They're serious about shore excursions

[memoak]

13 hours ago, beg3yrs said:

You're conflating two different issues. Carnival is on 'probation' for environmental violations. You responded with this to a post about restrictions on shore excursions to combat COVID-19.

What I was referring to was the possibility of any cruises happening in the month of December

[beg3yrs]

1 hour ago, memoak said:

What I was referring to was the possibility of any cruises happening in the month of December

Got it, thanks! It's more clear that you were trying to show two separate reasons there may be no cruises in December. Sometimes I can be slow.

[SNJCruisers]

13 hours ago, Linsifer said:

 Oh, we will always follow the rules.  However, if we knew this was going to be the case long before we sail,  we might consider postponing our cruise until 2022 in hopes that the pandemic will be no longer be an issue.  I’m going to contact my travel agent and ask her about this.  Thank you for bringing it to our attention.  Or at least to MINE.

You have 7+ months until your final payment.  Between now and then cruises will be up and running in the US and you'll know what the current protocol is at that time.  It's all speculation as to what will happen regarding shore excursions and the only thing we have to back up the speculation is what has happened so far in Europe with the few cruises that have taken place.

[vjmatty]

6 hours ago, Tolkmit said:

 

It's extremely doubtful the private vehicle excursions will be allowed during the period where staying with an excursion booked through the company is mandatory.

 

Which excursions you can book isn't going to be updated until it's worked out what the requirements are to cruise from and to various countries; and even then they aren't going to change which excursions will be available until within a couple months of the sail date when they are reasonably confident what restrictions will be in place. They are just leaving up the stuff they already had as placeholders. 

If a single tour operator can control a bus full of 50 people, I’m sure a private car driver can manage 2-4 passengers.  Private cars through the cruise line will probably become very popular as they seem to be the best of both worlds. 

[SNJCruisers]

5 hours ago, bubbapuck said:

Please let us know what your TA says. I am curious as this has been rumored but never verified for US cruising. 

Whatever her TA says will be the same speculation that is being discussed on the boards.  Until a vaccine has been developed and is implemented widely, the current policy that has been introduced in the few European cruises will more than likely become standard operating procedure for US based cruises as well.

[ROWSE]

The excursions listed for our May, 2021,  British Isles cruise seem few and very expensive.  I

would hope if they are going to still have the requirement that we take a ship excursion, Princess 

adds more choices and better pricing.

I think there should be some way that private tour companies are able to do something (some kind of certification process)  to prove they will follow all protocols as ship tours, and then that would help them stay in business rather than only those with contracts with the cruise lines.  

My heart just breaks for all these tour companies!  

When our British Isles cruise from 2020, was cancelled I moved my booked and paid for private excursion reservations over to May, 2021.  It will be heart breaking to lose them if the "only ship tours" will still be happening in May.  There is so much more to them than the ship tours!  

Anyone else just holding on to their private excursion bookings or making new ones?  

[Ombud]

29 minutes ago, vjmatty said:

If a single tour operator can control a bus full of 50 people, I’m sure a private car driver can manage 2-4 passengers.  Private cars through the cruise line will probably become very popular as they seem to be the best of both worlds. 

There's only 1 still available on my May cruise. And the 4×4s are filling up fast. I anticipate Princess opening up more small excursions 

[2 cruises a year]

17 hours ago, patrickmoran said:

In theory, ship personnel will take it and return it at the end of the cruise. I find this happens less than half of the time I buy something in a port.

If you pay the corkage, it will not be confiscated.  You can use it anywhere onboard.  If you don't offer to pay the corkage, and they find it, they are supposed to take it and hold it until the end of the cruise for you.  You could probably pay the corkage at that point and be able to use it anywhere on board.  If they do not take it to hold for you, and you do not pay corkage, you just have to be discrete on how and where you drink it, if you catch my drift. 😉

[Ombud]

I have my steward drop off a dz wine glasses & corkscrew at the beginning of each cruise as I carry wine onboard and no one has every asked where I got the wine I'm walking around with.

 

Tawny Port = fortified wine / hope permitted or ignored

[Tolkmit]

1 hour ago, vjmatty said:

If a single tour operator can control a bus full of 50 people, I’m sure a private car driver can manage 2-4 passengers.  Private cars through the cruise line will probably become very popular as they seem to be the best of both worlds. 

 

The numbers aren't the issue; what matters is who is setting the itinerary and schedule. Limiting passengers to excursions through the cruise line is in theory a way for the cruise to limit exposure. This happens by the cruise line making agreements with various tourist sites, that those sites will be open exclusively to passengers from the ship for certain hours, and will sanitize the area both before and after the passengers arrive. Theoretically limiting the exposure of locals to cruise passengers, and passengers to locals. Private vehicles don't have set itineraries controlled by the cruise line.

 

Tour busses, they are relying on the operators and the crew they will send on each excursion to make sure passengers follow the rules, but the company & governments involved make the call what is acceptable risk exposure wise.
Private vehicles, they are relying on the individual operators to make the call on what is acceptable risk exposure wise.

 

Getting governments on board with the former is going to happen a lot sooner than getting them on board with the latter.

[vjmatty]

48 minutes ago, Tolkmit said:

 

The numbers aren't the issue; what matters is who is setting the itinerary and schedule. Limiting passengers to excursions through the cruise line is in theory a way for the cruise to limit exposure. This happens by the cruise line making agreements with various tourist sites, that those sites will be open exclusively to passengers from the ship for certain hours, and will sanitize the area both before and after the passengers arrive. Theoretically limiting the exposure of locals to cruise passengers, and passengers to locals. Private vehicles don't have set itineraries controlled by the cruise line.

 

Tour busses, they are relying on the operators and the crew they will send on each excursion to make sure passengers follow the rules, but the company & governments involved make the call what is acceptable risk exposure wise.
Private vehicles, they are relying on the individual operators to make the call on what is acceptable risk exposure wise.

 

Getting governments on board with the former is going to happen a lot sooner than getting them on board with the latter.

What I’m anticipating is that the private drivers will have a limited list of the usual excursion sites, restaurants and shopping locations that the passengers would have to choose from, and those places would be closed to the locals while the ship is in port. 

[2 cruises a year]

2 hours ago, Ombud said:

I have my steward drop off a dz wine glasses & corkscrew at the beginning of each cruise as I carry wine onboard and no one has every asked where I got the wine I'm walking around with.

 

Tawny Port = fortified wine / hope permitted or ignored

👍👍

[SargassoPirate]

With only about half of the population saying they will take the vaccine when available, and with the vaccine only about 50% effective, we may have to depend on the virus mutating into a less virulent form and herd immunity is reached before most restrictions are lifted.  The Russian flu is still circulating, but as a common flu strain.  Same with the Spanish flu.  Both are in the coronavirus family.

 

And even then, all it will take is one person on a ship coming down with an upper respiratory infection or the norovirus and full panic may set in on the ship and with any port officials.

 

 

 

 

[nocl]

4 hours ago, SargassoPirate said:

With only about half of the population saying they will take the vaccine when available, and with the vaccine only about 50% effective, we may have to depend on the virus mutating into a less virulent form and herd immunity is reached before most restrictions are lifted.  The Russian flu is still circulating, but as a common flu strain.  Same with the Spanish flu.  Both are in the coronavirus family.

 

And even then, all it will take is one person on a ship coming down with an upper respiratory infection or the norovirus and full panic may set in on the ship and with any port officials.

 

 

 

 

The 50% is the minimal approvable standard.  It is not yet known what the efficacy of the vaccine will be, it could be much higher.

 

The virus could also mutate into a more virulent form.  One of the reasons one wants to minimize the number of infections. Less opportunity to mutate.

 

Actually influenza (spanish, Russian, bird, swine, etc) is not in the Coronavirus family. Influenza is its own family of viruses.

[Roger88]

1 hour ago, nocl said:

The 50% is the minimal approvable standard.  It is not yet known what the efficacy of the vaccine will be, it could be much higher.

 

The virus could also mutate into a more virulent form.  One of the reasons one wants to minimize the number of infections. Less opportunity to mutate.

 

Actually influenza (spanish, Russian, bird, swine, etc) is not in the Coronavirus family. Influenza is its own family of viruses.

We will see the results of the vaccine next year. Also its hard to tell how your body will react to the virus after the vaccination. Who knows, maybe it will make it even worse considering you are already infected with it through the vaccine

[nini]

So, does this just boil down to: You will not be permitted to leave the ship

UNLESS you are booked for a shore excursion through the ship?

 

So, it would be better to NOT cruise, and just do land based tours?

[Ombud]

53 minutes ago, nini said:

So, does this just boil down to: You will not be permitted to leave the ship

UNLESS you are booked for a shore excursion through the ship?

 

So, it would be better to NOT cruise, and just do land based tours?

Depends on why someone is going & the types of shore excursions offered

[BirdTravels]

7 hours ago, nocl said:

Actually influenza (Spanish, Russian, bird, swine, etc.) is not in the Coronavirus family. Influenza is its own family of viruses.

Coronavirus family viruses include: 

229E (an alpha virus)

NL63 (an alpha virus)

OC43 (a beta virus)

HKU1 (a beta virus)

MERS-CoV, a beta virus causing Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)

SARS-CoV, a beta virus causing Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)

SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19

 

Edited October 23, 2020 by BirdTravels

[SNJCruisers]

2 hours ago, nini said:

So, does this just boil down to: You will not be permitted to leave the ship

UNLESS you are booked for a shore excursion through the ship?

 

So, it would be better to NOT cruise, and just do land based tours?

Your first paragraph is correct.  Your second paragraph would be incorrect because a cruise vacation enables you to visit 3 or 4 countries over the course of a week, whereas it would be  more difficult and more expensive to do land based tours.

And of course there is also the percentage of people who cruise for the ship, not the ports, so the possible new restrictions would be moot.

[nini]

1 hour ago, SNJCruisers said:

Your first paragraph is correct.  Your second paragraph would be incorrect because a cruise vacation enables you to visit 3 or 4 countries over the course of a week, whereas it would be  more difficult and more expensive to do land based tours.

And of course there is also the percentage of people who cruise for the ship, not the ports, so the possible new restrictions would be moot.

I am thinking that a land based British Isles (England, Wales and Scotland) land based trip

would be much more informative and not so restricted.

 

I just think that is VERY IRONIC and ILLOGICAL to allow people into the country to travel

and sight see, but if they are there getting off of a ship that this will be forbidden!

 

It would be really strange to cruise and not be able to get off at a port at your own leisure

and wander a bit.

[caribill]

7 hours ago, nini said:

So, does this just boil down to: You will not be permitted to leave the ship

UNLESS you are booked for a shore excursion through the ship?

 

 

That is what it is now.

 

What it will be a year from now is unknown.

 

Remember that in the middle of this pandemic the purpose of the "bubble" of a ship excursion is twofold:

a) Assure the port country that cruise passengers will not infect the local population.

b) Assure the cruise line (and its employees and passengers) that those going on shore will not get infected with the virus while there and bring it back onto the ship.

 

The alternative to doing it this way initially is no cruising at all from the USA and most other countries.

[mevs904]

Excellent explanation, caribill.  As much as these new procedures will be restrictive and not as enjoyable there has to be some assurance that cruising will not create more problems.  The concern about passengers coming back on the ship and spreading infection needs to be taken seriously.  The last thing anyone wants is a repeat of the awful scenario last spring where ships couldn’t dock and the infection was spreading onboard.

[Aulanis]

I havent actually seen anything from Princess regarding what
the position might be.
Maybe foolishly in the few week period when things were looking better here we booked  a cruise to Greenland.  Med countries looked like they would take longer to get to near normal so initially thought
Norway and/or Iceland would be a better bet.
Anyway -its Iceland & Greenland.

There is nothing that I can see that gives any information or guidance on what excursion rules will be like.   They do have excursions available but a 1.5 hour guided walk around a small village at 07.30 am until 09.30 am for the (IMO) extortionate price of $100 was not exactly what I hoped for!
Whilst it is a long time off Aug21 I think Princess should be giving
some indications of "might be".   In the uk we do not have the 
option of cancelling without costs if we decide we dont want to go
though it may be they would allow a transfer to 2022 if covid is still
an issue, ( in which case the cruise industry may have collapsed anyway.)
 Its a long way to go if we cant get off the ship.
I also dont think that the stops in Greenland have infrastructure
to support a whole ship going on ships tours, from what I have read
most just like to walk and take in the scenery & maybe shop for the
odd souvenir of the visit.

I believe MSC, for their first cruises offered a package of 3  tours for €100 and maybe 1 free one for those not doing the package.

I have been looking at the Aida plan which is on their website (in German)
 also note that whilst they did put someone off for wandering a way from a group they did assist them in getting home they were not just dumped as the headlines inferred.
I will try and add the Aida stuff as an attachment as it is quite long.
Interesting bits are they provide a free test 3 days before boarding and free test on board if required. The rest is what is being surmised on CC.   

The excursion bit is right at the end.

 

If anyone can point me to any indications given by Princess that would be useful.

 

 

 

 

 

aida.txt

[nini]

9 hours ago, caribill said:

 

That is what it is now.

 

What it will be a year from now is unknown.

 

Remember that in the middle of this pandemic the purpose of the "bubble" of a ship excursion is twofold:

a) Assure the port country that cruise passengers will not infect the local population.

b) Assure the cruise line (and its employees and passengers) that those going on shore will not get infected with the virus while there and bring it back onto the ship.

 

The alternative to doing it this way initially is no cruising at all from the USA and most other countries.

 

2 hours ago, mevs904 said:

Excellent explanation, caribill.  As much as these new procedures will be restrictive and not as enjoyable there has to be some assurance that cruising will not create more problems.  The concern about passengers coming back on the ship and spreading infection needs to be taken seriously.  The last thing anyone wants is a repeat of the awful scenario last spring where ships couldn’t dock and the infection was spreading onboard.

 

caribill and mevs904-

I respectfully appreciate your comments and explanations.

 

And now sarcastically, I was unaware that this virus is so intelligent

that it will only infect the Princess ship Group A touring the Vatican and

not Group B who has booked a private tour.

[Roger88]

The results of the vaccine will be seen next year and not any earlier. I would suggest staying away from cruising for awhile and just watch the news. Who knows, these days everything changes so rapidly