gatorskin76

56 minutes ago, JeffB said:

RCL's plan to not require vaccinations for most US port sailings pre-dates the Desantis kerfuffle. I wouldn't say it's a planned workaround to the Desantis threats. I'd offer that its mainly coincidental that it turns out that way.

You may be correct, but I’ve been following it pretty closely and I’m not sure it was clear on what their plans were, and I’m only hopeful it’s “clear” now.  Also, if this pre-dates the kerfuffle, then why was there a kerfuffle at all?  I guess Celebrity may have been the focus of the kerfuffle, but it’s all been less than transparent.

5 hours ago, CruiseGus said:

Based on all the approvals for test cruises (Simulated Voyages) I think anyone with fear that the are going to have to vaccinate their children to cruise have misplaced concerns.

Personally I would rather see it go that way, as then we an definitely drop the mask indoors mandate, but it sure looks like it is heading in the other direction.  I'm also OK with that as being vaccinated my risk is so small that I consider it negligible.  With the Port Agreements  required by the CDC in place even if there is some outbreak in others on the ship, there is a plan to disembark all passenger and the it will just be a matter of testing me and I can go on my way.

I hope you are correct, I would never be happier to have misplaced concerns.  That being said, I'll be relieved when we know for sure.  I have a November and March cruise planned.  I was so close to booking for 8/1 or earlier to ensure that we got at least one cruise without the 12 and up restriction, and we know now that it wouldn't have mattered.  Like many others I have had multiple cruises cancelled and am now sitting on FCC's that would cover the two booked cruises and then some.  

Here is why I am concerned.  Fain was pretty clear, or at least it seemed so, that anyone that was eligible to vaccinated would be vaccinated when he recorded his video to travel agents a few weeks back.  The original website FAQ said US sailings.  They updated it later, and maybe they only ever intended it to be for Washington, but....Now part of me says it would be silly for them to update their website to clarify to Washington if they planned for it to be US down the road anyway, but then I am assuming competence from Royal's communication team, which probably isn't a safe assumption.  I personally think changing it should have only been done if they knew that the requirement wouldn't be there for other sailings, since it kind of implies that, but I know that it's not guaranteed that is the case.

1 hour ago, JoeFan said:

Today you can vaccinate 12 & up and they are working on getting younger. Like I said, start now and vaccines will open up for younger soon enough. They want them back in school. Get back to less restricted cruising sooner sounds like the best route. So the people with younger children will have to wait. It's not like they are going to be able to cruise with them during this summer break any how.

I wonder how they were able to test the long term impacts on a 12 year old, much less younger than 12.  Out of 580k covid deaths there are 309 attributed to Covid in the 0-17 year age group.

Maybe they should make anyone over 50 wait.

1 hour ago, RBRSKI said:

It will be really interesting what the final outcome will be on other cruise lines in regards to requiring vaccines. 

If I were a competitor of Royal, I would give the passengers a choice!  It would be a brilliant marketing tool!   I know that a Disney ship vs the parks are very different environments, but they NEVER required the vaccine or every mentioned it was being considered.  

People may just consider jumping ship (haha) to have a choice!

It is incredible that the Parks can go on an honor system with indoor masking and we are still dealing with all of this for cruising.  Not suggesting that the Parks are wrong for doing what they are doing, but it’s an interesting juxtaposition.

He is definitely going to need to do something, but if exemption is the route his public comments are a head scratcher.

1 hour ago, Matt said:

From a risk mitigation standpoint, I think the issue is they don’t want unvaccinated passengers even getting on the ship.  

Selfishly I wish they would limit that to adults.  

39 minutes ago, blaue said:

RCCL will not be operating under the 95% CSO guidelines, only Celebrity will.  RCCL mgt. want families with kids under 12 y/o that can't be vaxxed to sail.  All adults will be mandated to be vaxxed.  This is extremely dumb on Fain and Co. to go this route instead of telling people that kids under 12 need to wait or limit kids to 5% of passengers. So because of this,  all vaxxed adults will have to suffer with masks, limited capacity at onboard venues, social distancing and no self serve buffets. I was told by RCCL to go with Celebrity if you want no masks or social distancing.  Bad move on their part. 

Do you have any kids under 12?

35 minutes ago, JeffB said:

This is the way a great cruise line does it. Deliberate, aggressive, transparent. There's been none of the silly teaser videos, no confusion about sailing plans, just straight forward, this is business. I've posted on the Celebrity thread that I know exactly what's happening and how it will happen on my booked cruise out of Athens on July 9th. 

@Matt said: Unlike Celebrity, Royal Caribbean will not be able to reach the 95% mandate of passengers being vaccinated by the CDC to skip test cruises.

That's not really the case. Mr. Fain, or whoever is running the clown show there, chose to go with a hybrid mix of vaxed and unwaxed passengers and to do the test crises to get certified by the CDC. From a practical standpoint that's potentially putting up unnecessary barriers, e.g., what if the CDC says on the first go, "not good enough, do it again?" From a health health standpoint, I think that creates potential for problems. Although the risk is small, an infection - just one or two - is possible, more possible with a hybrid mix of passengers and unvaccinated people on excursions, catching COVID, in a port with circulating virus and brining it back on board ship. That would be disastrous. I get the family orientation of RCL but get the boats with vaxed passengers on line and go from there. 

Egg on your face Mr. Fain.

To each their own

interesting that even on that site they don't show what would apparently be 8 night cruises in between the 6 night options.  

I hope they reconsider this policy.  5 cruises cancelled so far and eagerly anticipating our November cruise, but wasn't planning on having my 12 year old get vaccinated and certainly not making that decision based on a cruise, as much as I want to go.

2 hours ago, CruisinForABruisin said:

Just finished my reply saying wait until the new year. I want my casino royale refund in cash, not limited credits that won't even cover 1 person on a lift and shift. 

I hope some others used logic that was more general and less specific.

20 hours ago, crisgold52 said:

Yup in BC our schools will be bubbles within bubbles. Bubbles don't necessarily mean quarantine. Just a group of people not mingling with another group. I think that in order for US cruises to resume as at this point I'm confident Asia will resume before most do with the exception of some sail to no where out of the EU... bubbles work. It's an interesting concept. And yeah if a team in a bubble can't prevent its players from not following the bubble theres a trickle down effect. 

Just to clarify on the MLB part of this, they didn't have bubbles.  I am sure they had restrictions on activities the players could participate in, but they didn't institute a bubble.  I can't see how bubbles in a cruise ship environment would work.  The benefit of the bubble is that you are interacting with the same group of people and are isolated from others, but if you are still using the same common areas as other bubbles, then I am not sure you are going to prevent "community spread" outside of that bubble.  It's probably better to isolate if there is an issue, but on a cruise ship I am not sure how much additional benefit you would get.  In the NBA bubble, no one comes in and no one leaves their restricted areas.  Having bubbles traveling around in the same areas wouldn't have the same effect.

12 hours ago, twangster said:

That's sort of the point.  I get it.  People are tired of the current situation.  People don't want to follow protocols, people want their lives back.  If pro sports teams won't follow protocols for their million dollar jobs what makes anyone think cruisers who aren't being paid millions of dollars to sail will? 

Four additional Marlins have now tested positive and now two Philly staffers have tested positive after playing the Marlins.   The role the stadium played isn't fully know yet but certainly appears like it could be the vector unless the Philly staff joined the Marlin team at the bar.   Were all 17 infected Marlins and the 2 Phillies at the bar?  Or did the Philly staff break protocol as well unrelated to the Marlins breaking protocol?  That's probably worse.

Baseball parks don't generate the virus anymore than cruise ships generate the virus.  It's humans that bring it to these venues.  Humans who want to live free despite the best protocols will do stupid stuff because they think they know better and it doesn't matter if they don't follow protocol.  If professionals in very small groups can't get it done there is no way the cruising public in much larger numbers can.  

In this case they shut down the team and forced another team to cancel games until more could be tested.  Now they are talking of the Marlins being placed into a bubble.  Do you want to be on a ship that is shut down and placed in a bubble because a few cruisers didn't follow protocol?  Another word for bubble is quarantine.  

"In a statement, Marlins CEO Derek Jeter said the team is "having a difficult time enduring this experience" while isolating and quarantining in Philadelphia."  That doesn't sound like a fun cruise experience to me.  

Until a community can get get their numbers right there can be no cruising involving that community.  The CDC knows this reality.  

I don't disagree with what you are saying, but that isn't what the post I responded to stated.  You made the point that even though they had all the protocols there was still an outbreak, and you mentioned the number of people in the stadium.  I was merely pointing out the protocols are pointless if they aren't followed.  It's hard to say if the Phillies staff members got it from the Marlins, given there is no bubble it's hard to say.  Chances are one them got it and then gave it to the other one.  Could have been from the grocery store for all we know.

On 7/28/2020 at 3:26 PM, twangster said:

Like it or not there is a lot of evidence the current CDC position on cruising is the right thing to do at this time.

MLB tried playing games with a lot of protocols in place, no fans present and masks required for all non-player positions yet we are starting to see outbreaks among MLB personnel.  Between the two teams, the TV crew and the stadium crew there are probably something like 200-300 people present in a very large stadium.  If they can't do that without an outbreak how on earth is a cruise ship supposed to avoid an outbreak?

If there is one valid purpose for those areas in the US that are pushing the limits and reopening a lot it's that the world can learn from it.  If any country or region tried to do the same they'd face the same results - more cases and more death.  

The good news is the death rate isn't climbing like it did with the March case count spike, at least not yet.  If we can learn how to keep the death rate down while the case count is high that's a good thing.  

And it turned out that the Marlin players went out to the bars and got infected.  They played a game against the Phillies with tons of infected Marlins and not a single Phillies' player tested positive.  Now, that being said, I am sure that whatever protocols the cruise lines have might not be followed by all, but the MLB players didn't follow their protocols.  The stadium wasn't the vector of spread.

On 6/24/2020 at 11:03 AM, princevaliantus said:

If Florida would have followed New York's example, they would not be in the predicament they are in now. New York was the highest and now is the lowest state in numbers as WE New Yorker's listened and were directed by a great Governor who got us through the rough time. The Governor in New York wants the ports open again but that is not his call.

No words.  I don't want to get in trouble on the site, so I will try to temper this, but WE folks in Florida don't need the folks in New York to give us a lecture on what we should have done.  I have been in my house 98% of the time since March, with numbers no where near what NY experienced.  You may recall when things got bad in NY there were tons of flights of people leaving NY and coming here.  You can have your Governor too.

I guess I’ll jump in before the lock.  No one KNOWS, so be leery of anyone that tells you they do.

I requested a FCC for my 3/16 sailing on 3/13....still waiting.

1 hour ago, Spang1974 said:

As they are not launched yet, I would say they are in a very unique position as far as training and recruiting with a totally new crew, and the other cruise lines won't follow suit.

This is the first thing I thought as well.  Lines like RCL have a much deeper staff to pull from when they aren’t starting up with all their ships at first.  NCL I believe was adding 5 ships per month.

1 hour ago, Matt said:

The only work being done to Allure will be propulsion and navigation systems.

This is confirmed, or what is known to date?  This was in your write up:

The amplification aspect of the work to be done is still being finalized, and Royal Caribbean will communicate an update when a plan is in place.

Is that suggesting that there is potentially some portion of the amplification work will be done?  That is how I took it since I'm booked in November and that is what I wanted to hear, or is that suggesting the amplification work that will be done at a future date?

I got confirmation of my cancellation through Costco on 3/13, unfortunately about 4 hours before they announced the suspension.  I cancelled my cruise planner purchases in the system a few hours prior to cancelling, so that money came back.  Probably still wouldn’t have that if I hadn’t cancelled in the system.  Still waiting for Cruise with Confidence FCC.  Sailing was Mon 3/16 on the Navigator.

19 minutes ago, JohnK6404 said:

Love the consistent message in FLA right now. WDW and all major attractions... long been closed voluntarily.

Spring Break is a go! What could go wrong with thousands of drunk college students! Only now are they shutting down many of the beaches from what I understand. Crazy!

 

They have been shut down for several days in my part of Florida.  Around the same time Disney closed the resorts....

6 hours ago, bobroo said:

Ummm.....I'm hoping it's real apparent that it's not the time to re-decorate something you already own. But rather, it is a golden opportunity to maintain those assets.

It should be expected that every ship for the next 30 days is completely repainted, re-carpeted, and re-gasketed.

 

New water slides and restaurants? Wrong answer.

Perhaps.  However I think Royal was doing pretty well with their buzz related to amplification.  I'm booked on Allure in November and was anticipating an amplified ship.  I guess I can look at Oasis sailings.

15 minutes ago, RWDW1204 said:

Sometimes my wife says I ask too many questions, but, why would anyone pick option 2?

If they weren't planning to cruise on RCL by the end of 2021.

I'm not sure that booking 8 months ahead is really going to get you as much of the booking early advantage.  Generally that is over a year and sometimes 2 years in advance.

19 hours ago, CoupleOfCruisers said:

Only around 100,000 have the virus population is 7.5 billion! We got long way to go before we panic! Everyone just wash your hands and cover your mouth!  

I'm not asking you to panic, but there is also the opposite of panic, which would be using one mild case as the poster child for the virus.  You don't know, I don't know.  I wouldn't ask you to ever act on what I have to say about it, and no disrespect, but you telling me not to panic isn't going to effect whether I panic or not.