JeffB

In response to JLMoran's post.......Make no mistake. My memories of cruising are way better than memories of any other vacations I've taken and your list of plus-ups to cruising v. land vacations is a good one, but.... ... our first cruise was in 2001 aboard Celebrity Mercury. In the 19 years since, we've logged 38 cruises with Celebrity and another dozen with other lines. The only itineraries we have not experienced are Northern Europe and the Middle East. My Daughter and her husband, an Italian, live and work in Switzerland. We've visited Europe 3X in conjunction with visits to see our grandchildren and them and had extended stays in Italy. Traveling and seeing the world both ways are distinctly different. Over the two decades of experiencing the cruising life, I've watched the cruise industry change dramatically. It's growth has been phenomenal and not all of it for the good. There's less glamor and more Greyhound with pizzazz of course but most people my age can remember what it was like to fly in the 50s and 60s aboard a Pan Am Constellation then 747 compared to what the experience is like today on a United or Spirit Airlines flight. There are huge differences from the boarding process to food service and the in-flight experience between Pan Am of the 60s and Spirit of the oughts. Cruising has been a lot like that for me. My expectations for cruising in 2004 or 5 have been dutifully lowered for these days. Still, we like ship life and have this sort of routine. We just like being aboard and after having seen many ports multiple times, we often don't even debark. Food service, at least aboard Celebrity has been maintained at a very high level. I find that amazing although its a step down from our dining experiences a decade ago. The elimination of the old cruise line themed specialty restaurants that survived into the Millennium Class ships but then finally disappeared a few years ago was a sad day for us. At least Murano has survived but we're not big fans of the direction dining has taken on the Edge class ships. No Ice Martini bar and a long list of memorable flair bar-tenders? Shame!!! I get the transitions though. Cruise lines are delivering what customers want ..... most of the time. Admittedly, it is the loss of some of the glamor of the Golden Age of cruising that when cruise lines returned in earnest in the late '90s attempts were made to preserve that. That's giving way to a much more family centric, theme-park sort of experience and I think this is especially true with RCCL. Still, there are options for more sedate and luxurious yet still value experiences aboard NCL brands such as Oceania. Celebrity targets sales toward a different cruising cohort than say Carnival so, there's always options - finding the balance between value and luxury on a cruise though is getting harder and harder.

Looking at the health of an industry from a standpoint of profitability is going to skew projections downward for the cruise lines. The year 2030 as a return to 2019 level profitability is a WAG. There are multiple factors that will determine "profitability" beyond the levels of it that cruise companies experienced in the past. I don't think offering the analysis the author provides is particularly useful as a measure of cruise industry health. I don't think there is any question that cabin capacity will contract by thinning fleets. That's already happening. With reduced capital costs and expenditures, profitability can and usually will rise rapidly. One thing that this article nails is the decreasing spread that the cruise industry previously enjoyed between the cost of leisure activities. Cruising, IMO, has been a great value compared to say, all-inclusive resorts or a two week, land based vacation somewhere. The net effect is going to be decreased demand for cabins - without the value incentive, the cruise industry is going to be in a spot. Moreover, fewer died-in-the wool cruisers will want to pay a premium to cruise. I certainly won't. One thing I'm coming to grips with is that the post-COVID cruise experience is going to be markedly different and it's going to take a while for me to rebuild interest and confidence in cruising as the best means of traveling. As I get further and further away from my last cruise (March of 2020) I can feel interest waning and this is especially true when I consider what the cruise experience will be like during the first several months after a restart. I've got 4 bookings from March to early November, 2021 with Celebrity - 3 of them L&S'ed, the one in March booked in early 2020. I lost a New Year's 2020/21 cruise on Infinity when I L&S'ed to January 2022 and 2 weeks later Celebrity cancelled it - at that point I could only get a refund and I took it. That left a sour taste in my mouth. That I'm pretty sure the March 19th, 10d cruise on Reflection will be cancelled or modified isn't going to increase my enthusiasm for cruising either.

These are relevant questions. let me take them from top to bottom: Will the CDC demand that the pandemic is at an end before they greenlight a restart of cruising from US Ports? I think there is a risk of this with the proviso that no US economic sector has been singled out for the kind of draconian measures that essentially shuts down a business like the cruise industry has been shut down. IMO, there is a distinct possibility that SARS-CoV-2 will not be eradicated such that an end to the pandemic can be declared. However, I believe that disease burden will be reduced to the extent that it parallels that of say, heart disease or cancer; we learn how to manage and live with these. Given that and juxtaposed with what I consider to be an outstanding Safe to Sail Plan that is ready for testing and implementation, I can see a court challenge to the CDC's continued shuttering of cruise ship operations from US ports. It's impossible to say what criteria might be used by the CDC to greenlight cruise ship operations but the continued shut down by government fiat is unprecedented and unjustified given operating standards in other sectors of the travel and leisure industries. Will Inter and intrastate travel become unacceptable wrt potential for disease spread? To me, this becomes a risk benefit calculation that with over a year of the presence of a highly infectious virus taking an immense human, social and economic toll, authorities are just now recognizing that lock-downs, even lock-down light, while they work in reducing community spread of the virus, are not sustainable. Therefore, as macabre as it sounds, hard nosed choices have to be made. Yes, some will become infected, become seriously ill and die. But most will not. Death is inevitable and some level of excess death due to viruses are going to become a realty that the human race, if it is to prosper socially and economically, has to live with and manage the human toll as best that our technology and medical knowledge allows. Won't the CDC consider this effect knowing it is powerless to stop domestic travel? This is an important political question with significant implications. This question cannot be answered definitively without evaluating the world view that one has. Fundamentally, we know that the authority of government in the US to mandate behavior has been questioned. Can the wearing of a mask be mandated for the public good is just one example of many. Can the CDC implement regulations that prohibit domestic travel is another example? These kinds of mandates are coming under increasing scrutiny and governments are being challenged in the courts. For me, I think this is good. I believe governments have to show just cause and if they can't, like has already been seen in some court challenges to state wide mandates (Governors Whtimer in MI and Newsom in CA), mandates can be struck down. I think that continued CDC regulations that amount to unjustified restrictions to commerce are, in time, going to be found to be illegal and will be struck down. Others can disagree.

Some facts that pertain to recent posts: There is no causation between the latest SARS-CoV-2 variant named G164 and the increase in new COVID case numbers in the UK. There is a presumed relationship but it is not scientific fact. At present there is no concrete evidence that steps being taken within the EU to restrict UK access are going to provide significant PH benefit for the EU that will outweigh their enormous economic and social costs to the UK. There are some very readable articles about SARS-CoV-2 mutations, their usually benign and expected nature and that none of the nearly 4000 observed mutations including the most recent render vaccines ineffective. This is one of them: https://www.jwatch.org/fw117348/2020/12/20/sars-cov-2-variants-uk-south-africa-cause-alarm The individual on the United Airlines flight who allegedly had COVID-19, to my knowledge, has not been declared as having it. He is believed to have suffered cardiac arrest and because of unsubstantiated statements from passengers who witnessed his demise he is being presumed to have had COVID by United Airlines. The airlines and the CDC are working together to contact trace passengers who potentially came in contact with the deceased pending the release of information regarding his COVID status.

While it is true as Twangster points out that the mRNA vaccines (the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines currently in circulation) won't "neutralize" SARS-CoV-2 no vaccine in history has been introduced with eradication as an absolute endpoint. Disease eradication is a result of limiting the pathogenicity of a virus until it is no longer capable of producing a disease, e.g., polio, TB. If you read about such things, there are still polio and TB outbreaks that are a result of populations in sufficient scale not receiving polio or TB vaccines. Malaria is another example. The disease or pathogen seems to disappear until it reappears. There is no vaccine but it is preventable with widely employed mitigation measures and pharmaceutical prophylaxis. HIV is another - no vaccine but transmission is preventable with condum use and medications to reduce viral load in infected persons making them less likely to spread the disease. The cruise industry has laid out exactly how it intends to prevent and contain C-19 on its cruise ships if allowed to re-start cruising. That's a start. Think back to the WHO goal of "flattening the curve" articulated in February and March. The point of that was to keep hospitals and medical staff that were treating COVID-19 patients from being overwhelmed. It's a good thing to keep that in mind. The same thing applies with the current goal for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines with a slightly more ambitious goal. Keeping people out of the hospital altogether so that the disease that SARS-CoV-2 produces, C-19, is benign enough to be much like the common cold. That goal is entirely achievable with a vaccine just like it is with the Influenza vaccines that targets the H1N1 pathogen. The disappearance of the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen may ensue, it may not. That all depends on it's survival trajectory which is only now being studied. Are we to expect the cruise lines to eradicate the virus on board it's ships for them to re-start cruising? Nope. he CDC asked the cruise lines to come up with protocols to reduce the risks that COVID would be introduced to shipboard life by passengers or crew and that if a case developed it could be adequately contained and the infected could be disembarked without causing undue burden on port facilities and local hospitals. They did that. This concept is important to understand as it relates to the question of whether cruise lines, upon resumption of revenue operations, will require vaccines to board a ship. I believe that they won't because they believe their layered approach is already pretty good. The cruise lines don't currently require immunizations for influenza or many other common pathogens still floating around out there. It is a passenger's responsibility to comply with local port of call immunizations should that passenger want to disembark in a local requiring specific immunizations to do so. There is, however, a larger question that bears upon restarting at all let alone the question of requiring or not requiring a vaccine. Will the CDC require the COVID pandemic to be at an end in the US before cruises can restart - vaccine or not? If so, when will the COVID pandemic be declared at an end? By definition, a pandemic ends when the virus responsible for it is no longer prevalent. Right now, although it varies by country, a community spread ends when prevalence is < 5%. Another way to look at that is the number of tests it takes to find 1 active COVID-19 case. Experts seem to think that if you're only finding 1 case in 150 to 200 tests administered, the virus is contained. The US has a long way to go before national prevalence rate is < 5% or we're only finding one C_19 case in every 150 or so tests. National prevalence is about 10% right now. Some states with very high prevalence rates skew the national average upward. New cases are running about one in every 50-90 tests nationally. In FL the state average is about 9% and in Broward County, home of Port Everglades, its between 6.5% and 8% most of the time. In Miami its close to the state average, in Orlando, closer to Broward Co. I point this out to illustrate how the restart of cruising shouldn't be pegged on national but rather local prevalence rates, vaccine requirements or not. The CDC may stand on a national prevalence rate, though, now that a vaccine is available. Local numbers would be better indicators for a restart. Local numbers < 5% are probably achievable but it's going to take a while. If we can get past the hysteria of the holiday surge, we're going to see numbers back under 5% in FL counties hosting cruise ports probably by mid-February, early March. Caribbean ports will be next and European ports will follow prevalence rates in US ports. I'd urge folks to watch these prevalence numbers by country, region, state and county then keep an eye on the mood of the CDC to find out when it's likely cruising will restart and when it does if there will be a vaccine mandate to board.

Questions like this have been addressed many times in different threads but it is still relevant because about every 72 hours, things change! Right now, it appears that when cruising does restart from US ports, itineraries will be in the range of 3-7 days. Porting will be limited and if it does occur, it will be at private island facilities for a while to come. If you're keeping up, you'll have seen the Safe to Sail Plan that RCG, among other lines and organizations (e.g., CLIA), collaboratively developed. These were in response to CDC concerns about congregate settings common on cruise ships and the attendant risk of the spread of SARS-CoV-2 within them. In turn, the CDC then lifted the cruise ship ban on sailing from US ports on October 30th and released a 70 some page document stipulating what cruise ships had to do to resume sailing from US ports. Well, nobody is cruising yet from the US and even cruising in Asia and Europe has been only on a limited basis. There are some lines that have already cancelled or stopped booking cruises in March, 2021 and even beyond that. The cruise line's ability to meet all the gating criteria contained in the most recent CDC guidelines will determine when cruising can resume. Even if they do that, there's wiggle room for the CDC to say, nope not yet, based on such things as disease prevalence, for example, in FL ..... or Galveston, New Orleans, where ever cruise ships operate from. So, restarting sailings out of US ports is going to be hard as long as there is a level of community spread of the virus that is currently being experienced. I've already offered that I don't think that in the early months of vaccine distribution that we're going to see a decline in disease prevalence. In hospitalizations and deaths? Yes. So, if disease prevalence remains high in FL, for example, even though RCCL and Celebrity may have implemented protocols that will meet the CDC's requirements for mitigation measures and gating criteria, the company itself or the CDC may not allow a restart. Having said that and to answer your question, I think the survival of the cruise ship industry, including RCCL, depends on being able to re-start revenue deriving cruises by the end of the first quarter of 2021 - that would be March. I do believe that federal level decision makers are aware of the economic costs to the cruise industry of continuing to prohibit operations. There is plenty of evidence that shuttering businesses does not produce the public health benefits wrt the pandemic that are greater than the economic and social costs produced by them. There is some recognition of this starting to surface everywhere on the planet that is dealing with the pandemic. As well there is strong resistance to unregulated re-opening. There's a definite tension between these two pathways with trends toward fewer lock-downs or shuttering of businesses. There are exceptions, of course, and there are governors and local officials who have the authority to do so to order both varying forms of lock-downs and business closings. I think cruising can be done safely with layered mitigation measures. To demand zero risk of viral spread aboard a cruise ship is unrealistic. The industry has to convince regulating entities in the US that it can reduce the risk of spreading the virus and if there is an infection aboard ship it can be addressed and dealt with without endangering other passengers or crew or placing undue burden on local port facilities when they are asked to assist in the handling of infected persons. The blueprint is in place to do that. There is evidence from Asia and Europe that similar blueprints work. The hardest part, the biggest barrier to a restart from US ports right now, and seemingly in Europe and Asia, is viral prevalence. I think regulators and local officials involved in decision making are going to want viral prevalence - percent positivity of administered testing within counties hosting cruise ports - to be at or below 5% maybe a little higher. Broward county, the FL county that contains Port Everglades, for example, has been hovering between 6% and 10% over the last month. In addition, cruise ships will have to demonstrate that they can create as much of a bubble as possible before deciders will green light sailings out of any particular US port. That should come once the planned practice cruises start taking place. Does that shed some light on your question? I'm with Matt, "we just don't know yet." Stay tuned.

Here are some mRNA vaccine facts but before we list them, some background on DNA and RNA. DNA encodes all genetic information, and is the blueprint from which all biological life is created. And that’s only in the short-term. In the long-term, DNA is a storage device, a biological flash drive that allows the blueprint of life to be passed between generations2. RNA functions as the reader that decodes this flash drive. This reading process is multi-step and there are specialized RNAs for each of these steps. https://www.technologynetworks.com/genomics/lists/what-are-the-key-differences-between-dna-and-rna-296719 To put this into the context of the question can an mRNA vaccine change your DNA? The answer is no. That is because mRNA has as no roll in altering DNA. It is possible to alter DNA by splicing in different base pairs made up of two nucleosides. RNA or mRNA vaccines can't do that carrying only multiples of single nucleoside - square peg in a round hole. Won't happen. The primary roll of RNA, specifically messenger or mRNA is building proteins essential for biologic functions of the human body. mRNA and traditional vaccines: mRNA vaccines represent a novel vaccine technology that does not rely on any type of traditional deactivated virus to provoke an immune response in humans. This approach to neutralizing a virus and limiting or eliminating viral epidemics/pandemics has never been treid before. As noted above, the mRNA injected into humans as a vaccine co-opts the regular cellular function of RNA (coding for the production of proteins) and produces the S or spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 that then circulates in the body. The body recognizes this as foreign and its presence provokes an adaptive immune system antibody response and an innate immune system T-Cell response. The human body is now primed for the real thing and when it arrives it is almost immediately neutrlaized. The AstraZenaca vaccine is a traditional one that contains a deactivated virus from monkeys (a vector) that has been infected with the common corona or cold virus. When injected into humans, the vector causes the cellular production of the S or spike protein that is common to SARS-CoV-2. The mechanism of action is the same as an mRNA vaccine. The body recognizes this as foreign and its presence provokes an adaptive immune system antibody response and an innate immune system T-Cell response. The human body is now primed for the real thing and when it arrives it is almost immediately neutralized. More important vaccine facts: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/mrna.html

I think this is an accurate summary. Let's talk about vaccine facts involving the two vaccines we'll see in the US over the next 30 days. Both are mRNA vaccines. They are a new development on the vaccine front. Their composition includes incorporation of synthetically manufactured mRNA that once injected into a naïve host, appears to the adaptive and innate immune system as SARS-CoV-2. This provokes the production of antibodies in the adaptive response and has proven to provoke a robust innate immune system response in the form of T-Cells. If you have a predilection for the science involved in the immune response to SARS-CoV-2, this is a good scientific paper that is written well enough for lay persons to understand. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201125091456.htm Mutations: Researchers have found over 12000 variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus involving mutations of the virus RNA. There is anecdotal evidence that the virus mutates and can infect hosts other than humans. The lay press has extrapolated this evidence to incorrectly conclude and report to the public that the virus is more dangerous or lethal and can be transmitted by hosts other than humans. Transmission of the virus from an animal, for example, can occur but is exceedingly rare. The current news regarding minks and workers at mink farms, for example, contracting COVID-19 lacks controlled studies. Infected workers could have contracted C-19 by human to human transmission and this mode of transmission is probably more likely than it being transmitted from the minks. Experts in the field of virology and immunology have argued against the culling of commercially raised minks as ineffective with high economic costs and few public health benefits. Whether SARS-CoV-2 mutations confer longer virus life or lethality has been aggressively studied. According to this paper released in the UK, none of them have created circumstances where the life of the virus is extended/made more resistant to containment or eradication or makes it more infectious/lethal. Morbidity and mortality produced by C-19 is a function of viral load and the human immune response to exposure to SARS-CoV-2, not mutations of the virus. Mutations in a virus are to be expected, not feared. The core targets of vaccines (the S or spike proteins) predict that regardless of common RNA mutations, the SAR-CoV-2 virus, exactly like the H1N1 family of influenza viruses and it's variants, will remain susceptible to degradation and by extension, severity of C-19 or Influenza symptoms through vaccination. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201125091456.htm CDC vacccine facts: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/vaccine-benefits/facts.html

Disclaimer: I'm not a virologist or immunologist; I'm a Physician Assistant, now retired after 22 years of Emergency Medicine practice. I write about the SARS-CoV-2 and COVID in a completely unrelated blog that I manage. If there is something to read about the virus and the disease it produces, I've probably seen it and have reviewed it with a medical eye. I want to make sure that if I am asked about the virus or the disease it produces, COVID, and write about it, I'm not passing bad information. Researchers believe that an infected individual will infect others in proportion to the viral load of that infected person. Multiple factors are determinants of a given viral load. Super-Spreader events are believed to have circumstances where very high viral loads are present and more people are easily infected in a ratio that exceeds the accepted R value of 1-3 (the average number of people one infected person will infect). Theoretically, the lower the viral load (virions) of an infected individual, the less people he/she will infect. It is also believed that COVID severity is a function of the quantity of virions a SARS-CoV-2 infected individual actually make the trip from the infected persons exhalations to then be inhaled by and find a home in the respiratory tract of the naïve person. The more virions received by the new host, the faster and more plentiful the replication and this is especially true in a naïve host with no immunity at all to the virus.* By extension it may be accurate to say that a vaccinated person, having already been prepared by the vaccine to build antibodies will respond much more rapidly to invading virions diminishing their number and potentially making that individual less infectious......theoretically, and asswering your question, diminishing asymptomatic spread. TBF, we just don't know if this will actually occur outside of a lab where these theories are developed. The lack of certainty here is what has made vaccine producers reluctant to make claims that the vaccines they developed will stop or slow the spread of the virus. They might. They might not. It will be a while before scientists and medical researchers will be willing to say, yes, the vaccine is slowing the spread ..... and if that is the case, then, like some diseases, SARS-CoV-2 will be eradicated. But, lets take one step at a time. The goal right now is to reduce disease burden as defined by hospitalizations and deaths. * A comment on the human body's immune system. There are two parts: adaptive and innate. Vaccines target the adaptive system directly prompting antibodies to be developed and prepared to meet and defeat the real thing should it be contracted. Vaccines also have a stimulating effect on the innate system. There are several classes of innate cells. You may have heard of Killer T Cells. These are examples of an innate immune system cell. They can be provoked by the presence of a manufactured, synthetic look-alike virus (a vaccine). In part, the presence of these in a competent immune system can meet the virus, recognize it as foreign, neutralize it and completely prevent or lessen COVID symptoms. Replication of the virus is impeded, less virions are reproduced in the host, less illness ensues. The 96 year old grandma who tested positive for COVID and was supposed to succumb to it but didn't get sick at all is demonstrative of this phenomena. Unfortunately not everyone has powerful innate immunity to SARS-CoV-2 but most healthy people have some; its thought that in the absence of a vaccine, the degree of innate immunity may determine, in part, the severity of COVID.

Just to be clear, no one that I am aware of from any of the pharmaceutical companies that will have vaccines in circulation by January or from reputable virologists are talking about "eradicating" the SARS-CoV-2 virus. What vaccine producers and public health officials are hoping for is a reduction in the disease burden of the virus secondary to the introduction of vaccines. I can see a scenario where new case numbers continue to increase at a lower rate but hospitalizations and deaths decline. These two data points - hospitalizations and deaths - are key markers for disease burden. If they decline, the vaccine is doing what experts thought it would. Yet the media will be rife with reports that case numbers aren't declining as anticipated and the "dire consequences" of vaccine failure. State and local governments will continue to renew or implement new, more useless and unnecessary mitigation measures with little public health benefit derived from them. Cruising won't restart because the CDC is unlikely to end it's warnings for Americans to avoid cruising until such time as the US prevalence rate is well below 5% and probably below 3%. I hate to be a buzz killer but people need to understand that the introduction of a vaccine, even at scale, is not a guarantee that the virus will be "eradicated." What we need to be tuned into and cheer is that fewer people are getting hospitalized and a whole lot less people are dying from COVID-19 complications. I think we are going to see measurable declines in both of these data points in 45-60 days. Get ready to obtain your COVID vaccination or antibodies present passport to board a cruise ship. The requirement is probably legal. CLIA, the CDC and possibly DHS (which would require it through regulatory authority) will recommend it. It's coming.

I think it is really hard to predict what RCL and Celebrity are going to do heading into March, 2021 and through the summer. The situation is terribly fluid. Some factors: If vaccines are actually distributed around 12/15/20 you're 10 weeks into distro by March 1st. There's ample evidence that the vaccines will be available on ever-enlarging scale. That is going to have a major impact on the cruising landscape. While, at first, who gets the vaccines will be limited in numbers and targeted, as production scales up - and when there is a huge market for a product companies will go out of their way to match or exceed demand producing big profits - it will scale up very rapidly. Keep in mind, there is already vaccines produced and on the shelves at all three companies that are in the lead to receive EUA. Once all three are in full-scale production mode and the Feds have got distribution down, it will be reversal of the exponential spread of the virus in that vaccinated persons, not new infections will increase exponentially. The numbers of new COVID cases will decline steeply. Then we have J&J saying they will be seeking EUA as early as February, possibly earlier - a 4th company in max production mode. I also can see other foreign companies seeking EUA for their vaccine products in the US. So, there could even be more vials of the vaccines available and more rapidly expanding numbers of vaccinated persons than we imagine right now or could have even thought possible 6 months ago. Free markets can do that. What is the CDC going to do wrt their restrictions and protocols directed at the cruise industry as vaccines become more and more available. I can't imagine that the protocols they've designed won't be modified as potential cruise passengers become vaccinated and the CDC can no longer demand compliance when a ship full of vaccinated otherwise healthy people, a lot of them 65-80 year olds who will probably be first in line, sails. We should see a steep reduction in mitigation measures as early as March and definitely as vaccine reaches full scale production and distribution in June/July. I think you can already see Celebrity - the one I'm keeping close track of - hedging their bets thinking that there's no need to undertake major re-jiggering ships or itineraries after July 31st because vaccines will be out there at scale. While they aren't booking 8n and longer cruises right now and some have been removed altogether, some of them are still on the books - like my August 7th, 8n itinerary. I've been overly optimistic in my takes before and this may be a repeat but if vaccine producers jump in with both feet like I believe they will out of sheer profit motive, if the Fed has planned wisely and it turns out they have the infrastructure and can efficiently execute vaccine distribution at scale throughout North America, we may see a faster return to full scale cruising than Europe will obtain - I feel like the EU is going to get bogged down with boarder closings and distribution efforts complicated by Brexit. North America won't have to deal with that mess.

Celebrity is in the process of formalizing multiple changes involving 8-10n itineraries. I had an 11n/10n B2B that spanned most of March out of Fort Lauderdale. I had decided that booking was unlikely to sail in it's present configuration. So, I looked to see if the Equinox - the only ship from the RCG that is sailing the Caribbean during the traditional hurricane season (not sure about Silver Sea) was doing those two itineraries or something like them in August. Nope. Surprisingly, I was able to cancel the first leg of the B2B and rebook (same fare, different ship, same class but different cabin, no penalties) an 8n Equinox sailing out of Fort Lauderdale but not a sequential 8n sailing right after it. Go figure??? I did not rebook the the second leg of the B2B, a 10n March sailing that probably won't go. I want to see what Celebrity is going to do with this - final payment due second week in December and no changes yet. I doubt that one will sail but it's close. Just 30 minutes ago I logged in to the Celebrity site and located a page showing about 15 itinerary changes most of them shortening 8 or longer night cruises to 7n and giving 6n cruises a 7th night. They had just been published. According to the letter on the page that I will probably receive late tonight I'm getting a $100 CC and a refund on a prorated basis for the lost day. I'm fine with that. It appears that Celebrity is re-jiggering a whole slew of ships and itineraries in 2021. Lots of changes up to August. After that, no changes..... yet. I have an 8n Equinox Cruise out of Fort Lauderdale sailing August 7th. The changes stopped right before this sailing. In this re-jiggering, I got jobbed on a cancellation of a 5n Infinity Cruise that was a L&S from a cancelled Infinity Itinerary over New years leaving 12/28. I don't know where Infinity is headed but it's not doing the previously scheduled 5n/4n sailings in Caribbean waters through April. Then, a week later they cancelled the sailing that I had L&Ss to. I was not happy. I lost a ton of perks and a very good fare. I took a refund as you can only L&S once (you know this). I got over it. Hard times and Celebrity is doing its best. Bottom line if you are booked anytime between January 1st and July 31st keep a sharp eye out for itinerary changes. You don't want to cancel anything on a whim as it's unlikely you'll be able to find a cabin on a Caribbean sailing during this period. If you do want to change, make sure you can cancel and rebook successfully and at the same time before you pull the trigger.

Try this ..... sort-of a combination of "this is not a personal attack against you" advice you got up thread and then lay out these facts on the table. Write them down and let your in-laws read them: What was described as a cruise line debacle in March 2020 by the press anxious to lay blame on the spread of the virus to something, accounted for < 0.05% of global COVID cases over the month of March. Italy, China and a few weeks later other countries in the EU followed by NYC were epic debacles where thousands of people not only got COVID but died in droves. 5 people died from COVID that could be traced back to becoming infected on a cruise ship. Despite what the press makes cruise ships out to be, right now, given the adoption of mitigation measures recommended in the STS Plan, congregate settings like cruise ships will present an environment with a lower probability of becoming infected with COVID than the family gathering we are at right now, any large gathering like weddings, house parties or spectator attended sporting events, most restaurants and bars, going to the grocery store or ay retail store. Misinformation and disinformation is the bane of my existence and it is everywhere. Disinformation is purposeful. There is a need to be aware that it is out there and designed to seed fear and lack of trust in all things official. The best advice for your in-laws is to always endeavor to seek alternative viewpoints or answers to all issues you have interest in or wish to comment on....see all sides.

Comments on my post above: First, we should dismiss the issues on Sea Dream if, as I have seen posted is true, that they weren't using the STS protocols. This just proves, yeah, we should be using those. On testing: I think from the Economist article above we can derive that RAPID Antigen tests aren't ideal for screening or surveillance given the basis upon which they are intended to be done for pre-boarding screening. The chance of a leaker who is infected getting through that process is fairly high. I have posted previously that it was my belief that RCL would be using RAPID RT/PCR tests such as BINAX NOW for pre-board screening. I also think part of the STS protocol was going to back up positive RT/PCR tests with a second confirmatory test. That protocol - two tests - seems to be pretty solid, first for making sure leakers don't get through and second, identifying true positives and handling them in accordance with local procedures. The good news out of the Economist article is that by mid-2021 a RAPID, saliva based, antigen test is going to be available. One test, one result, with 99% accuracy for positive and negatives. I'd feel very good about boarding a ship and sailing on her given that sort of screening accuracy. Finally, the grandstanding as it has been properly named here by members of Congress is crap, not based on any realistic evidence and completely uninformed. Unfortunately, that is what we are going to be dealing with as the cruise industry starts to gear back up and restart. I do think, as stupid and uninformed as it is, this kind of thing is going to keep delaying a restart. COVID politics as usual, not to mention the negative impact of a restart due to what I believe is the CDC's designed to fail gating process (hoop jumping) the cruise lines have to deal with.

I just reviewed an article in the Economist (paywalled) at another site and I'm going to post that review here and then comment about how it applies to the Sea Dream and by extension, the major lines planning to cruise from US ports or are already cruising in Europe and Asia. Finally, before we all go and watch CFB ....... another great article from the Economist. This one gets a little technical. I've touted testing here as a panacea in combating the spread of the virus. Experts agree it is but there are important caveats that I wasn't aware of in any kind of specific way. We know the RT/PCR is the gold standard but it takes too much time to be of much use beyond a diagnostic tool. It sucks for screening and surveillance - the stuff you want to do at airports, on cruise ships, going to concerts or large scale events.The problem for screening and surveillance is that not only does the test need to deliver results quickly, like in a matter of minutes, but also it has to be accurate enough to prevent leakers who are actually infected but for what ever reasons tested negative falsely. That's bad news for people, for example, at a football game crammed into their seats thinking so-and-so strangers to their left and right aren't COVID + when, they actually are. Right now, RAPID antigen tests aren't very accurate; antibody tests like the BINAX-NOW are more accurate. The value of a true positive or negative is affected by a number of things two of them being if the person being tested has symptoms and/or the prevalence of the disease in the locale where the testing is being done. It goes way up when a person actually has symptoms AND where the disease is present and way down when these two factors aren't present.The chart below demonstrates this:Here's the key point going forward:For now, rapid tests are licensed for use only by medical professionals. The regulatory bar for stand-alone home tests is high. They must be 99% accurate and pass extensive usability trials to ensure that people employ them correctly. That would be easier if the secretion being tested was saliva, which is freely accessible, rather than material found high in the nose or deep in the throat. Saliva does work reliably in some pcr tests but no one has yet devised a good antigen test that uses it.At the current pace of progress, though, this may soon change. Bruce Tromberg of America’s National Institutes of Health (nih) thinks that a rapid over-the-counter saliva based antigen test could be available in America as early as next summer. Rapid antigen tests are, then, likely to become a big part of countries’ covid-19 testing strategies. In particular, they will be used for testing at home, in doctors’ offices and clinics, and in remote places where pcr laboratories are not available. They will be especially handy for mass testing in places prone to outbreaks, such as large congregate settings, prisons and student dormitories.https://www.economist.com/science-an...r=nl_special_3

I have a B2B, 10 & 11n, 2 slightly different southern Caribbean itineraries on Celebrity Reflection starting March 3rd. I'm with Twangster on this subject. We just don't know how RCG is going to play these. I'd like my chances of sailing if these were 4 & 5n B2Bs. I think WAAAYTOOO is thinking clearly in his view that keeping passengers in the bubble on a B2B has benefits to RCG in a whole lot of ways. So, maybe this cruise will go. I've been hopeful before only to get gut punched ..... I think I'm batting under .200 with my predictions to date. I've been wrong on guessing restart dates among others. So, my lack of enthusiasm is waning. I too have had 5 cruises cancelled since March, 2020, the latest a really nice 5n New Years' cruise on Millennium. We had already sailed 2X in 2020, the last one ending March 15th, right before shut down. I have taken 3 FCC, applied them in a rolling fashion to upcoming cruises that were subsequently cancelled and L&S'ed two - one an October, 20 Translant, Barcelona to Miami and the other the over NYs cruise. The New Years L&S preserved a really good deal but not over NYs. I was given 7 options from 12/10/21 - 3/03/21 - one of them would have been over Christmas which would have been nice but we have other plans. So, we took 01/22/21 only because our schedule will permit that....... on Infinity which is planned to replace Millennium out of Miami in late 2021 and into 2022 You can look at this two ways: (1) Celebrity has a lot of my money or (2) my next 5 cruises are more-or less paid for. Still, this whole pandemic thing sucks. It's really quite disruptive and a real shame having essentially lost a whole year to laying low. I'm 72, in good health but that lost year ain't coming back. The prospect that it is likely that planning travel to Europe before late summer, 2021 is going to be dicey. That just adds more lost months with restricted travel and specifically cruising - something that we love and had planned to do a lot of. Oh well, patience is a virtue ...... that I'm running really short of!!!

After reading the CDC's document on their phased plan to resume cruise ship operations from US ports, a wordy and overly complex presentation that has more to do with justifying their actions than presenting a responsible plan, how testing is going to be done is a bit clearer but not yet crystal clear. Although I do not know which RAPID testing product RCG will use, I know that it will be a RAPID RT/PCR, diagnostic test not a RAPID antigen test. If you recall my post where I explained the differences in the three types of testing defined by the CDC (Diagnostic, Screening and Surveillance), you'll know that the RT/PCR test is a diagnotic test and the "gold standard." It is as close to 100% accurate as one can get. There are both self contained RAPID RT/PCR products approved by the FDA that will give results in minutes and RT/PCR tests where a sample is collected and then sent to a lab imposing 3-14d delays in results. RAPID Antigen tests are for screening. These are self contained, some using a desk top device for processing, some use a cassette, credit card sized device. I think those would be fine, they are less expensive but they are a bit more sensitive to errors in collection and processing than correctly administered and processed RAPID RT/PCR tests - hence the CDC directions to not use antigen tests. This is a lay description of testing from the FDA. It has a different break down of test categories than that of the CDC .... which is reflective of the confusing often contradictory information coming from the federal level. It's still fine if you want to understand the details of testing. https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/coronavirus-testing-basics The CDC has always taken the position that risk reduction has to be as close to obtaining zero risk of infection as possible. I think zero risk of infection is impossible. What needs to occur is a layered mitigation process that reduces risk of infection to manageable levels and the Safe to Sail plan touted that. I thought it was great. The bad news, IMO, on the CDC's plan to lift the no-sail-order is that it is designed to fail...... which I believe is the outcome the CDC wants. The CDC is not the friend of the cruise industry - cruising is the quintessential example of congregate settings that the CDC says must absolutely be avoided in the pandemic environment. We'll see. Back to testing ...... There are several ways to gather samples for RT/PCR tests in order of reliability: nasopharyngeal swabs, nasal swabs and saliva. All three collection methods are subject to operator induced errors. That's why these tests should not be self administered but rather administered by providers trained to do it. An advantage of using RT/PCR tests is that they are considered definitive - you don't have to run a confirmatory test like you would if using a screening approach with RAPID Antigen tests. The CDC does not say which collection method must be used - a bit surprising and this may be somewhere that the public does not have access to. I don't know if you will have to present some lab based proof that you don't have COVID before your arrival at a cruise terminal. I doubt it. There are just too many variables involving modes of travel that render pre-terminal arrival testing unreliable. So, you'll arrive at the terminal at your designated time and proceed to a testing station that will probably be before TSA screening and check in. Here you'll get screened. I suspect you'll have already filled out an on-line questionnaire and attested to a list of stuff. Then you'll be administered a RAPID RT/PCR test get and results in minutes. There will be protocols if you test positive that will involve some form of isolation and handling in accordance with local isolation policies. If you read the CDC document you'll know that the cruise lines have to make specific arrangements, agreed to by local public health and port authorities, to handle COVID positive crew or passenger cases discovered on screening. These will vary by the port you are embarking from. If you make it through screening and board, IMO, you'll be entering the safest bubble in existence. No environment I know of will be safer from becoming infected by the virus.

Not anything solid. I'm not telling you anything you probably don't know but hotels, airlines and cruise lines have developed sophisticated ways of optimizing profitability and logistics is key with the cruise lines having very large and complex logistics chains. I believe that high levels of efficiency in this aspect of the cruise line business, next to human resources, is hugely important. Making the logistics chain work efficiently and at the lowest costs is a focus for them. That's why I posted my comment about Celebrity's obsession with planning. How the cruise lines in general relaunch revenue operations is going to be key to profitability going forward. Screw this up, have it be less efficient and more costly than is absolutely necessary, will create drag on profits ...... that is not what these companies need after 9 months of bottom line disaster.

Not to be argumentative but, since we're speculating, I think RCL and Celebrity know with some level of certainty which cruises will sail and on what dates those sailings will occur. I can speak with some level of knowledge about Celebrity (1) becasue I'm interested in how a cruise gets planned and stocked for a voyage and (2) I've asked crew and Celebrity staff in the know about such things out of pure curiosity. The line is obsessive about planning, profitability of a cruise given load factors, logistics, port call arrangements and more. Of course there's some uncertainty but I would assume they have a gated plan for each cruise with a threshold of events checked. If the gate isn't made (i.e., not enough tasks checked off) it's going to get cancelled. As each cruise passes through a gate, it will move closer to actually sailing. I also tend to think that selected individuals within RCG, sometime in October after the Pence intervention, knew that the no-sail-order was going to be lifted on 10/30, knew they could start non-rev proof of concept sailings in November and revenue sailings in December. Therefore plans were submitted to the CDC to affect these practice cruises under the cover of the CDC's guidance for crew only manned cruise ships (The Red, Yellow and Green thing). I'm going to make a WAG ....... the first revenue cruise will start on or about the second week of December. Never mind that I might be influenced in this WAG by my booking on Celebrity Millennium out of Miami, 5N sailing on 12/28.

A good step forward re C-19 testing. Keep in mind there are several categories of tests. This test is a Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT/PCR) or a molecular test. There are three ways to collect samples: (1) via a nasophayrngeal swab (the most uncomfortable), (2) A nasal swab (not terribly uncomfortable), (3) A saliva sample (spit in a collection pipette). Costco is offering #3. The RT/PCR test is the gold standard. It is a diagnostic test. All of them are subject to errors induced by collection or processing. I'm not a big fan of home administered tests when they are easy to get with trained medical supervision/collection at a number of pharmacies and medical clinics at no cost to you. But, it's what's available now, the FDA has green lighted them and it is a part of the federal goal to expand testing as quickly as possible. So, OK. What the cruise industry needs are screening tests administered by ship's staff trained to collect and process them. I can't say for certain that these are or are not being used on crew members or passengers cruising now. There are several US manufacturers making these. Abbott Labs is one and was the first to be approved by the FDA in May. There are two of them; BINAX ID (the testing device is about the size of a small toaster) and BINX-Now The testing device is a cassette the size of a credit card). Binax ID is the one Trump touted and the one used (not very well) in the WH. Right now there aren't enough of either of these being produced and other pharmaceutical companies have problems crossing the FDA bar. They can be processed from a nasal swab sample in 15m or less. If you have been tested for flu or strep at a clinic this is the same thing. The ones that are being manufactured are being distributed from the federal level to State Agencies for distribution. Health care staff, hospitals, first responders and nursing home staff/residents are getting them now. Distribution will expand as production capacity expands. CVS has them as an option on their web site but they aren't available. I found 4 outpatient clinics associated with a large Hospital in Atlanta, GA (East Side Hospital System) that were administering the BINAX Now, 15 minute test. When I tried to schedule one all the appointments were booked. You have to be quick when the next day opens - they do them two days at a time. I was traveling to see my grand-kids and got an RT/PCR test before we traveled. It was simple and easy. You can certainly find a CVS, or Little Clinic (Kroger) and I think Target and Walmart pharmacies are doing them (I'd go for the CVS Minute Clinic variety). You may be able to locate a clinic owned by a large hospital system that is doing the 15m tests in your area. Big hospitals may take some of their tests and send them out to clinics they own. Insurance covers these and each will cost your insurer about $100 ($65 and up for the exam/collection, $35 for the test). They don't cost you anything ..... or you can spend 130 bucks at Costco, risk missing up the collection and a false result - mostly negatives. I can't emphasize the importance of testing, isolation when appropriate and tracing of contacts at scale enough. It is key to normalization of our lives. It has to be done from the Federal level with standard reporting of results to a single Federal entity, standard procedures for isolating the infected and standardized, well defined protocols for tracing. Every state has to follow the same protocols, trace and report the same way. Cruise ships operating now and when they start out of US ports are microcosms of a national testing strategy. It works to control the virus. Add compliance with the simplest mitigation measures, throw in a vaccine and this thing will be behind us by late July, 2021. The Feds should be getting on this now, are to some extent but the current administration still thinks states should run everything. That approach has resulted in unreliable COVID data that plagues our public health system now. It might get better in January.

Two separate sailings of same ship - Costa Diadema per CruiseRadio article: The first sailing, upon re-entering Italian waters for a port call in Palermo and at the request of the Italian health authorities, all passengers and crew were tested. 7 passengers tested positive, all of them asymptomatic. I'm assuming these passengers debarked and were quarantined - that's not clear. Following that event, the crew was required to be tested again. When all received negative results, the second charter cruise was allowed to depart on October 12. https://cruiseradio.net/mediterranean-cruise-ends-early-over-worsening-outbreak-in-france/ I'm in agreement with your position that all passengers should be US citizens when and if a cruise line restart out of US ports occurs

Twangster, I may be wrong about this but I remember reading that on the cruise in question, there were no positives. The crew positives were on a Costa charter that sailed prior to that. It is my understanding that these positives were appropriately dealt with and authorities green lighted the charter we're talking about. Either way you're spot on regarding the unusual circumstance that Costa has to deal with vis-a-vis a potential closing by the Italians of the Italian - French boarder . These sort of complications highlight the difficulties cruise lines have operating in the COVID environment. There are circumstances that come up that have nothing to do with sound COVID protocols onbaord ship but still impact them in ways that are hard to anticipate.

Sailed Edge in January on a 7n Western Caribbean itinerary before "it." Tried to rebook for an Edge cruise in mid-march right after an 11n Reflection cruise. That got cancelled. We had also booked Apex for a Barcelona to Miami East bound translant that would have departed 10/22/20. That's been L&S'ed. Edge is a great cruise ship with a ton of innovative features, some a bit quirky for my tastes. We booked a deluxe inside cabin. The pricing makes this option a good one on these ships. We prefer OV on Millennium class and Balconies on Solstice class.....when they are discounted. Edge class features the infinity balconies that I'm told aren't worth the up-charge. They are no more spacious than an inside deluxe but, of course open to a veranda view. That veranda is small and enclosed. These ships feature the exclusive Retreat with some very pricey villas and exclusive dining in several restaurants such as Luminae. Celebrity has a specific passenger target for these ships. I'm not in it but also don't feel I'm not treated as importantly as Retreat guests. IMO, the upcharge for this sort of exclusivity isn't worth it. Food is the same, service is no better or no worse, accommodations are better but that's not a factor for us. Price is. One of the things I liked on Edge was the spacious passageways. This is an exceptionally well laid out ship easy to find your way around in but it also has some funky design features. The Grand Foyer concept is gone and replaced by an Italian style Piazza. It's nice but I don't think it works. It's designed to be a gathering area but it's smallish. The bar - supposedly a martini bar - is too small. Solstice class Ice Bar is much more spacious and well laid out. Missed that. Eden which occupies 4 levels in the aft portion of the ship is the featured design element. It's beautiful, has a bar, 2 restaurants and in the evening at the main specialty restaurant within Eden, dancers dress up in costumes and float around the area. It's a little weird and, IMO, overdone. We have ONE favorite specialty restaurant aboard Celebrity ships, Murano, and it's gone on Edge class. Edge's specialty restaurants beyond Eden are very nice. We've felt the up-charge for specialty dining these days isn't worth it unless it's coming out of big OBCs. Main dining room food quality and service is usually very good. The specialties just aren't delivering a 5 star dining experience like I thought they did in the past and we've been sailing Celebrity since 2001 Just need to get back to this. Right now all my 2020 L&Ss fill 2021 ..... and they're paid for!

So what about politics and the NSO? They're in play. They're in play globally, in Europe, the UK and Asia. They involve the same arguments on both sides in most western democracies. They involve questions of government over-reach juxtaposed to the responsibility of governments to protect the public health/prevent disease spread. What's appropriate to carry out that objective and what's not. What makes sense and what doesn't. What are the costs v. the supposed public health benefits. It breaks down, in it's simplest and too often mischaracterized way, as a liberal v. conservative battle. It's way more nuanced than that, but you get the point. The encouraging thing to me in this debate is that the social and economic costs of various mitigation measures are being brought into the calculus in deciding whether to implement a particular measure. You may not have access to this article from the Economist but worth a read if you can figure out how to do it. The article discusses what the UK is facing as new COVID case numbers climb. Lock the kingdom down again to gain control of the virus or recognize there are alternative responses that avoid the social and economic costs of lock-downs. There are distinct parallels to the situation in the US. Similar COVID issues, similar politics: (A lockdown) would also be economically ruinous. In April, at the height of the first lockdown, Britain’s output was one-quarter lower than it had been in February. The imf argues that lockdowns may be worth it if they create an economy that can fully reopen for business. But nobody is suggesting that a short circuit-breaker could suppress the virus to that extent. And the trade-off would be even less worthwhile if you factor in the toll on mental health, the delay in treating other illnesses and the effects on long-term employment and education. To get covid-19 under control Britain should focus on sustainable local measures: identifying vulnerable groups, finding ways to protect them, identifying trade-offs, instigating local testing and recruiting leaders to generate local support. A circuit-breaker sounds like a scientific solution to a runaway problem. The reality would be a costly mess. ■ https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/10/17/britain-should-not-resort-to-a-new-national-lockdown?utm_campaign=coronavirus-special edition&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud

Great work Twangster .......... trying to make legal sense out of Maritime Law - a very specialized area of the law - or the NSO and what authority it is based on is difficult. There's been a couple of reasonable posts answering the question what is the NSO, who directed it, through what process will it expire or be extended and who makes that decision. Well, despite all the complexities interjected into this thread, a lot of it unnecessarily complicating answers to the pertinent questions, the bottom line is that the Executive directed the NSO. How did that come about? The president had traditionally and in the recent past delegated to HHS certain authorities consistent with their expertise within the CDC (a sub-agency within HHS) to prevent the spread of disease in the US. 42 U.S.C. Section 264 is the derivative legal authority for the NSO. Simple as that. HHS is by it's charter a regulatory agency. Here's what they do: Ihttps://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/42/71.1 HHS enforces it's regulations pertinent to the NSO through requirements of the ship's master to follow certain port entry requirements Failure to follow makes the ship's owners subject to fines. As to HHS responsibility to enforce, princevailantus provided this: The last question is who makes the decision to lift or extend the NSO? Well, under it's delegated authority that would be the CDC. They have stipulated and this has been discussed here, how and when the NSO will expire ..... right now that is October 31st. The executive, in this case in the person of VP Pence, can exercise his authority to intervene to limit what the CDC can do, to wit, to extend the NSO beyond 10/31. IMO, this isn't a matter of political influence as members of Congress have alleged. I think the CDC's position will be to extend the NSO. Best case: I think Pence will intervene and direct it's expiration on 10/31. Alternative case: the NSO gets extended through November 11/30 but only applies to revenue producing cruise ship operations with passengers. That allows cruise lines to prepare ships, assemble crews, conduct training and operate trial runs with employees acting as passengers.