Will You Still Cruise with Social Distancing?

[sk8erguy1978 1,062]

The short answer is, sure, it's part of my daily life anyway. Here in NY it's rare to find a store (especially a big box like Home Depot or a supermarket) without markers on the floor indicating where to wait in line. Our grocery stores (and other types of stores too) have one way isles (not that everyone listens) and for the most part people try and keep clear of one another.

That kind of stuff wouldn't be too bad at a reduced capacity sailing. 

[Ian T 162]

 

At the start I was one of those setting conditions before I was prepared to cruise again, but after two cancelled sailings I have got over myself and am more than happy to waive them if it means getting back on board... So sign me up! 

 

1 hour ago, Mrs. Thomas said:

I will gladly have a shirt made that says to keep your distance or wear a flipping pool noodle on my head showing the proper distance to stay back if it will mean that we can all get back to enjoying the open ocean.

You may well have alerted RCCL to a much needed revenue opportunity here... if only all guests can be trusted not to clamber over each other to bag a "I social distanced on Oasis and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" during the $10 sale 

[YOLO 488]

8 minutes ago, sk8erguy1978 said:

The short answer is, sure, it's part of my daily life anyway. Here in NY it's rare to find a store (especially a big box like Home Depot or a supermarket) without markers on the floor indicating where to wait in line. Our grocery stores (and other types of stores too) have one way isles (not that everyone listens) and for the most part people try and keep clear of one another.

Same.  After awhile you become comfortably numb to it all and now it is just a way of life if you want to enter any public space around here in New England...

[Rene Desmarais 80]

with Physical distancing .....maybe..  

[Ray 1,203]

If social distancing involves my Wife on one ship and me on another, then yeah no problem  

Fact is social distancing is for the foreseeable future part of the new normal be it in shops, bars or cruiseships, we just got to get used to it 

[sk8erguy1978 1,062]

3 minutes ago, Ray said:

If social distancing involes my Wife on one ship and me on another, then yeah no problem

When looking at suites, we stumbled across the 2 Bedroom Grand Suite - wife's reaction - "YES, SEPARATE BEDROOMS" ... LOL

[YOLO 488]

4 hours ago, Mrs. Thomas said:

Legally I don't think they can drop someone off at a port with no way home. That seems a bit intense too. However, people are "quarantined" to their rooms for sickness as a basic policy. I hope that fellow cruisers remember to continue to be kind through all of this. It will take some extra effort for some and as I said in my OP, kids don't always understand due to age or mental/behavioral conditions.

If you violate RCL's policy you can be dropped off at a port with no way home - it happened to me...

[CruisinForABruisin 338]

1 minute ago, YOLO said:

If you violate RCL's policy you can be dropped off at a port with no way home - it happened to me...

Sounds like story time to me

[Mrs. Thomas 246]

1 hour ago, Ian T said:

You may well have alerted RCCL to a much needed revenue opportunity here... if only all guests can be trusted not to clamber over each other to bag a "I social distanced on Oasis and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" during the $10 sale 

I would totally buy a shirt like that! Or even one that says I survived the first sailing after Covid.

For the most part I am a very social person. I enjoy meeting people and learning new things. I'm not a fan of the suspicion all this has caused. Everyone is looking at everyone else like they are a ticking time-bomb of death. I'll be glad when all of this is behind us and it will be treated the same way as other "every day sicknesses" are.

[Mrs. Thomas 246]

3 minutes ago, YOLO said:

If you violate RCL's policy you can be dropped off at a port with no way home - it happened to me...

Oh my! I didn't know they could do that. What in the world did you do!? LOL

[Lovetocruise2002 10,783]

2 hours ago, Mrs. Thomas said:

A "staycation" at home doesn't work for Moms, just saying. I need SOMEONE ELSE doing the cooking and dishes.

^^^^This!  is exactly why I love cruising so much.  It's about the only vacation that I can truly unwind and step back.  Saddens me even more that there is no start date in sight.  I tried to explain to my family the other night that for me, it's not just a lost vacation.  Cruising represents something far greater for me.

[YOLO 488]

14 minutes ago, Mrs. Thomas said:

Oh my! I didn't know they could do that. What in the world did you do!? LOL

OK, I'll bite.  Here is the very short story.  My family & friends found ourselves on the 2012 Freedom charter by the High Seas Rally group - essentially a bunch of bikers.  They accounted for over 2200 passengers on that sailing.  I would have never booked that cruise had I known and now always check (as best as possible) to make sure I am not booking a partial chartered cruise.  The majority of the cruisers were smokers (muster was horrible), formal night attire was mostly leather (picture backgrounds catered to them), fireworks on the ship (thought this was against ship rules), pirate banners on balconies (thought this was against ship rules), and even sex in public!  You get the idea.  Anyway on the way down to dinner in an elevator with my family, a drunk Rally member jumped into our elevator with his wife.  She was in a wheelchair, so he was carrying both of their glasses of red wine.  At every floor we stopped at he proceeded to invite waiting people into our elevator - even though we were pretty full.  He was drunk and having his own fun.  Anyway, a guy on the elevator (not us) tried to get him to stop, but he was not having it.  When we reached the floor above where we were having dinner, he got out with his wife AND as the door was almost closed he threw both glasses of red wine at us!   My older sister is very proper and very well dressed.  Unfortunately, she got most of the red wine on her dress.  I was pissed so chased him down, got into a fight, and the captain had us both dropped off at the next stop in Jamaica.  My mistake, I should have summoned security.  Please learn from my mistake.  So far, I have...

[CruisinForABruisin 338]

6 minutes ago, YOLO said:

OK, I'll bite.  Here is the very short story.  My family & friends found ourselves on the 2012 Freedom charter by the High Seas Rally group - essentially a bunch of bikers.  They accounted for over 2200 passengers on that sailing.  I would have never booked that cruise had I known and now always check (as best as possible) to make sure I am not booking a partial chartered cruise.  The majority of the cruisers were smokers (muster was horrible), formal night attire was mostly leather (picture backgrounds catered to them), fireworks on the ship (thought this was against ship rules), pirate banners on balconies (thought this was against ship rules), and even sex in public!  You get the idea.  Anyway on the way down to dinner in an elevator with my family, a drunk Rally member jumped into our elevator with his wife.  She was in a wheelchair, so he was carrying both of their glasses of red wine.  At every floor we stopped at he proceeded to invite waiting people into our elevator - even though we were pretty full.  He was drunk and having his own fun.  Anyway, a guy on the elevator (not us) tried to get him to stop, but he was not having it.  When we reached the floor above where we were having dinner, he got out with his wife AND as the door was almost closed he threw both glasses of red wine at us!   My older sister is very proper and very well dressed.  Unfortunately, she got most of the red wine on her dress.  I was pissed so chased him down, got into a fight, and the captain had us both dropped off at the next stop in Jamaica.  My mistake, I should have summoned security.  Please learn from my mistake.  So far, I have...

Sounds to me like you did exactly what you should've, and exactly what I would've done as well. My biggest booking fear (no pandemic) is for it to be a chartered sailing that they didn't disclose. At least they dropped you off in Jamaica and not somewhere like Costa Maya 

[YOLO 488]

1 minute ago, CruisinForABruisin said:

Sounds to me like you did exactly what you should've, and exactly what I would've done as well. My biggest booking fear (no pandemic) is for it to be a chartered sailing that they didn't disclose. 

Yeah, I agree.  Of all the RCL policies, this one I really hate!  They do not disclose any partial charters to non-charter passengers in order to protect the privacy of charter passengers.  Really, what does that mean?  What about my privacy?  I guess it doesn't matter...

[sk8erguy1978 1,062]

26 minutes ago, YOLO said:

Yeah, I agree.  Of all the RCL policies, this one I really hate!  They do not disclose any partial charters to non-charter passengers in order to protect the privacy of charter passengers.  Really, what does that mean?  What about my privacy?  I guess it doesn't matter...

I recall reading your story in another thread, thanks for sharing again. What about your safety too! Clearly a bunch of people trying to live up to an image. I want to say I wouldn't have chased him down and went to customer service / called security / something but I'm guilty of acting first and thinking later; I'm sure my wife would have grabbed me so I didn't go running after him.

FWIW, the guy sounds like a punk who didn't expect you to confront him, why not toss the wine glasses when you had plenty of time to get out of the elevator... That's not only a cheap shot, but a cheap shot with a chance to get away. Also an idiot, I mean cruise ships are large, but not *that* large... You'd see him again.

Edited July 7, 2020 by sk8erguy1978
remove second FWIW

[Ray 1,203]

36 minutes ago, YOLO said:

 fireworks on the ship (thought this was against ship rules), pirate banners on balconies (thought this was against ship rules), and even sex in public!  

Is the last part allowed as you dont say its against ship Rules?  

 

[CruisinForABruisin 338]

12 minutes ago, sk8erguy1978 said:

I recall reading your story in another thread, thanks for sharing again. What about your safety too! Clearly a bunch of people trying to live up to an image. I want to say I wouldn't have chased him down and went to customer service / called security / something but I'm guilty of acting first and thinking later; I'm sure my wife would have grabbed me so I didn't go running after him.

FWIW, the guy sounds like a punk who didn't expect you to confront him, why not toss the wine glasses when you had plenty of time to get out of the elevator... That's not only a cheap shot, but a cheap shot with a chance to get away. Also an idiot, I mean cruise ships are large, but not *that* large... You'd see him again.

I'm hoping my wife would've grabbed me as well, or that I would do something less violent, like grab the wheel chair and run off with his wife and drop her off on the other side of the ship 

[Ampurp85 1,189]

Sex in public is wrong.

I had to suffer through it twice on a plane and on every river cruise I have been on. On the plane it was in first and business class...those trying to get in the mile high club. During a cruise on the Danube this couple kept trying to invite people back to their room, I guess no one bit so they went at it in the Jacuzzi as soon as the sun set. During my UK, Nile and Mediterranean river cruises it was on the balconies. Why people, why?

[USFFrank 209]

Hmmmmm social distancing. If that means less people in the Schooner Bar during music trivia, then hell yea. Less people means better odds for me to win those coveted Royal Caribbean key chains & highlighters 

[YOLO 488]

4 hours ago, Ray said:

Is the last part allowed as you dont say its against ship Rules?  

 

Ha, not sure actually.  The fireworks and sex were not witnessed by me, but rather a close friend of mine.  I was surprised to here it.  He witnessed two instances of public sex.

[YOLO 488]

5 hours ago, sk8erguy1978 said:

I recall reading your story in another thread, thanks for sharing again.

I was going to try to point to a link to that old thread, but after 10 minutes of searching I had to give up.  Yes, it was out there before.  Embarrassing for me and I learned my lesson.  As you can imagine, I was not able to get any sort of refund for the unused portion of the cruise.  So what did we do you ask?  We went to Disney World !!!  True story after spending one night at the Montego Bay Riu Resort...

[sk8erguy1978 1,062]

5 minutes ago, YOLO said:

I was going to try to point to a link to that old thread, but after 10 minutes of searching I had to give up.  Yes, it was out there before.  Embarrassing for me and I learned my lesson.  As you can imagine, I was not able to get any sort of refund for the unused portion of the cruise.  So what did we do you ask?  We went to Disney World !!!  True story after spending one night at the Montego Bay Riu Resort...

At least you were able to "save" the vacation and make the best of it, my wife would still be pissed. It's a good lesson and goes to show the no tolerance on a cruise ship. Although, it does make me wonder, what if he did confront you where you needed to protect yourself... hopefully that situation would have been different... Tough situation, while only a dress was ruined, what he did could have resulted in serious injury. 

 

[L454S 248]

I don't think this is possible on a full cruise ship(think elevators). Not enough people climb stairs. You can't have performers do that many shows a night to accommodate all passengers in the theater.

You have 2 dining times now, how many more can you make if you have half the tables?

It starts to sound very unvacation like.

[VACruiser 340]

I wonder what the profit margin is for a full ship versus a well socially-distanced ship say around 50% capacity? A company has to make money to operate and I’m quite sure operating a Oasis class ship is an extremely expensive venture. They may start like this, just to get going, but as time goes on, money must be generated heavily to pay back all these loans cruise companies have been borrowing to stay operating. 

I know this is a cruise blog, and people on it have a high level of tolerance for cruising under extreme conditions just to get going, but I have to think it’s still a minority portion of the ship.  To get back to making money they need new people to try cruising and getting the ships back to a high profit margin. Either more people cruise or they raise the prices for cruising. Something has to change in order for the company to become profitable again and that’s going to be tough with social distancing which probably equates to lower people numbers on ships. 
 

We shall see but I do love the business aspect of how this is going to work. 

[ellcee 1,507]

I'd do whatever I needed to do to cruise, I've stated that before. I don't like people in my personal space unless they're invited...so I'd be thrilled. Elevators with too many people have always freaked me out. I will wait or use the stairs...just not sure how this would happen. Personally, if it's a packed space like an elevator or a venue I don't know how I'd feel on a cruise ship.