twangster

Reopen the bookings! I'll go!

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2021/05/13/bill-allow-cruise-ships-sail-alaska-without-stopping-canada-passes-us-senate

Look at how fast the country is progressing. A week ago we would have had no idea this was coming. It's great news. A week from now more great news may be upon us. A week after that, even more great news.

One step at a time. It's all academic while the CDC is keeping ships from sailing in the US. Once cruise lines can clear the CDC hurdles we can look at the next speed bump.

Not if you scare the unvaccinated away. Hourly temperature checks, 2 masks at all times, etc. but only if unvaccinated.

More importantly it's still not clear that a state can control this at all. And if they can, can they do anything once the ship leaves state water sort of thing. While there is ample maritime convention that federal government regulations apply for ships involving a US port, I'm not sure there is any history of a state government having control over the entire voyage in the manner the federal government does. To me the whole thing is a political stunt. I don't think it would survive a day in court.

Another angle would be to pull a CDC. One set of rules for vaccinated, another set for unvaccinated. If you are willing to show proof of vaccination, these protocols apply (very few). If you choose to not show proof of vaccination, these protocols apply (including wearing masks, etc). This way they don't "require" proof of vaccination.

If required by federal regulation (CDC) I don't think a state can override that.

Suite Guaranty are back so it's something. Still odd.

Apex and Edge have Simply Sail rates too, but not for solo, must book with 2.

What do you call cheese that isn’t yours? Nacho Cheese.

Once you lose credibility or the appearance of losing credibility it's 100 times harder to gain it back. This new messaging of "vaccinate and you are free to go back to the old normal" has to roll down to cruising at some point. We'll soon see retailers eliminating their mask policies, then planes and trains will follow and with each step it's harder and harder for the excessive ship policies to be upheld by the CDC.

All steps in the right direction. Eventually one way or another this will come to cruise ships even if the CDC delays that a little longer. Hopefully Adventure and Vision can benefit from this guidance now and prove it works on cruise ships too.

They done such a good job at that so far.

One thing about the new Simply sail rates - they can be hard to see and if you don't know to look for them it's easy to miss. This Concierge Class GTY rate doesn't exactly look attractive given it's just $10 less. However it's easy to miss the warning that it's a no frills rate. For $10 less per person for the entire cruise you lose Wi-Fi, drinks and gratuity.

I suspect we'll find many departments within the CDC are isolated and have no awareness what another part of the CDC is doing. In this case the Political Directives Division has updated mask guidance while the Cruise Denial Division is still looking to add more protocols.

More hurried half baked legislation much like the vaccine passport ban. Cruise lines can't afford one case. That outcome is unlikely when vaccines can't be required until the public health emergency has been declared over. The media will quickly shift back to hating cruise ships upon the first "outbreak" of more than one case.

As we all know the flu and this virus are not the same. The flu is well known, as much as it can be. The long term effects of SARS-CoV-2 is not well known nor has the flu produced anything close to the death tally. In this case an attorney could argue that a prominent public health agency published extensive material regarding the dangers of cruise ships and SARS-CoV-2 yet a sweet innocent child will now suffer an entire lifetime of misery due to becoming infected on a cruise ship. It's almost like if the cruise lines don't follow the CDC all way into Crazytown with protocols they expose themselves to frivolous lawsuits claiming they didn't do enough to mitigate SARS-CoV-2. If a grandparent can drop a child out a window and then sue the cruise line for having windows just imagine the coming tidal wave of lawsuits against the cruise lines. At least during an initial restart there has to be something to protect companies that are not allowed to leverage vaccines to mitigate risk. If the government is going to ban vaccine requirements then they should protect the companies from related litigation in the same stroke.

If cruise lines are exempt from litigation over virus infections. Unfortunately what will happen is a 9 year old will get the virus somewhere, parents will claim it was on a cruise and they'll seek millions using a FL based ambulance chasing lawyer. If a law that prohibits asking for proof of vaccination also removes virtually all virus related liability we'd have a winner.

SMH A lot of thoughts entered my head when I saw that but they were too far removed from cruising to post here.

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2021/05/13/florida-governor-dismisses-norwegian-cruise-line-threat-pull-cruise-ships-florida

I also was fortunate to have them waive Air2Sea fees but that all depends on timing. If you cancel the week of the cruise I wouldn't expect the $200 per person A2S fee to be waived while CWC will deal with the cruise fare portion.

Air2Sea is a good compliment to a cruise but there can still be fees associated with refundable air bookings depending when you cancel. CWC allows you to cancel up to 48 hours before a cruise but CWC is for cruise fare only, not Air2Sea bookings associated with the cruise. Call and ask them about fees for cancelling airfare before and after final payment due date or other milestones.

Presumably easing as time goes by so the initial protocols should be worst case scenario.