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Considerations in and the Interest Level for Sailing in June with RCL (Bahamas) or Celebrity (St. Maartin).


JeffB

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I have a Celebrity Cruise booked out of PEV June 13th on Equinox. Once optimistic, given the CDC's foot dragging, I'm about 90% certain it won't sail. I'm ready to sail ..... RIGHT NOW. I'm hugely frustrated over events in Europe involving the chaos that has been vaccine procurement and distribution by the EUC (YES!!!! to Boris on Brexit!!!) and the stupidity of postponing vaccinating EU citizens over fears of blood clots (resumed in most EU countries now). I thought Europe would lead the way back to cruising. Nope. Screwed that one up! And I also have a Celebrity cruise booked out of Amsterdam on Reflection 

So, sure, I could get to the Bahamas or St. Maartin pretty easily from FTL or MIA but we've decided not to try to book. These are my thoughts:

  • We are spoiled living a 10 minute Uber ride to PEV. In our cruising life since 2001, we've endured flying to and from airports serving cruise ports world wide. The older we got (both in our 70s), the less we liked that part. Why do I want to do that, go through the additional hassle imposed by coming and goings in foreign airports imposed by local health authorities for COVID and mess with transport/bags to and from the port?
  • Knowing how things work, initial sailings aren't going to go off without a hitch. Let some of the bugs get worked out without involving us.
  • Regardless of the global decline in new cases, deaths, serious illness, SARS-2 is still out there. Risks of catching it is not zero, nor do I expect it to be but out of the gate how RCL and Celebrity along with local health authorities deal with just one positive test (accurate or not) occurring on board a vessel is going to something to carefully watch.
  • A case of COVID on a vessel will very likely produce chaos, result in over-reactions at all levels and will become an event ripe for hand-wringing and pearl-clutching from multiple agencies. The MSM will augment this, LOUDLY as in, "we told you so." Do we want to be involved in that chaos? No.

Look, I'm itching to cruise. I hate it that we've been banned from cruising, unfairly, for over a year, by a federal agency telling me what I can and can't do for the good of the public's health with all of their advice on that being suspect from the Pandemic's outset. Wondering what others are willing or unwilling to put up with now that RCL and Celebrity are going to actually cruise.  Your turn.

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39 minutes ago, JeffB said:

 I thought Europe would lead the way back to cruising. Nope. Screwed that one up! 

Got as far as here and after that everything was a blur! Simply because i kept on thinking about the MSC ship thats been cruising the med with passengers since last year! Costa and Aida ships as well with no issues  ( well apart from the passengers that got kicked off cruise for not following procedures) 

Yet WE in Europe screwed it up!

 

Maybe you could enlighten me with how you come to that conclusion 

 

TYIA 

Ps how many NA cruises right now? Oh thats right none and if you want to cruise you will have to travel to Europe or Caribbean 

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In a month's time we'll know if spring break travel and opening up in general contributes to a 3rd wave or not. 

If a spike up does occur the CDC will smugly continue to kill cruising.   If no 3rd wave the CDC will drag it on a little more but eventually have to let it go and allow cruising.  

If the 3rd wave occurs the CDC can try to make international air travel so arduous that few will desire to try.   That will impact these attempts to cruise from new homeports.

I'm going to wait and see what happens with America over the next 30 days.  

The only thing the CDC can control is cruise ships so like a dog with a favorite bone only the dog's master should try to wrestle the bone from the dog.  Anyone else will be bitten.  

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32 minutes ago, twangster said:

The only thing the CDC can control is cruise ships so like a dog with a favorite bone only the dog's master should try to wrestle the bone from the dog.  Everyone else will be bitten.  

Yes, in a strictly literal sense but, the CDC carries a lot of weight and when Walenski takes to the airwaves and starts spouting non-sense that can easily be shown to be unsupported by the COVID data I become alarmed and more and more distrustful of her and the CDC. For example, hospitalizations and deaths - a true measure of disease burden about which we should be rightly concerned - continues to decline. This gets short shrift. Instead we get the same reliance on case numbers presented without context or without regard to the highly regional nature and risk correlation with age as the CDC's single measure of risk of infection.

I am told they do this because the American public isn't smart enough to understand the importance of context with regard to pandemic information reporting. We can't assess risk, only the government can. How reliable has their COVID advice been in the past? I'm no longer trusting it or paying any attention to it ...... but that doesn't mean Joe Biden or Congress or local public health officials aren't.

In the current pandemic and the public health emergency it has crated, government has intervened in our lives in unprecedented ways. What the US government through the CDC and other involved agencies has done to a supposed free market travel and leisure industry, to include the cruise lines, rings the gong warning Americans about the dangers of creeping government control. The risk is much wider spread than just for cruise ships alone. JMO, YMMV.       

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25 minutes ago, twangster said:

In a month's time we'll know if spring break travel and opening up in general contributes to a 3rd wave or not. 

If a spike up does occur the CDC will smugly continue to kill cruising.   If no 3rd wave the CDC will drag it on a little more but eventually have to let it go and allow cruising.  

If the 3rd wave occurs the CDC can try to make international air travel so arduous that few will desire to try.   That will impact these attempts to cruise from new homeports.

I'm going to wait and see what happens with America over the next 30 days.  

The only thing the CDC can control is cruise ships so like a dog with a favorite bone only the dog's master should try to wrestle the bone from the dog.  Anyone else will be bitten.  

We're still waiting for the surges from last spring break, 4th of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Super Bowl, etc, etc. But most certainly the perceived fear of event-driven surges and variants (which haven't shown to be that big of a deal in the countries they're named after) will definitely be used and abused by the CDC

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I think the thing @JeffB did not consider is it's (theoretically) a ship full of inoculated people, minus of course the minors.

Many of your conclusions would make a lot of sense a couple of months ago when we were talking about cruises sailing on health protocols alone.

With most vaccinated, and I anticipate a host of protocols in place (masks, social distancing, etc), I don't come to the same conclusion you have.

Don't forget, they've been operating for months already with Quantum of the Seas without any vaccines.

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Let’s all stick to the topic of this thread, which I am assuming is the interest level of sailing out of the Bahamas this summer.
 

Let’s not turn this into a thread where we are criticizing or judging other countries for their vaccine rollout or question why their government did what they did. 
 

The way I see it, the bottom line is that we are all frustrated on some level regardless of what country we are from. We all want to get back to cruising. But no amount of criticism, or playing the would have, should have, could have game is going to change any of the decisions that our governments have already made, nor will it speed up the rollout of vaccines in different parts of the world. Nor will it get us back to cruising sooner so the discussion is quite pointless. 
 

Stick to the thread topic, are you interested in sailing out of the Bahamas or not? All other discussions belong on some other forum. Not here.

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I’m considering cruising out of Bahamas if July and August are cancelled in America. I’m booked for July but will try to push for august if July is cancelled. But I don’t want to be one of the first cruise boats,I do see chaos as a strong possibility until kinks are ironed out. But yes frustrating. And flying to the port equals 5 round trip airline tickets! Ugh!

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I'd happily sail out of the Bahamas if I could afford it. Sadly, the more I think about how much Royal is likely to be charging for these Adventure sailings with pent-up demand driving it, the less I think I'll be able to go. Just too many factors working against me -- most expensive time of the year (July/August), I have a second surgery to pay for, plus some way overdue home maintenance work, and I have to get a new (used) car this year before the current one gets any more problematic than it already is.

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We would gladly sail from the Bahamas, but due to vacation time restraints, cannot book anything until we see if our September cruise from Galveston goes as planned.  We plan on paying it in full when due and seeing what actually happens rather than trying to move it.  
 

We do have a January 2022 cruise out of Barbados booked.   

We’d rather take one cruise with higher airfare than no cruise at all, so we will gladly book from a foreign port. 

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I'm planning to go on one of the celebrity cruises. If I understand the announcement correctly, it's actually a bargain. 

I'm not sure what I expect as far as excursions, masks, etc. But I plan to go with an open mind and enjoy what I can. 

I'll do the Bahamas cruise as an alternative if necessary, but hoping for celebrity on this one.

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I know the Adventure text states only ship organized shore excursions but oddly does not seem to mention masks anywhere.

I did see a "snip" from a facebook page with an RCL rep stating facemasks would be required onboard but I cant find that in the actual fine print at the moment ... there is a "subject to revision" note though .. my guess is they are hoping mask wearing in a vaccinated environment becomes "clearer" before then and dont have to make it a fight.

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Would love to sail out of the Bahamas but the airfare at the moment is the killer as our "low cost" provider suspended flights to Nassau in January and has not announced a restart date. We have five other cruises scheduled for this year and early next and the wife wants to wait to see how they are going before we commit to flying there. Not opposed to flying as we have other sailings scheduled for the coasts but the airfares there are reasonable. Guess we will wait until after the first rush is over.

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11 minutes ago, jticarruthers said:

I know the Adventure text states only ship organized shore excursions

Can you point me to where you saw this?

11 minutes ago, jticarruthers said:

oddly does not seem to mention masks anywhere

I guess they want to get all protocols in at once, rather than piecemeal.

adventure-masks.jpg

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I live on the west coast and have long flights anytime I cruise the Caribbean so yes I would sail from Nassau or St Maarten. It makes no difference if I fly to Florida, SAN Juan or the Bahamas I’m spending a lot of time on a plane and a lot of money on airfare. Unfortunately it’s just part of the overall cost of cruising the Caribbean for me.

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56 minutes ago, tonyfsu21 said:

IMHO the Bahamas and their government is a complete cluster f***. I can’t imagine getting stuck on the island for an extended period of time and the possibility of not being able to return to the US if there were COVID related issues on the ship. This is a 100% no go for us. 

You have to know Royal Caribbean has an arrangement.

No ship is going to end up with a Diamond Princess situation.

We already know that if there is a positive case, isolation and disembarkation for that group is what will occur

 

Screenshot (51).png

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My interest would be on the higher side if I knew that I could book with their air2sea program.

And I know that it is best to fly in the night before but if memory serves me correctly, there’s not too many Holiday Inns in Nassau for a quick 1-night stay - lots of resorts that have a minimum stay. I could be wrong so please please someone correct me if I am!

Being from NJ, we have 5 airports to choose from and I’m almost certain we can get to Nassau from any of them.

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9 minutes ago, RockerDom31 said:

 

And I know that it is best to fly in the night before but if memory serves me correctly, there’s not too many Holiday Inns in Nassau for a quick 1-night stay - lots of resorts that have a minimum stay. I could be wrong so please please someone correct me if I am!

 

I've been scouting those out. There really isn't much. Though it seems staying 2 nights costs you the same as staying one night.

 

Also taxes there are like Ticketmaster. The taxes/fees they add on are about as much as the room rate.

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I'm with some here who say if they are going to fly to Nassau or St. Maartin, they're going to stay in a resort there. I feel the same way partly based on what I've written above that amounts to a risky undertaking that has to go down just about perfectly. Partly the travel hassle to the cruise port when I'm used to jumping aboard with a Uber ride from our home to Port Everglades. But here's the rough cost to cruise on Millennium out of St. Maartin for me:

Round Trip FTL, AA X2: $650 

Sonesta Ocean Point resort (all inclusive - 1 night on the front and back end of the Millennium cruise): $500/night (includes 21% tax on a $417 rate for 2 adults), $1000

RT Transportation to/from the resort and to/from the ship: $100

Negative COVID RT/PCR test costs/associated entry fees X2: $200

Incidentals $300 

Veranda State Room. I'm not buying the $2k pp including air and their new "everything included" line so, I priced this with my own air.  A typical 7n, Easter Caribbean Veranda cabin goes for around $1800pp tax and port fees included. I'll go with a cruise fare for 2 of $3600 or $257/N pp

That's $5850 for a 7n itinerary. Hi, IMO, at least for my tastes. I could find cheaper accommodations. Safer? Probably not. 

 

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Outside of Royal we've been on two other cruise lines, once each, Carnival (first cruise, 3 day, themed, lots of lessons learned), other was NCL.

Overall, we enjoyed the NCL product, freestyle dining, etc. We were NOT a fan of the ship, we sailed the GEM and it just had a weird layout and flow.

We've discussed trying the newer ships and will as soon as things normalize. They had me at go-carts!

One of my favorite jobs when I was a younger lad, worked for a go-cart place that also had paintball and a small arcade. The go-carts ran on propane, oh the stories I have... Any Bergen County NJ peeps? 

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5 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

I'm surprised how many normally reputable hotel chains get subpar reviews in Nassau.

Just a guess, but going to assume a "Hilton" buys a hotel in Nassau. Before (or even after) they implement the Hilton way, it's still run the old way, by the same management. At the core it's still a run down hotel.

I remember trying to save people money for my bachelor party. The best man and I found a hotel next to the Tropicana in Atlantic City NJ. It was a hotel property owen by the Wyndham group. The photos looked nice so we gave it a shot. The hotel definitely didn't live up to the Wyndham name, it was trash, 2 stars at best. Everything from wacky parking, a messed up reservation, shady staff, and possible mold.

Years later at an RV show at a local community college there was a booth for Wyndham. I stopped for a second and looked. The nice gentleman called me over. I quickly explained my experience in Atlantic City and how I'd more than likely never stay at one of their properties again. They actually acknowledged some of their properties aren't what you'd expect from a wyndham experience.

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13 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

I'm surprised how many normally reputable hotel chains get subpar reviews in Nassau.

I’m not surprised at all. I wouldn’t stay at a Ritz Carlton in Nassau. Give it a try & report back. I’ve been way too many times and experienced the hotel service across the board from your average Hilton to the Baha Mar resort and the service is the same everywhere. You can’t evaluate this based on a resort day pass alone.

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14 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

I'm surprised how many normally reputable hotel chains get subpar reviews in Nassau.

Everything thing in the islands run on island time with island mentality.

Some mainlanders have big city mainland expectations but that's really hard to implement in the islands.   Just because a big name chain owns the property isn't going to change the island it sits on.  Reviews reflect that.  Perhaps that isn't fair or perhaps it is depending on your viewpoint.  

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45 minutes ago, twangster said:

Everything thing in the islands run on island time with island mentality.

Some mainlanders have big city mainland expectations but that's really hard to implement in the islands.   Just because a big name chain owns the property isn't going to change the island it sits on.  Reviews reflect that.  Perhaps that isn't fair or perhaps it is depending on your viewpoint.  

Fair or not it is the reality. Very nice summation.

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12 hours ago, sk8erguy1978 said:

One of my favorite jobs when I was a younger lad, worked for a go-cart place that also had paintball and a small arcade. The go-carts ran on propane, oh the stories I have... Any Bergen County NJ peeps? 

Born and raised, although I don't live in that county any more.

That job wouldn't happen to have been at (Class) Action Park, by any chance? Only place I know of from back in the day that had go-karts (although I think those were regular gas-powered and not propane), but I don't remember them also having paintball or an arcade in the adult section.

For those unfamiliar with it, there was a documentary about the place just recently on HBO, actually titled "Class Action Park". That place is one of the surest ways to confirm your street cred as a certified northern NJ (and to some extent, tri-state area) child of the 80s. Even more so if you actually worked there. I never got the chance, my parents heard the horror stories before I could even think of trying to apply.

And I think I'm kind of glad for that.

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3 hours ago, JLMoran said:

Born and raised, although I don't live in that county any more.

That job wouldn't happen to have been at (Class) Action Park, by any chance? Only place I know of from back in the day that had go-karts (although I think those were regular gas-powered and not propane), but I don't remember them also having paintball or an arcade in the adult section.

For those unfamiliar with it, there was a documentary about the place just recently on HBO, actually titled "Class Action Park". That place is one of the surest ways to confirm your street cred as a certified northern NJ (and to some extent, tri-state area) child of the 80s. Even more so if you actually worked there. I never got the chance, my parents heard the horror stories before I could even think of trying to apply.

And I think I'm kind of glad for that.

Traction Park? I WISH! LOL. I LOVED that place. I actually lived in NY and the drive to Action Park would have been too far, plus didn't get my license until 1996 (after turning 18 - I was a year+ learners permit guy - dad didn't think I was mature enough, probably right ?). I still remember the little seated car on the single rail taking you over 94 to go back and forth from the "motorway" section. They had a few different go-carts and the ones that required a drivers license, they let me drive them with my learners permit - fun fact, that's how I memorized my drivers license ID from going on that ride so much. The alpine slide, bungee jump, the wave pool, insane slides, what I wouldn't give for 1 more day in a place like that! ?

I was talking about Speedway 17 on route 17 North in Upper Saddle River. It originally had two go-cart tracks one was for the little guys, small little orange electric cars. They turned the electric car track into the paintball section. We would use the little electric cars on the other track when needed (usually just bday parties). The other track had the larger go-carts sprint style. We would toss this powder on the track so it would be slippery. We would purposely let it "dry up" to get the cars to go faster. It was indoors and propane, when the ceiling fans broke, oh boy, it got smoky. They were regular Honda - lawnmower style - engines. The owner also owned the big arcade in Paramas, Sportsworld I believe was the name.

 

I still have the t-shirt, wanted to frame it LOL.

PXL_20210322_172819873.jpg

Edited by sk8erguy1978
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19 hours ago, JeffB said:

I'm with some here who say if they are going to fly to Nassau or St. Maartin, they're going to stay in a resort there. I feel the same way partly based on what I've written above that amounts to a risky undertaking that has to go down just about perfectly. Partly the travel hassle to the cruise port when I'm used to jumping aboard with a Uber ride from our home to Port Everglades. 

I'm re-thinking this based on what's coming out from various sources. Sometime in mid January based on a lot of optimism that cruising from American ports would resume by the end of May, I booked a 7n Caribbean Itinerary out of PEV on Celebrity Equinox starting June 13th using some of my FCCs. Based on the progress the EU seemed to be making up to just recently, I also booked a Celebrity Reflection 7n itinerary out of Amsterdam to Norway. I also booked air via Celebrity. The fares were high but the risks of delays outweigh those costs. Worth it I thought. 

I've asked my TA to jump in line on Thursday morning to book Millennium out of St Martin in June. If it's practical and she can get through to a sales rep, she'll put a cabin on hold and call me with details. If the cancellation and Millennium fares are reasonable, I'll book Millennium and cancel Equinox. Based on how Europe plays out before April 20th (final payment for the reflection cruise) I'll re-consider that one too.

Fast changing game!!!

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