nate91

I think Matt has been meeting with the CDC secretly for months and has almost convinced them that cruises should be a go again. His persistence is what got us here!

Great news! Now let's get this CSO out of the way!

10 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

Mediation suggests a middle ground is attainable.

 

What part of "you're overreaching your government powers and costing us billions"  screams "middle ground?"

Mediation will go nowhere. CDC will never admit that they made a mistake, and will just slowly release updates while talking about following the science. Florida will not give way on the fact that cruise lines cannot sail under the current CSO.

I think meditation by both parties may be more effective than mediation.  

I don't know if vaccination requirements will actually make a huge difference. Vaccines work, I'm not debating that. But a majority of high risk (65+) in the US have received the vaccine, and at events I have seen photos of with masses of unmasked people with no vaccination requirement (Texas Rangers game, anyone), there have been no headlines AFTER the event about it being a "superspreader." Plenty of headlines before, but you KNOW that if there were cases traced back to that event, it would have made national headlines. I think a "take responsibility for your own health" approach could work, much as many retail stores are rolling out.

The only big difference, I think, is that Target doesn't have to test all their customers for COVID. Currently, cruise lines do, which leads to headlines and liability.

8 minutes ago, Phoenix said:

In a nutshell, the State of Florida wasted their time in a futile move to out-do the CDC as the Courts have thrown it back to "two children having a sibling spat to work it out amongst themselves."

Thank you for the clarification. In this case though, one of the children is a bully and the other child is contrite and just wants to go outside and play, but the bully won't let him.

13 minutes ago, dswallow said:

Is there room for anything more anyplace? I mean, if Disney came in after an MSC/Royal Caribbean deal is there a place for them to build their own terminal or would they be limited to working out a deal to share an existing one?

According to the link, the terminal for Disney would be just east of Terminal J on the south side of the island.

7 minutes ago, LovetoCruise87 said:

Ok, as I know absolutely nothing about law, what does this mean in regular language?

Same. To me, mediation sounds like, "Let's all sit in a room and talk it out." But I'm guessing that's not it at all.

These updates have been so incremental that my expectations are low. What will it be, we only have to wear masks between bites if we are NOT chewing now? Maybe hot tub distancing will drop from six feet to five feet? Maybe our majestic CDC overlords will allow us an extra person in the theater!

20 minutes ago, Matt said:

Voila

Looks like American Society of Travel Advisors (“ASTA”) filed a motion in support

047123005203.pdf 216.3 kB · 2 downloads

Things are not looking too good for the CDC here...but looking better and better for us! 

Life at the house of the CDC family:

Celebrating the 10 year old's 100th birthday. 

Wearing a gas mask while sleeping in case of fire.
Ensuring that everyone sleeps for 80 hours a night.

Walking for ten hours instead of driving to reduce risk.
Cooking all red meat to 1600 degrees.

Essentially, just the most risk-averse and numerically illiterate household possible!

14 minutes ago, twangster said:

According to the CDC around 1% of all noro outbreaks come from cruise ships.  Ships don't even make their top noro sources list:

 

Hmmm.  I wonder if they'll round that 1% up to 10% now using their new math.  

I don't know, that data is from the CDC. Can we trust it to be accurate? Did they round down those 2189 outbreaks from 218,900? So many questions?  

8 minutes ago, cruisinghawg said:

Somebody needs to do a background check on the people or person making the decision on this cruising debacle. We may find a deep hatred of the industry. 

Someone give them a free cruise! Once you cruise once you're pretty hooked, in my experience!

10 minutes ago, LizzyBee23 said:

My assumption is the stock would have popped if it was unambiguous good news.

Or dropped if it was unambiguous bad news. I would like to go by the mantra, "No news is good news." At least for now!

These are definitely steps in the right direction, but I agree that these are baby steps. I'm afraid that by the time we end up at a reasonable place, at this glacial rate of change, it may be 2023 before things are back to normal.

46 minutes ago, LizzyBee23 said:

Yeah, and that's not going to change once cruises get started, either. My concern is that instead of acknowledging there will be overreactions at cases on board and moving on, we're letting the people with a motive to overreact frame the debate in such a way that crowds out reason. 

Critical thinking/wisdom, is sadly hard to find these days. Many people are happy to regurgitate what they hear with no comprehension and understanding. The stalwart cruisers, those on this forum, will still cruise regardless of what the media says (I imagine something about a 3000% increase in onboard cases, while in reality, it was from 0 cases to 1 case, and it was a false positive). But the general cruising public may be dissuaded from cruising through headlines, thus cruise leadership has to step particularly carefully. 

10 minutes ago, twangster said:

Carnival sees hope for July for three ships but cancels other ships in July.

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2021/05/11/carnival-cancels-some-july-2021-cruises-hopes-restart-some-ships-us-july

I have an August Mardis Gras sailing and while not cancelled, all sailings for Mardis Gras have disappeared from Carnival's website through October.

8 minutes ago, Auto said:

By their own guidelines (which are only for when you are home, you might note), you should wash your hands immediately after removing your mask. So to follow to the logical (read illogical) conclusion, you should hand sanitize before every single bite. But hey...Science (Trademark CDC, 2020)

Continuing this to its ludicrous conclusion, when the mask is removed for a bite, you have one hand holding each string. So you must have a sterile bag to place the mask in, and ideally someone dedicated to mask handling (obviously with their own mask and gloves) to place said mask into a sanitary ziploc bag of some kind, and to remove said mask from the bag when the bite is complete. Even if one transfers the mask to one hand, how much time will it take to place the mask back in the bag, and remove it again once (fully masked) chewing is complete? 

The CDC is a joke.

20 minutes ago, twangster said:

If you mean they've come to the realization that May 12 may be the only path to cruises this summer I think that is accurate. 

I don't see them sitting around the boardroom table waiting for a call from an observer in the courtroom.  They are likely exploring every crazy idea under the sun.

So the eggs may be parked in a basket on May 12 for the moment but that's as much to keep them safe while they toss around crazy ideas most of which will never see the light of day as it is the lines hoping a judge comes through.  

 

Exactly. Any cruises under the existing CSO will be at minimum a few months from now, filled with insane restrictions, and likely poorly attended. Anyone will be able to cancel under CWC (if it's extended), and even besides that for other cruise lines, people who don't like the insane regulations can just claim to be vaccinated and get a refund (regardless of actual vaccination status.

If we can see that tomorrow is our only hope, I'm sure the cruise lines can see the writing on the wall as well. I'm hopeful, but not convinced that tomorrow will be the day.

I think the cruise lines may be putting not all their eggs, but a majority of them into the "May 12th" basket. 

36 minutes ago, twangster said:

The mask thing gets better.

Requirements

• Remind passengers and crew not to touch their masks when wearing them.

 

How do you lower your mask to eat or drink if you can't touch your mask?

 "Here's your dinner but don't touch your mask to remove it.  Using a fork force your food around the edge of your mask without touching your mask".

I can see a lot of spilled wine trying to drink from a wine glass with a mask on because you can't touch your mask to remove it before taking a drink.  

This could be a great comedy/parody video. Unfortunately...it's reality.

3 hours ago, FManke said:

As we all anticipate the restart of cruising, it made me think.

What are the kinds of things that you find yourself only doing on a cruise?

One of mine would be eating escargot. They're not easy to find on many menus, but even if they were, that's my cruise thing!

You mean the garlic butter? I kid, I kid. I also order WAY too much of the escargot on any Royal cruise I go on!  

3 hours ago, Matt said:

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2020/08/01/could-be-the-next-new-concept-royal-caribbean-sports-deck

Thanks Matt, that's the one. Looks like this could be on Wonder, although I know it' supposed to be on ICON. Although, if Icon class looks like that concept art, it sure has a LOT in common with Oasis Class.

1 hour ago, Heymarco said:

Has anyone confirmed yet what is going in where the second flow rider would normally go?

 

 

I believe there was some blueprints posted for some sort of fancy children's area.

1 hour ago, smokeybandit said:

Temperature checks were a very early on way that we thought we could spot potential covid. But quickly it was determined a fever was not the best indicator of covid.

True. But that was determined months ago, around July-August 2020 if memory serves. Temperature checks continued in full swing until it became politically expedient to remove them. I mean, I'm all for less restrictions and no temp checks! And I hope beyond all hopes that cruising does resume in mid July. Time will tell.

20 minutes ago, steverk said:

Just speculating, but I can think of a couple motives, none flattering.

1. The scientists and/or bureaucrats at the CDC work in obscurity.  Now they are in the limelight.  It's simply more fun to be in the limelight. Therefore, they have a personal interest in keeping this whole thing going as long a possible.
2. Obama had an Executive order making the primary goal of all federal departments to fight global warming.  CDC might be anticipating that order will be reinstated. If so, they've already eliminated a CO2 emitter from the USA. Keeping it out would be a feather in their cap.

If this speculation is correct, they would be wise to recognize that every day they continue to play these games is one more day they lose the trust and respect of the American people.  Once trust and respect is gone, they'll still exist as an organization (after all, nothing is more permanent than a government agency), but it won't have any real power. i.e. no fun anymore.

Well, they've lost my trust already. Whenever I see an article that mentions "CDC" in the headline, I immediately assume that it is false, overstated, or most likely alarmist. 

Also, why do we treat CDC guidance as gospel this year? No one has had a problem with medium rare steaks or eggs over easy before, and CDC guidance has been against those for years!