JeffB

Details are scarce. Tea leaves aren't. Royal is doing something unique with their dry-dock schedule. There will be 4 RCL ships in Cadiz over the next 6 weeks, Symphony is one of them. The reason for this accelerated dry-dock schedule is to get these ships ready for continuous revenue sailings this summer without interruption, and attendant loss of revenue associated with dry docking. The press is on to get crews and ships ready. The chatter about crew movement, vaccinations being given to crews in most FL ports and the widespread re-openings going on in FL and nationally, all point to a return to pre-pandemic activity in the coming months. July seems about right to me given the President's comments on get togethers on the 4th. A late July sailing on Symphony seems almost assured, given the tea leaves. I think as far as the actual restart date, it is hard to identify which ship will sail out of a US port in the first 2 weeks of July. I'd say the second two weeks sailings are solid.

Just about everything discussed in this thread regarding mitigation measures we may or may not see on board cruise ships and in the terminals during boarding is addressed in this piece (linked below) by Charles Cook who writes for National Review and lives in FL. The take away from the article is that what is happening now is a result of "COVID Zealotry." Charles Cook (I've edited his post to make it less political): I do not believe that the initial panic over the coronavirus was driven primarily by cynicism or by expedience. But I do think that there is something both cynical and expedient about the glacial pace at which this country is being permitted to return to normal. ....... (some seem) to wildly misjudge how dangerous the virus really is — the chance that somebody with COVID must be hospitalized is between 1 and 5 percent, and yet (some groups) believe that the number is more than 20 percent, and 41 percent believe that it is more than 50 percent — and you have a recipe for disaster. That recipe is still being followed . . . well, well past the point of being overdone. I think this describes the CDC and how they have clung needlessly to their "rampant safetyism." regarding the pandemic and, without any question, their approach to cruise ships. So, we have to put up with it for now and I think the only thing that is going to realistically kick them off their position is a Federal Judge ruling the CSO is unlawful ..... their entire house of cards comes crashing down if that happens and I'm pretty sure they know it. https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/enough-with-the-covid-zealots/

Not saying either of you are wrong - everyone of us is speculating - but, just wondering, what are you basing this on? For months, posters have been echoing cruise line execs saying 60d from warm storage to operational. As far as we know, the ships that I mentioned in my post above that have first week in July sailings from Texas/FL ports are in a warm storage circumstance and, again as I pointed out are milling about smartly near those ports from which they are scheduled to sail first week in July. With CDC restart guidance seemingly shaping up last week in April, a first week in July restart seems entirely possible.

Desantis was asked about cruising from FL ports if cruise lines require vaccinations today. His response was, "I don't think its a very good idea for people to have disclose health information." A non-answer if there ever was one. Moreover, we've had this discussion already. Proving you were fit-to-sail using one of those forms from your PCP a year ago when the pandemic was just getting underway was deemed to not be disclosing personal health information publicly as that information was being collected by people authorized to collect it and held by health care personal on the ship. Proving that you've been vaccinated to board a cruise ship will be addressed in the same way and I feel pretty confident that Desants' people have already prepared statements for the Governor that will allow cruise lines to obtain and hold vaccination information privately and legally once there's calrity on if and when this will actually take place. No reason to start a fire-storm over this now. It will work out regardless of which path the cruise lines take on this issue. Desantis is not going to put barriers in the way of a cruise ship restart. If anything, he's removing them as we speak.

My take is that things are so fluid right now, so many moving parts, that it is really tough to predict sailings by ship/date. I feel reasonably confident that ships will sail in July out of US ports but the first ship out of the gate in July is extremely hard to predict. Galveston and the four Florida ports list the following July Sailings ..... Galveston will have sailings. Liberty of the Seas is on Galveston's schedule to depart July 4th. 2 Carnival ships go on the 2st and 3rd. Port Canaveral will have sailings. Mariner sails on the 2nd preceded by two Carnival and one Disney sailing. Port Everglades will have sailings. Celebrity dominates sailings there with 9 cruises between Edge and Equinox. Miami: Navigator and Symphony have multiple sailings scheduled in July Tampa: Brilliance has 5 sailings in July. I got these port schedules from the link below. I follow Celebrity closely. If you look at the cruise mapper function I can see Edge and Equinox right about where I would expect them to be to begin preparations for sailings from PEV in July. You can do the same sort of detective work for your favorite RCL ships. I took a brief look at RCL because they have more ships scheduled from TX/FL ports and I see the same thing. They are where I'd expect them to be in preparation for revenue sailings. https://www.cruisemapper.com/ports-in-east-coast-usa-and-canada-new-england-6 I'm thinking that there is no way these ships would be milling about close to the ports where there are scheduled sailings if RCG didn't have a pretty good idea that these July sailings were going to happen. I also think that Bailey's "two paths to a restart" - or with/without vaccinations required weighs heavily to the vaccinations required pathway. That is because if RCL and Celebrity require vaccines, they avoid non-rev test sailings required by the CDC. I'd think those would be something to be avoided if revenue generation is a top priority. I could also see a hybrid schedule where some ships will do the test sailings then sail w/o vaccine requirements and some won't and by default require vaccines to sail. Also having an impact on port operations in FL, just today Governor Desantis rescinded all his EO's issued under the authority he obtained by declaring a PHE. What this does is essentially cancel state mandated mitigation measures fully opening schools, parks and recreation facilities and freeing venues to operate as they choose. Businesses can still mandate mitigation measures such as spacing and masks but what will happen is that businesses that continue to do that won't have customers when people can go elsewhere without having to deal with them. We may not see masks required during boarding in FL under this action by Desantis but I'll be surprised if mask requirements working your way through the cruise terminal are waived. I feel pretty confident July sailings are happening with a slowly expanding schedule for more and ore ships as proof of concept is obtained. From the looks of the port scheudles I investigated, I'd say RCL/Celebrity will be sailing from US ports in the first week of July ..... caveat, if everything falls into place. I think it will.

Right. If it were not for the fact that influenza has essentially disappeared, not for the fact that the world experienced COVID, we'd be reporting on minor outbreaks of influenza in Oregon ..... that is an important distinction re SARS2. REGIONAL OUTBREAKS. Look at reports by state. Plenty are reporting no new cases or only limited numbers and within states the new cases are by counties. IOW .... REGIONAL. In FL, its the tri-county S. FL region with the most cases and even then, Broward, home of PEV and Miami, home of POM, the 7w rolling average decline in new cases, hospitalizations and deaths, even with vaccine rates dropping, is obvious. Let's get back to work, socializing and cruising. The MSM has got to stop reporting national stats

This is as good of a place to put this than any on this forum. I've searched the literature for a graph that compares number of vaccines administered versus new cases, versus, new hospitalizations versus new deaths and haven't found one. The point it would make is how blitheringly obvious vaccines work in subduing SARS2 such that the virus will soon no longer be circulating at a rate exceeding 5% positivity among tested individuals. Admittedly, collecting this kind of data and displaying it in the fashion I suggest has the potential to be misleading and subject to error. So, what's new. The CDC has been doing that anyway. Something like this would help change the narrative of predominantly negative messaging because ...... you can overlay in your mind's eye these two graphs and come to a similar conclusions as mine: The battle v. SARS2 is being wagged and won becasue of the miraculous success of vaccines. One noteworthy point from the graphs below: new cases took an uptick in mid-march and we started hearing dire consequences predictions of a 4th wave. It didn't happen. Vaccines? This should surprise no one. Recent history of disease caused by infection with viruses is replete with big wins for vaccines. What is a surprise is that PH officials haven't recognized that there appears to be a predictable endpoint because of the vaccines. At some point, not too far away, I would think, the likelihood of becoming infected from SARS2 and developing any symptoms let alone symptoms requiring hospitalization or worse causing death are remote. I could display a graph of weekly new hospitilizations and death but that would be even more startling. If that is the case, why are PH officials so reluctant to tell vaccinated people they can resume pretty much normal activities by simply taking a few basic mitigation measures that the human race should have been taking all-along? It is that sort of guidance that I've been advocating for for months ..... tell us how to get safely back to normal recognizing that the risk of becoming infected with something is never going to be eliminated. At some point, that risk is acceptable and, IMO, we are very close to that. I'm not an epidemiologist or virologist but modeling could reliably predict that date and we should be gradually moving toward it. Along with that should come concrete steps which entail the relaxation of most of the current level of mitigation measures being imposed by state and county governments. 7 DAY ROLLING AVERAGE WEEKELY VACCINATIONS SEVEN DAY AVERAGE WEEKELY NEW CASES

I agree with this but think it will be earlier. Two reasons: (1) The need for the cruise lines to start generating income is a significant drive of corporate plans and policy making on the mechanics of restarting. Getting crews back to ships is a routine evolution for them. The scale of the operation is just larger but the mechanics are tested and in place. (2) The actual numbers of ships that are going to pass through CDC's gates and start sailing in July, all things considered probably won't exceed 20% of all fleet capacity. That reduces the problems of (1) above and, I would think make the restarting, operation each line will be facing a lot simpler. On the increase in infections within countries the lines rely on for labor, I've not dug into this as thoroughly as I might but it's been my experience from the start of the pandemic that reporting of it's impact has been exaggerated and can frequently be misleading. I think this is probably the case in both India and the Philippines. My thinking here rests on the belief that RCL, for example, would not have stopped crew members of Indian origin from returning to work without a careful analysis of labor needs given restart plans. They've matched labor needs with availability carefully, I think. They can get to what they need from Eastern Europe and Asia. I also think that there is a tendency to take national COVID data and apply it as if every region in the country is experiencing the same level of new cases. That is never the case. Regionality is the hallmark of SARS2. I suspect that is true in the Phillipines and probably in India although India is a different beast. Some of that behavior is explainable, a lot of it isn't. The bottom line is that the cruise lines, having measured labor needs v. availability will get what they need to restart at some lelel that they calculate will be profitable. At first, the margins will be small so that proof of concept is obtained. As we move forward into late summer and fall, I can see 20% capacity moving to 50% and then 75%.

This may have been posted elsewhere but not in conjunction with crew vaccinations. On Friday, FL's Surgeon General stated masks are no longer required for vaccinated persons in FL .... ANYWHERE. That's indoors, outdoors, gatherings, e.g. concerts and sports events. The same sort of caveat applies however that @JLMoranposted above. Counties can impose stricter measures (with limits in FL) as long as they are consistent with Governor Desantis' EOs or guidelines published under this authority granted in PHEs. I was in a Costco and Publix today and there's no change in masking policies in either of those Broward Co. retail operations. I think a no-masking required approach makes sense and the state's Surgeon general cited several factors weighing in on his guidance: (1) FL's positivity rate has been well below 10% for weeks. This is the gate required to meet requirements of the state's reopening plan to move from Phase 1 to 2 and 2 to 3. That metric has actually been hovering just at or slightly below 5%. There counties where it's higher than 5% but none above 10%, namely the Tri-County region of S. FL and a couple counties around Orlando and Tampa. (2) FL is hitting above 40% of state residents on vaccinations and (3) above 90% in high risk populations.

There are 5 elements to FL's law suit. Irreparable harm ..... is one of them. That is probably the weakest if it were to stand alone. That's not the case. IMO, the strongest arguments with case law cited to support them are the ones that allege that the CDC does not have the authority to impose the kind and length of restrictions to commerce that they have imposed through the NSO and by extension the CSO. That falls under the responsibility of Congress to enact laws to that effect. Even in a declared PHE, which does authorize the Secretary of HHS broad powers, the NSO and CSO are discriminatory in that they target one business and, as they should apply broadly, they don't The maritime law that is involved in this case is complex but fundamentally it boils down to one section within this area that allows HHS, on the recommendation of the maritime arm of the CDC to coordinate with DHS to prevent persons or cargo that are shown to provide a risk of spreading infectious disease from porting and off-loading such passengers or cargo in a US port. Note that this authority implies an ongoing and existent threat. There is no such on-going threat. It is a presupposed threat and even in the broadest application of the law, current cruise ship operations since the middle of last year and demonstrably effective infection control protocols blow this presupposition out of the water. We can't know how this will turn out but the FL law suit has way more than just a chance of succeeding. We'll know on the 12th. I still feel a ruling by the judge hearing the case that results in an injunction against enforcement of the CSO/NSO simply eliminates most of the complexity and questions about restarting. It's a best not a worse case outcome.

This describes the mess that is the unreadable list of pandemic mitigation measures the CDC has recommended since the WHO labeled it as such in late January 2020. The same thing goes for federal, state and local pandemic policy that was born of the bad advice from the CDC and the WHO. While the Trump administration does have some responsibility for creating this mess, it is largely the CDC that holds the lion's share of it.

I'm in that group but not fuming and no, I'm not sailing on either Princess or HAL any time soon. The price of a cruise vacation has gone up, no doubt but, it still remains a remarkable value. What I don't welcome though is the industry wide drift to exclusivity and the up-pricing that goes with it. So far, that hasn't fully filtered down to, what is for me, affordable cabins. I also don't feel like I'm treated any differently on a Celebrity ship itself because I booked an OV cabin on deck 4. I think it's coming though.

Interesting on your SS comments and the reason Luttoff-Perlo ditched Azamara. I've often thought that Lutoff-Perlo was overly aggressive in changing the culture of the Celebrity brand - got rid of a ton of stuff I liked, holdovers from the Chantris ownership era. One of them was the golden age of cruising themed restaurants on the M class ships. Also downplayed Celebrity's X for excellence and substituted it for an E for expensive.... not really the X is still on the stacks but you get the point.

Comments on the CDC's "letter to the cruise lines." Up thread a poster commented on the huge legal and liability issues attendant to this so called "letter." I get the need for and the apparent occurrence of this "twice weekly" dialogue between the CDC and the cruise lines that produced a letter and a news report of it. Having said that, cruise lines are going to want something in writing from the Feds. I don't know about you, but having the CDC put anything in writing is a pretty scary undertaking. Have you looked at their web-page that contains supposed COVID Public Health guidance? It is simply not possible to understand it with any clarity and it's been like that since February of 2020. The news (and this "letter") is obviously good news. I still hold that the impending hearing of FL's law suit on May 12th is a factor, among several others, in the CDC's apparent relaxing portions of the CSO or redefining what has to happen before cruises can restart. Still, I'm baffled by the CDC's apparent need to keep tight control of a restart in the current circumstance. It is blindingly obvious that vaccines are safe and effective in reducing the disease burden of COVID and preventing transmission of it. The CDC could make things really simple by recommending that cruise lines vaccinate crew members and passengers to the levels they've now established before restarting cruise operations from US ports - a one liner eliminates all of the confusion that the CDC has created with the garbage that is the CSO and, now, their obvious wish to retain tight control over a business operation of which, lawfully, they should have no control. I'm still holding out for the Judge hearing FL's law suit on May 12th to stick it to the CDC and impose an injunction that prevents enforcement of the CDC's CSO ..... that's the simplest way to make things simple. Applying the law to a given circumstance is usually like that.

I'm not at all surprised. It's a money grab .... make hay while the sun shines type of deal. If demand for pricing like this is out there, harvest it. The last year has been just awful for the cruise industry. If, I'm in Lutoff-Perlo's shoes I'd be doing exactly the same thing so as to keep the company's BOD off my ass.

I don't think there is any question that since Lutoff-Perlo became CEO at Celebrity, the company has been pursuing a niche of pricing insensitive, exclusivity seeking cruisers. That is an industry trend, BTW. Spenders like that are out there. Probably lots of them with money to spend. Right now and going forward for at least a year, maybe longer, big spenders are going to spend big-bucks on travel. Not only is there pent-up demand for cruising, there is a huge amount of cash laying around in the bank and investment accounts of high income folks. I don't know what the margins are for a ship like Beyond carrying around 800 passengers paying upwards of $10K, along with those paying lower inside and OV cabin rates, compared to an M class ship with 50 guests paying that much and the rest who sought lower fares and picked an M class ship because of those savings. I would think a pricing structure like we're seeing appear on Beyond is much more profitable than sailing an M class ship. We'll see more of this industry wide as older ships are sold and replaced with newer ships. Although good fares will still be available, this trend is going to drag lower priced cabin fares upward along wit them.

While I listened to Biden's "relaxing" mitigation measures announcement yesterday, there were no surprises. He did emphasize returning people to their jobs and getting businesses up and running again. There is only one sector of the US economy - the service sector and in particular the travel and leisure sector - that has a problem with getting "people back to their jobs" or "businesses up and running." I'm not talking about restaurants and bars. There's a dynamic there where US citizens sill receiving unemployment benefits - both state and federal - aren't going to go back to work in those jobs yet. That dynamic, though, doesn't apply to the cruise industry that typically doesn't hire Americans or to the hotel, rental car, port workers and the myriad ancillary jobs that support cruise ship operations. If the cruise lines would be allowed to resume operations from US ports, we're talking a real boost to the economies of states that host cruise ships. The CDC locking down the cruise industry is a huge deal from a US and global economic standpoint. I remain astonished that the Biden administration isn't applying some heat to HHS. Rescinding the CSO/NSO seems to me to be a no brainer at this point. So, I look for reasons that the thing is still in effect. I have no doubt there's some behind the scenes stuff going on and some of that has to do with the reality that the clock is ticking on the FL law suit. I think that has a very good chance of producing the injunction the state seeks. IMO, that's a pretty big black-eye for the Biden administration if it happens. I think there's middle ground that the two parties - HHS and FL - can reach and we may just be waiting for that to be formalized. The intent is not to make the CDC look uninformed and not up to date with the science (even though it's becoming increasingly obvious the CDC is over-cautious) while at the same time recognizing the risk, albeit fully mitigated, IMO, of sailing aboard a cruise ship. These are smart people involved in this. The question at the top of my list of questions: is there clear top down leadership and attention to the details driving things to a reasonable conclusion? I'm less confident about that than I am that the federal court will make the decision for the Biden administration and the CDC for them. There is the distinct possibility that allowing the courts to make the decision about restarting cruising from US ports lets the CDC off the hook if something goes wrong and a significant outbreak occurs on any given sailing. I'd call that a default or no-fault (for the Biden Administration/CDC) position. We'll see. No moves by the Biden administration in the next 2 weeks would seem to predict a default outcome. Either way, things are aligning to make the chances for a July restart from US ports pretty good. JMO, YMMV.

Another interesting adventure over the last year involving refunds, FCCs and L&Ss ....... I started thinking about one of the refunds I got from Celebrity for a Celebrity cancelled cruise and wondered, did I get what I was supposed to get. First, remember that when Celebrity provides a refund, how the amount of the cruise fare is calculated and refunded is confusing, understandable if you are paying attention but, nonetheless, confusing. As well, taxes and port charges (fees) are refunded separately from cruise fares. When I checked my credit card statement for these refunds, they were there but there were 6 of them for one refund in weird amounts but all totaled it seemed about right. "About" right isn't exactly what I was looking for though. So, I called Celebrity and got routed to guest services. Very helpful ..... as long as you know the booking number of each cruise you want to learn about. I keep good records so, I had them. Together we went through each cancelled booking. Out of the 7 cancelled bookings, I had 3 sets of FCCs, 2 refunds and 2 L&S. Every thing seemed in order but to my surprise, I had 2 FCCs from one cancelled cruise that I had apparently forgotten about. Whooo - whooo. Another paid for cruise that I'll book for 2022. Point is, keep track, your TA may or may not be doing this for you, review and question Celebrity or RCL to make sure your not giving anything away. In my case Celebrity was very helpful.

Oh, it's real ...... the article reveals the complexity and the politics of legislative action. What is a head scratcher for me is that the Key West "community" that had concerns about cruise ships damaging Key West's ecosystem (reefs) were the group behind the local legislation that banned large cruise ships. I've not seen anything in print that supports that allegation. I also saw some malarky that asserted cruise ship passengers account for only 7% of tourist revenue in Key West, IOW, we don't need them. I can't imagine that to be accurate knowing that thousands of cruise passengers ply the streets of Key West buying stuff, dining and drinking there most days of the year. I doubt the business community that recognizes the economic impact of that spending were given much of a voice in whatever debate was had on it. I'd argue that this local legislation banning big cruise ships is a perfect example of a small vocal minority overrunning the larger community's economic interests. There had to be some middle ground here but that rarely gets found in matters like this where the environment flag is waived.

I agree with this and moreover, think it has legs. I don't think it will be 100% of the fleet sailing as in the pre-pandemic period but I can see a stepwise, 25%, 50%, 75% phase in as crew become available, trained and ships and ports are physically readied. My news feeds today are full of articles talking a major shift in the Biden administration's pandemic approach. The message coming from "unnamed White House Officials ..... not authorized to discuss this," is that President Biden is shifting from what has been characterized as an overly cautious return to pre-pandemic activity to one where there is recognition that people are burned out on restrictions. Reports offer that the President recognizes this is particularly true for those that have pursued vaccination and therefore messaging should be more focused on things vaccinated people can do as the nation returns to a post pandemic normalcy. A lot of us have been calling for this shift in messaging from the COVID boogey man approach, such messaging intended to keep the masses from being to cavalier about the virus, to here's how to get back to normalcy safely and, oh, by-the-way, if you get vaccinated you can do MORE! It's the right message and one I've been advocating for since mid-March when it became blindingly obvious that the vaccines worked better than expected. So, what could happen? Clearly, the cruise lines are in the get ready to go mode. What amounts to testing of safety protocols has been on-going for months outside the US and the data from this testing is very encouraging. Chatter about the love-fest between the cruise lines and the CDC is noteworthy. Crew movement is obvious. It is unmistakable that RCG is shifting it's itineraries from the 3-5d range to 7-8d range. While popular, shorter cruises are less profitable unless there's tons of volume. My sense is that cruisers are less interested in 3-5d itineraries right now when the longer ones are already appearing on offer. I would also bet that of the RCL and Celebrity cruises on the books for July, there's more than a few B2B bookings. If one is going to fly to Europe, shorter cruises are less appealing than longer ones. So, yeah, I like the fluorescent light bulb analogy. There's pressure from multiple directions on the Biden administration to start easing restrictions and talking up a return to a post pandemic normalcy. I think the FL lawsuit is a factor. It's not a major player but could Justice Department staffers be telling White House staffers that it is likely FL will prevail in it's law suit and the CDC and HHS are going to look bad if they do? I think that is entirely possible and the President, who often doesn't get the nitty-gritty but rather has it filtered, is getting the picture on the downsides of this CSO/NSO nonsense as it pertains to jobs and a troubled cruise line industry struggling because of heavy handed US government policy. Good news today.

I moved the link that appears at the end of this post to here. It was in the Bahamas thread. We've had a spirited discussion here about vaccines in general so, I wanted to comment on the CDC's announcement and my take-aways. The CDC has conducted a study on what it calls "breakthrough infections." These are infections that occur after a person has been vaccinated. The study results are below. Since the study and starting now, the CDC will only report break through infections that result in hospitalizations or death. There's a good reason for that. If you look at the study numbers that considered all breakthrough infections reported by states, that it happens at all is rare. When it does happen, the numbers are miniscule: The CDC goes on to recommend this: Vaccine breakthrough cases occur in only a small percentage of vaccinated persons. To date, no unexpected patterns have been identified in the case demographics or vaccine characteristics among people with reported vaccine breakthrough infections. COVID-19 vaccines are effective. CDC recommends that all eligible people get a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as one is available to them. This is good news. 93% of breakthrough infections did not result in hospitalizations. Only 1% resulted in death and of that 1% (88) 11 of those deaths were caused by other factors even though that patient had COVID. IOW, less than 1% of breakthrough infections resulted in death attributed to COVID. If that is the case in the general population where about 50% of Americans mask and/or distance, how can a cruise ship environment be unsafe in terms of being spreaders of infectious disease when everyone sailing will be vaccinated and I suspect masked in any setting where physical distancing might be compromised? Keep following this line of thought. The good news about breakthrough infections should be followed by specific steps that Americans can take to resume normal activity if they are vaccinated don't ya think? But .....noooooooo. Then they go on to recommend this non-sensical low risk, out of an abundance of caution advice: CDC recommends that fully vaccinated people continue tp take steps to protect themselves and others in many situations, like wearing a mask, maintaining an appropriate social distance from others, avoiding crowds and poorly ventilated spaces, and washing their hands often. One other unsubstantiated boogey man the CDC reports and shouldn't becasue there's no data to support the allegation is that the numbers reported are probably undercounts. Really? Shut the door. No proof of that at all! IOW, you still need to be scared of COVID. I want to scream ....... "masks in many situations"? Does the CDC mean outdoors, indoors, gyms, bars, baseball stadiums, cruise ships? Where? Wash your hands? Generally a good idea but in the case of SARS2, which is what we're talking about here, your hands are not fomites that facilitate transmission of this bug. OK, look, it's America right? We can look at the data and make good choices, do our own risk analysis and determine what we are comfortable with, right? That would work except we have the CDC making policy, shutting down the cruise industry while state governments, some of them, continue to mandate all sorts of behaviors for residents and businesses. Over-reach. Big time! Anyway, stepping off my soap box. This is really good news and should have a significant impact on what we all want to have happen: start cruising from US ports again. https://www.cdc.v/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/breakthrough-cases.html

Exactly. I'm skeptical. First and as an aside, the CDC's often confusing and contradictory positions on travel/mobility and social contacts for US citizens and seemingly without regard to the impact of vaccines stand in stark contrast to the one voice - the EUC - that speaks clearly on the subject of travel (implied mobility and social contact). Its just nutz. Having said that, the EU is notoriously divided on many subjects and this one is a hot topic. I don't think there is any question that Spain, Italy and Greece, among select Baltic states will encourage vaccinated US citizens to come to their countries. France - probably. The Netherlands, Germany and the Scandinavian countries? Not sure. Switzerland is not a member of the EU. Boarders still closed there. Then we have the situation unraveling in India and Brazil. That sort of thing tends to make the WHO uneasy and willing to recommend things in "an abundance of caution." They don't control anything but they are influencers much like the CDC.

Man, that's cutting it close but possible for a July restart if the Judge issues an injunction. I have several friends who are lawyers that litigate claims filed in the federal courts. There is all kinds of pre-hearing back room dealing - most of it by phone. The Judge directly, or more likely his clerks do the leg work. TBH, this is pretty much a deal or no deal, black and white issue. I'm not sure there is middle ground that the parties could agree on but one never knows. I think there is some hard-ball being played by the FL Attorney General....... "fine you don't want to do this with some cover or plausible denial? We'll see you in court then. It's going to be public and ugly." Remember Desantis is not a fan of the Biden administration and would love to kick a part of it to the curb.

The numbers are going to be horrible and RCG knows it without some kind of restart of cruising from US ports that can generate revenue. An investors meeting that demonstrates those horrible numbers will kill stock valuations. I'm going to be optimistic and hope that the delay is because the numbers improve quite a bit if RCG can legitimately project income from such sailings and they've got some insider information on the FL suit coming to some sort of resolution shortly.

This is a good forward looking point. For the here and now I would prefer an expeditious ruling on FL's suit by the federal judge hearing the case by the end of this week. If we go past that time frame, the likelihood of sailings resuming from US ports in July dims considerably. It's then that we'd have to rely on Congress getting one of the bills going or HHS canceling the PHE. That implies an August restart at the earliest and more like a September restart if the PHE expires sometime in July. WRT the Public Health emergency Declaration, when I started watching this late last year, The Secretary of HHS renews it on a 90d rolling basis. I've not seen a date certain for those renewals in the last two iterations. The PHE is issued under Section 319 of the Public Health Services (PHS) Act. The HHS Secretary can issue a PHE when he determines that an infectious disease or bioterrorism attack endangers the public's health. I've read that section and there is no specific definition of what constitutes a PHE or limits on the time frames or authority of the HHS Secretary. https://www.phe.gov/Preparedness/legal/Pages/phe-qa.aspx#:~:text=Under section 319 of the,%2C or 2) a PHE%2C This is one of the complaints in the FL suit that alleges that only Congress has the authority to suspend commerce in US ports, the net effect of the NSO/CSO. That is also behind the two bills that have been introduced to try to return the cruise ship industry to operations from US ports. I'm not a lawyer but the arguments in the 5 articles in the FL complaint seem to me to be very strong. I mentioned early on within this blog that I suspected the extended time frame for the judge hearing this complaint could indicate that he is trying to get the parties to agree to a settlement rather than hear the case, rule for the state of FL and embarrass the Biden administrations and specifically CDC/HHS. Normally, this issue would not be present but obviously, a return to cruising is a political hot potato - we know this because one Senator was able to object to one of the Bills and hold up the entire thing. That's unfortunate because the grounds for it - jobs - was pretty on-point. So, we wait.