RCVoyager

Are they going to hire a team of investigators to follow all employees who go on vacation? What happens if they follow me but don't follow my coworker and we find out my coworker went of a cruise? What happens if there is a chartered Christian cruise? Are they going to try to control my religion? Planes? What about ferry boats? If ferry boats aren't allowed, what about city buses? Subways? City trains? What happens if I don't go on a cruise but my wife goes on a girls trip cruise? Do I have to report this to my employer? What happens if the boss' in-laws go on a cruise and then host Easter at their house one week later? Does he/she have to go into quarantine? I sometimes get semi severe sinus issues that come with a low grade fever in April and May. Are they going to ban Spring? There is no end to the possibilities all that are started by artificially singling out one industry. This is not going to happen. In the next month or so the National Emergency will end. New cleanliness, behavioral, and health standards will be put in place by most of society including cruising. Eventually their will be a vaccine for this epidemic, but what about the next one? Because of the "floating petri dish" mantra propagated those with an agenda and the ignorant, the cruise lines will suffer for the next couple of years. Out of that suffering will come many good rates for those of us who choose to return. Unfortunately many new ships, upgrades, and other projects like private island development will be shelved.

And they can be sued for discrimination for firing someone FOR GOING ON A CRUISE, BUT NOT FIRING SOMEONE FROM GOING TO DISNEY. It's not going to happen. If cruising goes down all of America will go down. And I recognize, this is what some want. Thank God certain recent situations worked out the way they did, because two decisions made by a current decision maker related to who ultimately decides what is allowed and what is not would look very different if some other person made the two decisions as to who ultimately decides what is allowed and what is not.

They can not force me to tell them where I'm going on vacation.

Unless cruising and air travel are banned, which by the way is what is the goal for some of the political side on this, my work cannot stop me from doing what I want on vacation, and I don't have to tell anyone at work what I am doing on my vacation. The US Constitution protects Americans from just this sort of stuff (free speech, freedom to associate, ect). This thing has gone way beyond a contagious illness. It has become a boogeyman. If they are going to ban cruising, I will be the first to join a class action forcing Disney to close. Then sporting events. Then concerts, movies, theater. Next bars and restaurants. Workplaces. If I have to, I'll start a Church that meets only on cruise ships. How are they going to tell me I can't practice the religion of my choice? My point is, in the end, they can't force Americans off of ships or out of planes for an extended period of time. During a National Emergency... yes. There may be new health guidelines, but unless cruises are put out of business, they can't ban American citizens from cruising or force them to disclose where they go on vacation.

A couple of things that I have thought of with regard to this: I don't know that your employer can force you to disclose what you are doing on vacation. Second this could get real crazy real fast with the freedoms we have in the Constitution.

So we're saying the same thing. The new ships are good and the old ships are not. They need to retire the entire Fantasy Class. Not only are they rusty and old, they are not environmentally friendly, have old engines, water systems, and sewer systems and simply not equipped to handle the volume or regulation. They are beginning to take steps in the direction with the Dream Class in 2009 (Dream, Breeze, and Magic). Those are awesome ships. Then came the Vista, Horizon, and Mardi Gras.

Plus 1. this is my exact point. They have about 20 ships that I would not choose to purchase a trip on (but that I would sail on if part of a group or someone else purchased for us) and about 6 or 7 that I would. RCCL is pretty much opposite of that. This fact combined with the decades old reputation of a "frat party at sea" and "Walmart of cruise lines" has millions of Americans who've never seen a cruise ship claiming Carnival is the devil on Earth. At least that's my opinion of the problem they have.

The Carnival topic comes up here often. Everyone has their own taste, I get that. For us, after about 3 days of Windjammer lunch on RCL, we're looking for something else. Carnival's newer ships never leave us wanting something else for lunch. We are not big on upgraded restaurants, so we do the MDR unless it is a special occasion. Carnival's dinner menus are as good as Royals to us... if not better. The place Carnival falls short is its fleet. The majority of their ships are 20 or so years old. They did not get into the arms race of bigger better ships in the early 2000s. However, their newer ships, starting the the Magic and Breeze are fantastic. There just aren't as many of them as RCCL, NCL, and now MSC in North America. People who dismiss Carnival out of hand are really missing out in my opinion.

What's a "fix"? just kidding.

Thankfully all of these networks that spew so much hate have minuscule audiences. Not only are the audiences tiny, they are largely the choir that is being preached to so there is no real damage. The vast majority of Americans tune them out altogether. Now back to the real topic, I have been cruising for 30 years, and I come from a family of cruisers. I'm glad you found the industry when you did, and I hope you and your loved ones have half of the fulfillment my family and I have had over the years. I have not done DCL. I love my children, but I'm not sure I love 1,000 of other people's children. But, I have a sister-in-law who swears by DCL. I plan to try it one day... maybe when my grand children come around. It may not be too many years down the path. My oldest (22) is getting married this summer. She and her fiance love the parks, so a progression to the ships is a real possibility. One other thing, the caption on your cartoon could also be "I wanna hear my voice". There is a lot of that going on too!

Funny Neesa that you mention the talking heads with the negative statements disguised as questions. I discussed that with our new PVP this morning. He talked about how the cruise lines and Carnival need advocates like so many of us on this board are. This guy is one of their top sellers because he takes care of his clients like no other. He said in their training they are taught to end every phone call with "thank you for being a valuable customer of Carnival" or something to that effect. He says, I have never done that. He says that if clients aren't thanking him at the end of the call for being a valuable asset, he is not doing his job. Not only is he getting us everything we need, he chose our staterooms for us and got us two rooms next to the Grand Suites (best stateroom attendants on the ship). His way of getting a partial cash refund was for me to write a letter that he will send to upper management bypassing all the normal channels that are backlogged and not all that helpful. If anyone is interested in his contact info, I will provide.

As we all know, the cruise lines in general and Carnival in particular are hated by the mainstream media. I have said many times, and I will say again, the vast majority of people with negatives to say either have an agenda or they are ignorant of what cruising in general and Carnival in particular are all about. I love to cruise both Royal and Carnival. Each has advantages over the other, and in the end, they balance out to about equal in terms of the quality of the overall experience. I am working with a new PVP at Carnival now to finalize the details of our twice cancelled cruise into an October trip. The guy is amazing and I believe he will get us the $600 obc, our future cruise, and a cash refund of the difference because of the October cost savings. They say it can't be done, but it's being done for us right now.

All cruises cancelled through June 26th. I just received the email from Carnival.

This could be true, but I've trained myself the believe the opposite of anything written in the NYT.

The joke for us in Indy is that you can't get to He!! (that place none of us want to go) out of Indy without connecting in Atlanta!

I get it Twangster, but options are limited from Indy, and we as mostly pleasure flyers like a good bargain. We've had decent luck with Frontier.

Anyone think all of the travel industry isn't going to be offering crazy good rates coming out of this? June 4, Indianapolis to Orlando on Frontier Airlines is $11.

I agree with this. We have a June flight on a Friday that was cancelled. The airline automatically switched us to Thursday which we can make work. It led me to check their schedule to see how expensive our Thursday flight is on the airline's website. The cost of the new flight is... wait for it............. $11. That's right and $11 fare, Indy to Orlando in June.

By water displacement, you can fit 5 Titanics in an Oasis class ship. Crazy.

Hi Jill. I like looking up the histories of ships and sometimes like to look them up from the history of other posters on this board. All three of your retired ships have long histories with a lot going on. They're all still in operation. Check them out in Wikipedia. I have one from my history that actually sunk (not when I was on it, but it sunk).

Thanks Twangster. That's a lot of information that makes sense.

Thanks. I didn't know that.

The media is completely out of control in pretty much every thing it does. There is no news. This is just another example. I'm sure the writer of this piece would gladly accept a cruise that someone else paid for. Of course she would return home to write another piece about the evils of cruising.

Looking at cruisemapper.com or marinetraffic.com, I'm surprised so many ships are moving around. It's been that way since all this started, and it continues. I thought there would be some movement for logistic reasons right at the beginning of the stoppage and then a little more at the end, and ships basically sheltering in place during the bulk of the stoppage. Not the case at all. Lots of ships moving around all the time.

Maybe the cruise lines will rethink the number of stops they make on some of the islands going forward. Maybe they will take a ship or two from Florida and move them to TX or NO or somewhere else that is cruise friendly. Florida has so many advantages over most other places, but they have got to be more welcoming when there are problems. But in these trying times, this kind of stuff is everywhere. I look at how my wife's company has treated its employees during this time and how mine has. It's night and day. The wheat has been separated from the chaff. If my company goes out of business, I no longer care. I'm vested. My coworkers are too. They have shown who they are. Let them live on the crumbs they kept from falling through the cracks. It's the same across every industry right now including cruising.