Covid on the Breeze

[J&MSails]

Has anyone heard the covid status of the five other Windstar ships?

 

Were we the only lucky ones that had an outbreak?

[Babr]

17 minutes ago, J&MSails said:

Has anyone heard the covid status of the five other Windstar ships?

 

Were we the only lucky ones that had an outbreak?

 

Breeze has been Orange since it returned to sailing in US waters. That means it has enough cases on board for the CDC to initiate an investigation. The aborted / cancelled cruises may have forestalled an elevation to Red, but the impact is the same.

 

I have not seen reports from the other ships. They are not being tracked by CDC because they are elsewhere.

 

It would be interesting to know.

[r&rd]

For a ship with 200 guests if only takes 6 passengers for a ship to hit the 3% mark that moves it to orange. I think any outbreak on a Windstar ship will almost automatically move it to orange.

[Babr]

7 minutes ago, r&rd said:

For a ship with 200 guests if only takes 6 passengers for a ship to hit the 3% mark that moves it to orange. I think any outbreak on a Windstar ship will almost automatically move it to orange.

You are correct. It takes only a few when the population is small, but the consequences are the same. Windstar must have been concerned about continued spread or they would not have reacted the way they did.

[Mocamps]

I thought the main issue was that the spread amongst crew and the numbers who had to quarantine because they had been in contact meant that there were not enough crew able to work so the cruise couldn't really continue. As it was, they had to close Amphora. Candles and Cuadro weren't open at all on this cruise so everything had to move on deck (which made sense anyway because there's less risk outdoors) and food was available from Star Grill or Verandah.

 

Our vaccination certificates AND test results were requested and examined by Alaska when we checked in.

[Babr]

6 minutes ago, Mocamps said:

I thought the main issue was that the spread amongst crew and the numbers who had to quarantine because they had been in contact meant that there were not enough crew able to work so the cruise couldn't really continue. As it was, they had to close Amphora. Candles and Cuadro weren't open at all on this cruise so everything had to move on deck (which made sense anyway because there's less risk outdoors) and food was available from Star Grill or Verandah.

 

Our vaccination certificates AND test results were requested and examined by Alaska when we checked in.

Yes, I think the crew was mostly impacted at that point, but there was also a passenger who tested positive. Never did hear what happened to him/her.

[r&rd]

Actually it is .03% of passengers and/or crew or 1% crew to hit orange. Essentially that is 1-2 people to go orange. Also, the one passenger who tested positive on the 5/20 cruise may have been someone quarantined on the ship from the previous cruise who still tested positive although past the 10 day quarantine. My husband, who had a false negative to get off the ship, finally tested negative today, 14 days later.

[Babr]

39 minutes ago, r&rd said:

Actually it is .03% of passengers and/or crew or 1% crew to hit orange. Essentially that is 1-2 people to go orange. Also, the one passenger who tested positive on the 5/20 cruise may have been someone quarantined on the ship from the previous cruise who still tested positive although past the 10 day quarantine. My husband, who had a false negative to get off the ship, finally tested negative today, 14 days later.

 

I don’t know. The cancellation letter just said a passenger had tested positive as well as a number of crew members. I took it to mean a passenger on the current sailing. There was nothing to indicate it was a holdover from a previous sailing. 

 

I think the point is that it does not take much to start the process of infection, quarantine, and isolation. Breeze met that level early on and was never able to overcome it. There were enough crew members confined that service suffered to the point it was no longer sustainable.

 

It was likely to continue to spread among passengers as well. It is something to consider, especially for those traveling to places that would require a negative test to fly home.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Babr

[Snow cat]

16 hours ago, r&rd said:

Actually it is .03% of passengers and/or crew or 1% crew to hit orange. Essentially that is 1-2 people to go orange. Also, the one passenger who tested positive on the 5/20 cruise may have been someone quarantined on the ship from the previous cruise who still tested positive although past the 10 day quarantine. My husband, who had a false negative to get off the ship, finally tested negative today, 14 days later.

Actually it is .3% for orange (crew and/or passengers). 1% is for a crew only ship.

Orange	0.3% or more of total passengers and/or crew

[Nearpost345]

I heard the galley staff were hit hardest.

[Babr]

1 hour ago, Snow cat said:

Actually it is .3% for orange (crew and/or passengers). 1% is for a crew only ship.

Orange	0.3% or more of total passengers and/or crew

Yes, Breeze easily met that in no time at all. Next, the CDC looks at things like sustained transmission. Apparently that was going on, too, until it reached a point that the impact was noticeable. There was no indication that the medical facilities were being overrun, which is also a concern of CDC; nevertheless, Windstar had no choice but to suspend operations when they did in order to get things under control.

 

It is a bit of a cautionary tale.

Edited May 13, 2022 by Babr

[Babr]

Breeze was reclassified to Crew Only soon after its last cruise was cut short in Mexico. It has reported Orange ever since with the most recent update on 5/17.

 

It will be interesting to see how things go when/if it returns to passenger-carrying status on Friday. The Alaska round-trip from Vancouver seems to be sparsely populated - still for sale with 11 of 14 categories available after being a last-minute deal until this morning.

 

Watching developments - and still waiting for the first sign of a refund.

[kzuma]

On 5/12/2022 at 7:23 AM, Babr said:

 The testing requirement seems to be causing a lot of problems already for people trying to return from Europe. Several threads on the Celebrity board.

 

Let’s see what happens when the Alaska season gets in full swing with people testing positive in Canada. It will be interesting to see what Windstar does since the government of Canada requires the cruise line to arrange and pay for quarantine for passengers who test positive during the cruise regardless of the cruise line’s policy for assistance. They are likely to have fewer who are willing to stay on board to recover even at $100 per person per day that was offered to people on the Mexico cruise.

Just disembarked Vancouver BC from a Celebrity cruise May 13th.  Celebrity offered antigen tests, free for those who had booked prior to a certain Nov 2021 date, otherwise $30.  BUT they didn't pass out the tests until after we had left the ship with our luggage, so essentially we were not ON the cruise at time of testing, presumably thus bypassing the Canada requirement that the cruise line pay for quarantine if one tested positive during the cruise.  Some passengers brought along tests so they could check themselves on last day of the cruise and if positive their plan was to report to the medical officer to trigger the Canada rule.  Don't know if anyone actually followed through on this plan.

[Babr]

Windstar website stated that they would offer tests the day before disembarkation for a fee to those who required a test to fly home. I have not looked lately to see if that has changed for cruises that disembark in Canada.

 

Windstar has no stated policy for providing quarantine assistance so I’m curious to see how it is handled when/if someone tests positive. There is little activity here or on the roll calls so we may never know.

[r&rd]

I am booked on the July 3 Alaska cruise and asked that question yesterday when I called. If you want a test on the ship before disembarking you should preorder and you will have to pay the $69.. Otherwise you can get a test in Canada before flying home. Because I had booked the cruise so long ago I actually got the old price - guess there is some benefit to having so many cancelled cruises.

[Babr]

Breeze returned to passenger-carrying status with the May 20 Alaska cruise. Today it returned to Orange in the CDC monitoring system. It took just one poorly attended  sailing to be right back where they started.

 

Less time to return to status quo than to process my refund from the May 10 cancellation. Still waiting for any communication.

Edited June 1, 2022 by Babr

[new_cruiser]

Apparently, COVID has hit Wind Star now. Someone posted on Facebook that their June 4 Treasures of the the Greek Isles cruise was just cancelled due to too many of the crew having COVID or with exposure to COVID. 

[Babr]

1 hour ago, new_cruiser said:

Apparently, COVID has hit Wind Star now. Someone posted on Facebook that their June 4 Treasures of the the Greek Isles cruise was just cancelled due to too many of the crew having COVID or with exposure to COVID. 

I know their disappointment. Ours was cancelled just days ahead also.

 

Now there will be another round of refunds to process. Hope mine sifts to the top of the pile soon.

[Babr]

Received certificate today - exactly one month after they cancelled the cruise. Next step is to request cash refund. One can only hope the second phase does mot actually take 4 - 6 weeks as stated in the documents.

[amusea]

We were on the B2B April 30 and May 10 sailings.  We have received the certificate for the April 30 cruise but not for the May 10 sailing nor the $300 that was promised as partial reimbursement for the cost of airfare from Cabo San Lucas back to the USA.  Has anyone who was on the April 30 cruise from Puerto Vallarta received that promised $300? 

[Westley and Buttercup]

4 hours ago, amusea said:

We were on the B2B April 30 and May 10 sailings.  We have received the certificate for the April 30 cruise but not for the May 10 sailing nor the $300 that was promised as partial reimbursement for the cost of airfare from Cabo San Lucas back to the USA.  Has anyone who was on the April 30 cruise from Puerto Vallarta received that promised $300? 

We were also on the April 30th cruise.  Received the balance of the all in package in FCC, (312.00 USD pp) but that is it.  No checks for airfare,  nor a FCC for the actual cruise. 

[Babr]

I’m a little surprised that they are not refunding incidentals like All-In package or shore excursions and especially port fees and taxes to the original form of payment. I expect those to be unencumbered funds.

 
Instead, we got FCC for everything. I’ve requested a cash refund, but I’m a concerned there may be a cash-flow problem.

[Westley and Buttercup]

On 6/8/2022 at 5:24 AM, Babr said:

I’m a little surprised that they are not refunding incidentals like All-In package or shore excursions and especially port fees and taxes to the original form of payment. I expect those to be unencumbered funds.

 
Instead, we got FCC for everything. I’ve requested a cash refund, but I’m a concerned there may be a cash-flow problem.

 I'm glad to hear that you received your future cruise credit for everything.  Still waiting for the refund for the cruise itself, as well as our canceled cruise that was for later in the year on the Star Breeze.

[Babr]

20 minutes ago, Westley and Buttercup said:

 I'm glad to hear that you received your future cruise credit for everything.  Still waiting for the refund for the cruise itself, as well as our canceled cruise that was for later in the year on the Star Breeze.

It is progress, but FCC has no value to me. I don’t know if or when I’ll use it, and I don’t want to leave that much value tied up in potentially useless vouchers. I’ll be happy to get the refund and be done with it. After two disappointing cruise experiences, I’m not as enchanted with Windstar as I used to be.

[minidonuts85]

On 6/8/2022 at 5:24 AM, Babr said:

I’m a little surprised that they are not refunding incidentals like All-In package or shore excursions and especially port fees and taxes to the original form of payment. I expect those to be unencumbered funds.

 
Instead, we got FCC for everything. I’ve requested a cash refund, but I’m a concerned there may be a cash-flow problem.

That does seem odd to me. If I paid it out of pocket I’d expect it back same as my cruise fare.