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Pearl Heading Back to Miami as Sailing Cancelled due to Crew Cases


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4 minutes ago, SoDonewithitAll said:

I am currently on the Getaway. Masking has been near 100% with the exception of bars and dining areas. I have not once seen a crew member not wearing a high-quality mask correctly, let alone not having one at all. They are all totally masked all the time when in public areas. My guess is the crew areas are different, and that is the problem. I have only once seen a guest without a mask when he was not eating/drinking. Everyone I have run into has been very good about masking when with others. I was quite surprised to be honest. 

I think we have no idea what the crew is doing in their area.  Honestly, the way Omicron spreads, I have not seen any reliable study that masks are stopping it as much as they did with other variants.  Let's not conclude the crew is not following rules without proof is all I am saying here.

Edited by oteixeira
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1 minute ago, oteixeira said:

I think we have no idea what the crew is doing in their area.  Honestly, the way Omicron spreads, I have not seen any reliable study that masks are stopping it as much as they did with other variants.  Let's not conclude the crew is not following rules without proof is all I am saying here.

This could have nothing to do with numbers either.  What if the captain is positive?  The chief engineer?  Would they really sail with them in isolation?

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1 minute ago, oteixeira said:

I think we have no idea what the crew is doing in their area.  Honestly, the way Omicron spreads, I have not seen any reliable study that masks are stopping it as much as they did with other variants.  Let's not conclude the crew is not following rules without proof is all I am saying here.

Exactly. Let's not push blame on anyone. 

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4 minutes ago, aubreyc1988 said:

100% agree, I'm letting my 1/22 sailing ride.

 

I've heard that most people are put into balcony cabins for quarantine and refunded prorated. IMHO, sitting on my balcony for however long is better than my living room.

I don't know what they do on NCL, but on RCI there are reports that a person was assigned a balcony cabin on COVID row, but they would not allow them to open the balcony door.  

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2 minutes ago, oteixeira said:

I think we have no idea what the crew is doing in their area.  Honestly, the way Omicron spreads, I have not seen any reliable study that masks are stopping it as much as they did with other variants.  Let's not conclude the crew is not following rules without proof is all I am saying here.

Those crew areas are below decks and crowded. Even if they are doing everything right and only taking masks off to eat and sleep, omicron is going to spread down there. Not their fault. 

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1 minute ago, Lou33 said:

I don't know what they do on NCL, but on RCI there are reports that a person was assigned a balcony cabin on COVID row, but they would not allow them to open the balcony door.  


That makes zero sense, but I believe it. I also saw on F B people were being assigned inside cabins and ocean view cabins on RCI.
 

I think NCL has been good with giving balconies. You would think fresh air would be good to vent the cabins….?

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1 hour ago, Rob_H said:

Interesting the FCC option offered in the letter is available for cruises up to end of May, 2023.

 

More realistic than end December 2022 offered under the peace of mind policy.

We wanted to do a cruise in February 2023 all along, but we couldn't use our FCC.  So we booked a cruise in February 2022 which we cancelled just before final payment.  But I just checked the prices for that February 2023 cruise that we "might" now be able to apply FCC, and it is now 20% higher!!😬☹️🤬

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14 minutes ago, psac said:


That makes zero sense, but I believe it. I also saw on F B people were being assigned inside cabins and ocean view cabins on RCI.
 

I think NCL has been good with giving balconies. You would think fresh air would be good to vent the cabins….?

Yes, you would think that fresh air would be good?  This was on Harmony of the Seas.  It sounds like they had a big outbreak and the normal outside cabins on deck 3 were already full, so they assigned some balcony cabins on deck 6.  Apparently there is some kind of alarm that notifies staff if you open the door.  They were speculating that they don't want COVID passengers communicating with each other on their balconies.  

 

 

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44 minutes ago, Lou33 said:

The real question, are they going to test all passengers before they disembark?  I doubt it.  Do they really want the world to know how many asymptomatic passengers are positive?  Do they really want to pay for quarantine and travel expenses for what could be hundreds of passengers?  Not.  

My guess is no but it would be interesting 

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18 minutes ago, Karaboudjan said:

This could have nothing to do with numbers either.  What if the captain is positive?  The chief engineer?  Would they really sail with them in isolation?

There are plans in place for these types of situations, even before COVID, that there are people who can fill in and do their jobs in the event they become ill or even worse, die.

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2 minutes ago, SliderNc said:

There are plans in place for these types of situations, even before COVID, that there are people who can fill in and do their jobs in the event they become ill or even worse, die.

Yes, I know that, but do you continue on with or start a new a multi-day cruise with thousands of passengers on board without your leaders?  I bet your insurance company would take a dim view of that if something goes wrong.

 

 

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30 minutes ago, aubreyc1988 said:

I've heard that most people are put into balcony cabins for quarantine and refunded prorated. IMHO, sitting on my balcony for however long is better than my living room.

 

Best I can tell is most people are moved to the medical floor and placed in an outside cabin. This is positively true on RCL. It seems people are placed in balconies once the entire medical center floor is filled with covid patients/close contacts.

 

OF course, I draw that soft conclusion based solely on self-reported evidence. No one has enough data to draw a firm conclusion one way or another and the cruise lines aren't coming out with formal policy about the location of a quarantine cabin (which would likely give many people peace of mind if, in fact, most guests were getting balcony cabins to quarantine in).

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11 minutes ago, styxfire said:

So sorry to you!  The Getaway's itinerary sounded EXCELLENT.   I hope you can get a similar cruise in the future.  What a disappointment for you.  

We know things could go sideways and was prepared to go with the flow. NBD. 

 

Called NCL. They said we would have our air reservation home sent to us within 24 hours. Problem is checkout is in the morning and no idea when or even where (MIA or FLL) it will leave out of. They said if it leaves the 6th, they would reimburse us for a hotel stay but that would still leave us scrambling for a night in a hotel. 

 

Thinking about just saying screw it and staying and enjoying a few night on our own dime and flying ourselves home Over the weekend. 🤔 

 

Anyone know if we wouldn't get a cruise refund if we didn't use their flights back? 

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1 minute ago, vacationut said:

We know things could go sideways and was prepared to go with the flow. NBD. 

 

Called NCL. They said we would have our air reservation home sent to us within 24 hours. Problem is checkout is in the morning and no idea when or even where (MIA or FLL) it will leave out of. They said if it leaves the 6th, they would reimburse us for a hotel stay but that would still leave us scrambling for a night in a hotel. 

 

Thinking about just saying screw it and staying and enjoying a few night on our own dime and flying ourselves home Over the weekend. 🤔 

 

Anyone know if we wouldn't get a cruise refund if we didn't use their flights back? 

I don't know about the flights. I would assume you'd get your refund either way, but don't know for sure

 

if you knew for sure you'd get refund without flying home, I would stay and enjoy a few nights, have some cocktails and enjoy nice weather 🙂

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#vacationut  You could wait til you get your airline ticket (assuming it comes today), then you'd have the reservation confirmation # so you could reschedule it yourself directly with the airline.    However, not knowing whether you're getting ticketed tonight OR tomorrow is problematic.

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12 minutes ago, Karaboudjan said:

Yes, I know that, but do you continue on with or start a new a multi-day cruise with thousands of passengers on board without your leaders?  I bet your insurance company would take a dim view of that if something goes wrong.

 

 

Since I don't know what happened, I can only give examples.  There are basically four divisions on a cruise ship: Deck Department, Engineering Department, Hotel Department and Medical Department.  All report to the captain.  In the event that the Captain falls ill for whatever reason, the Staff Captain is usually next in command and would take over.  If the Chief Engineer falls ill, there is usually the Second engineer who would take over his duties and report to the captain.  This goes all the way down the command chain for each department.   If multiple departments were to have COVID infect them and take out a certain number of officers, it is more than likely going to lead to the ship either staying in the port it is in, or turning around to the last port it was in until it can be remedied as a certain number of crew in each department is needed to safely operate the ship.  My guess is with the Pearl and the Getaway, they've either had massive outbreaks in the crew that is effecting and/or testing limits of the crew numbers to safely operate the ship, or they had a massive passenger outbreak, or both.  I want to say I read somewhere that the QM2 (Cunard) had to stay in Bermuda recently due a lack of able bodied deck officers to safely operate the ship.

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21 minutes ago, vacationut said:

We know things could go sideways and was prepared to go with the flow. NBD. 

 

Called NCL. They said we would have our air reservation home sent to us within 24 hours. Problem is checkout is in the morning and no idea when or even where (MIA or FLL) it will leave out of. They said if it leaves the 6th, they would reimburse us for a hotel stay but that would still leave us scrambling for a night in a hotel. 

 

Thinking about just saying screw it and staying and enjoying a few night on our own dime and flying ourselves home Over the weekend. 🤔 

 

Anyone know if we wouldn't get a cruise refund if we didn't use their flights back? 

Might want to double check that they are not automatically cancelling your return flights…

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5 minutes ago, SliderNc said:

  I want to say I read somewhere that the QM2 (Cunard) had to stay in Bermuda recently due a lack of able bodied deck officers to safely operate the ship.

 

I believe it was Barbados. The QE@ was supposed to head back to NY, but NY refused entry so they flew passengers home from Barbados. Some passengers from the UK elected to stay onboard as the QE2 is directly headed back to Southampton.

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5 minutes ago, SliderNc said:

  I want to say I read somewhere that the QM2 (Cunard) had to stay in Bermuda recently due a lack of able bodied deck officers to safely operate the ship.

All they said was they needed to wait in Barbados to embark additional crew.  Never heard that it was deck officers, but that makes sense.

They are now on their way to Southampton.  Did not make it to New York and had to arrange for many pax to get there.

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56 minutes ago, CarolinaMamma said:

Those crew areas are below decks and crowded. Even if they are doing everything right and only taking masks off to eat and sleep, omicron is going to spread down there. Not their fault. 

 

Exactly.  Below decks crew quarters are INCREDIBLY tight, and social distancing is impossible.  If anyone wants good footage of crew quarters, cafeterias and leisure spaces below decks, there are plenty of YouTube videos out there, as well as a great documentary, "The Secret Life of a Cruise Ship
about the MSC Meraviglia.

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2 minutes ago, ECCruise said:

All they said was they needed to wait in Barbados to embark additional crew.  Never heard that it was deck officers, but that makes sense.

They are now on their way to Southampton.  Did not make it to New York and had to arrange for many pax to get there.

Thanks for clarifying the port for me.  Too many B ports around the Caribbean.  Needless to say, it could have been for any department that might be shorthanded or close to it.  We'll never know the details but either way, this is not good for the industry as a whole and I suspect it will get worse from here.

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