed that it will be responded to faster than the 14 weeks it took last time, before they responded.  Then it can be put into action.

 

14 weeks from Sept 18th is December 25th.

The 2 months approx. needed to staff a ship from that date is February 19th.

 

In the meantime one can hope that rates continue to go down and there is some success with the vaccines by then as well.  All we can do is cross our fingers and stay safe in our daily actions.

 

Next step for the CDC is to evaluate and respond to the public comments they received to their questions (which, by the way, a random sampling of comments shows that most people were not interested in giving specific answers to those questions). With a plan in hand from the industry, CDC then has to formulate the regulations and go through a round of rulemaking with another public comment period (at least 30 days). Then the rules can go into effect. These things take time even when there is an industry lobby pressing the issue. We also don't know how long it will take the cruise lines to come into compliance with the final rules because we don't know what they are yet.

 

I would think they could start the manning before then, though. Everyone on standby ready to go.

[2chiefs]

1 hour ago, BND said:

You don't have to be a statistician to know that.  Numbers can be manipulated to say anything you want.   Our county just reports out numbers and breaks them up by positive cases (numbers and %), numbers tested, how many by zip code. population by zip code, deaths by age groups,etc.  So, there are ways to get actual numbers.  The problem comes in when someone  takes those numbers and turns them into something and/or someone takes numbers and puts them in a report without context.  Most news stories are done that way, they have an agenda.   Polls are only as good as the questions asked and how they are asked.  I hate yes/no polls because the questions are usually written in such a way to get the answer they want.  

 

My DH works with a guy (degreed engineer so lots of math) who has been analyzing the data to death.  It drives him crazy to read the numbers reported out because they leave out important info and are reported incorrectly a lot of the time.  My oldest son took college level probability and stats in HS (went to the Governor's Science and Tech HS) and then he double majored in math and astronomy in college and uses his degrees in his job, and his instructor in HS had a MS in stats.  She showed them all kinds of ways that stats are manipulated daily.  

 

I've looked at the death rates from COVID-19 based on numbers reported out and while people are making a lot of noise about the US, our death rate is lower than a lot of other countries.   But, you don't see that.  What you see is 190K people without any context (age, health status prior, etc).  

Bingo!! 

I hear a local political ad that says the over [insert number here] current cases and climbing. Of course it's going to climb. It can't go down. They fail to say at what rate it's climbing [which continues to decline] and worse yet fail to examine the death rate or hospitalization rate....  It drives me nuts.

 

[Milwaukee Eight]

1 hour ago, BND said:

how many by zip code. population by zip code,

Do you have a magical zip code too?😇

 

M8

[BND]

3 minutes ago, Milwaukee Eight said:

Do you have a magical zip code too?😇

 

M8

What the heck does that mean?  I can post our numbers if you want.  They're posted every single day by one of our local reps.  

[torpeedo]

11 minutes ago, Milwaukee Eight said:

Do you have a magical zip code too?😇

 

M8

I live pretty close to that magical zip code and they're still doing great!  We also had Dr. Deborah Birx here in Columbia SC yesterday.  We aren't doing great with numbers of testing.  People just have covid fatigue and not interested.  So she's sending a surge testing team here and encouraging the saliva test.  We had around 230 positive in SC yesterday but our percentage was higher because on low testing.  Overall our numbers have been under 500 for the last week or so.