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Norwegian Cruise CEO lays out plan for a U.S. restart


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14 minutes ago, SpeedNoodles said:

There's an entire discussion about this on the last 2 pages (as of now) here:

 

I was looking for Del Rio quotes specifically.  Not because I think it will make a difference, but because of the "theatre" (not something I can go to these days).

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Here are a few of my favourites from the article:

  • “This impasse has got to stop,” Del Rio said. “The cruise industry must participate in the great national reopening. Every other hospitality travel and tourism sector has been allowed to operate and we have not.”
  • “We were disappointed,” Del Rio said. “We thought it was a step backward, quite frankly.”

  • Del Rio called the combination of safety protocols and the vaccine requirement “just an unbeatable airtight set of circumstances that will make cruising a very safe vacation alternative.”

  • “I’d like to hear an argument why we couldn’t sail,” Del Rio said in an interview. “If everyone on board is vaccinated and following the protocols, there is absolutely no need for the conditional sail order to exist as it is known today.”

This is what a "Cruise CEO Super Hero" sounds like.

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Curt from Canada

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I think it is going to take more than political pressure, more than public shaming to get HHS to back off. I think legal minds are going to have to come up with a constitutional challenge to the implications - a barrier to free trade under 14A of the US Constitution - and in an appropriate federal court, request an injunction to stop enforcement of the NSO by DHS.

I think the CLIA press release today is a shot across the bow of HHS ..... we're coming. The intent is to threaten to get the HHS/CDC in a court room to argue why cruising is unsafe due to the risk of the spread of C-19 and then  have opposing counsel shoot all their reasons for it down. If there is a threat of such action, I think it is unlikely Biden's Justice Department would be willing to defend the CDC's/HHS's position when it can so easily be proven by the available facts to be indefensible.

We can only hope.

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3 hours ago, JeffB said:

I think it is going to take more than political pressure, more than public shaming to get HHS to back off. I think legal minds are going to have to come up with a constitutional challenge to the implications - a barrier to free trade under 14A of the US Constitution - and in an appropriate federal court, request an injunction to stop enforcement of the NSO by DHS.

I think the CLIA press release today is a shot across the bow of HHS ..... we're coming. The intent is to threaten to get the HHS/CDC in a court room to argue why cruising is unsafe due to the risk of the spread of C-19 and then  have opposing counsel shoot all their reasons for it down. If there is a threat of such action, I think it is unlikely Biden's Justice Department would be willing to defend the CDC's/HHS's position when it can so easily be proven by the available facts to be indefensible.

We can only hope.

I agree.  Actually, that is the main reason that I called the Del Rio quotes a little bit of "theatre".  They:

  • Are good sound bites ... "I'd like to hear an argument why we couldn't sail" would make a great T-Shirt.
  • Make me want to break into song ... which happens on literally every cruise I have been on (ask me, sometime, about an electric rendition of "Mack the Knife" at the Chef's Table).
  • Feed the soul ... not quite "When the beating of your heart, echoes the beating of the drum", but good enough to take to the barricades.

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Better days are coming ...

Curt from Canada

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2 hours ago, Flopper said:

nerds GIF
 

Desantis next month when the CDC is still playing game 

Personally I would love to see DeSantis declare Florida ports open for business and wait to see who decides to overrule him and how ... the port authorities arent going to refuse ... anyone want to take odds on a coast guard cutter pulling over the Oasis ... and then doing what with it ??

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NCL can declare they will start sailings from US ports in July all they want. No way I'm booking one without certainty it would actually sail and not simply be blockaded from leaving by the USCG, by nothing more than them refusing to sign the required paperwork.

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36 minutes ago, Flopper said:

I think this is all inevitably heading to a law suite. The CDC has shown now that they have no interest in re-opening cruising and it has nothing to do with health and safety. 

Agree!  I'm just hoping the CDC doesn't attempt bureaucratic overreach by trying to extend the CSO (or NSO or whatever they choose to call it) past Oct 31. I'm getting nervous about it!

Thankfully, RCG has started sailing from other Caribbean ports, so at least sailing will soon be possible.

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2 hours ago, JLMoran said:

NCL can declare they will start sailings from US ports in July all they want. No way I'm booking one without certainty it would actually sail and not simply be blockaded from leaving by the USCG, by nothing more than them refusing to sign the required paperwork.

Yeah, this is the thing. Posturing is fine and I definitely think it has its place here. But I'm with you. I don't think you can game the system right now. I've been tempted to cancel a July cruise out of Amsterdam with a Norway itinerary and book something more likely to sail. Europe is experiencing vaccine woes - I don't see the Netherlands welcoming international travelers and opening cruise ports by July. Could happen but low probability given the circumstances there.

As well the Celebrity offerings out of St. Maarten are appealing ..... except for all the hoop jumping and high cost of air to SMX from Miami.

Sure, I'm chomping at the bit to cruise. I actually think something is going to come of CLIA's hit piece, press release on the CDC along with DelRio's and Bailey's public statements. Then there is Desantis who has already thrown down the gauntlet with threats of legal action. HHS may back down as the heat gets turned up. What we get to know in the public domain is always just the tip of the iceberg regarding what's going on behind the scenes.

I don't know that the involved parties from the offices of Governor Desantis', maybe Governor Abbott's from Texas and the cruise industry have the leverage they need outside of the courts applying it. Legal action in the form of injunctions have to be in the mix I would think.

Gets popcorn.  

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32 minutes ago, JeffB said:

Legal action in the form of injunctions have to be in the mix I would think.

Which of course will take months, and will be appealed over and over again. Does anyone really think that any legal course would be completed by July? If the HHS / CDC decides to dig in their heels, I'm sure they can drag it out with any and every procedural roadblock available until the CSO is set to expire anyway.

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52 minutes ago, JeffB said:

As well the Celebrity offerings out of St. Maarten are appealing ..... except for all the hoop jumping and high cost of air to SMX from Miami.

For what it is worth, I booked my air through Celebrity.  It was $600 from Houston. I didn't think that was too bad, all things considered.

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25 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

Which of course will take months, and will be appealed over and over again. Does anyone really think that any legal course would be completed by July? If the HHS / CDC decides to dig in their heels, I'm sure they can drag it out with any and every procedural roadblock available until the CSO is set to expire anyway.

I agree that legal action wouldn't help July cruises.

Call me paranoid, but I'm increasingly worried that CDC will find some way to extend the ban past November.  Legal action might help on that one.

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Yes, I could get something close to that cost out of Miami but after an 1 hour Uber ride from where we live to the port of Miami to fly with the most inconvenient times and connections, I wasn't willing. Of course I could book more reasonable non-stop routing ...... for neatly  a grand pp.

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29 minutes ago, JLMoran said:

Which of course will take months, and will be appealed over and over again. Does anyone really think that any legal course would be completed by July? If the HHS / CDC decides to dig in their heels, I'm sure they can drag it out with any and every procedural roadblock available until the CSO is set to expire anyway.

I'm with smokeybandit. When a complaint like this that seeks relief is filed in a federal court, the presiding judge reviews it to make sure he has jurisdiction and the case has standing. If it meets those criteria, he'll issue the injunction pending a hearing. It's here where I made this point in another thread that I question whether the Justice Department is willing to defend the laugher that is the CSO.  At this point the CSO is pretty hard to defend with the advent of vaccines and their undeniable positive impact on disease burden.  If the pandemic were still raging here in the US - and it's not, this despite the CDC's view that it is,  it might be defensible. 

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16 minutes ago, JeffB said:

When a complaint like this that seeks relief is filed in a federal court, the presiding judge reviews it to make sure he has jurisdiction and the case has standing.

And when an entity files for such an injunction, they'll make sure it's filed where they know they're on favorable terms to get the injunction.

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7 hours ago, steverk said:

I'm increasingly worried that CDC will find some way to extend the ban past November.  Legal action might help on that one.

That exactly what's going to happen...it a setup. The CDC is being used, to extort the the cruise lines. They(CDC) will appear to bend to pressure or just being Fair & Just, by allowing cruise lines to sail...probably beginning anywhere between August & September, even as early as mid-July. Then when the "Variant" become more prevalent in the US, given how the media is already playing its role, in preparing the US citizens for the coming "4th Wave"...as soon as a single passenger is reported as having or infected with the "Variant"; the CDC will then be justified to reinstate the dreaded "NO-Sail Order"; and, proclaim, "See, I Told You So!"....your measures(which is their measures) don't work, even with fully vaccinated passengers...whom we are reminded, can still get a mutated strain of the virus & spread it, why the strong suggestion for vaccinated people still should comply & don a mask. There is no intention for the government to allow cruising until they get(extort) what they want....tax revenue from foreign cruise lines. They don't care about percentage of U.S Steel, built at U.S. shipyard, or non of that...they want access to another tax revenue stream; whether it's against standing U.S Law or not. Welcome to the New "Topsy-Turvy" World. I truly sense some cruise lines are going to go bankrupt & disappear, if they don't comply. <smh>

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11 hours ago, steverk said:

I agree that legal action wouldn't help July cruises.

Call me paranoid, but I'm increasingly worried that CDC will find some way to extend the ban past November.  Legal action might help on that one.

I don't think that's paranoid... COVID isn't going to be eradicated, and thus if it follows typical cold/flu patterns we'll see higher case counts in the fall/winter. It shouldn't matter to us independently of hospitalizations and deaths, but the goalposts have been shifting tremendously and it could very well be what the CDC uses to justify another round of public health measures right before the holidays.

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  • 2 weeks later...
2 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

So is NCL disappointed, or did they get exactly what they expected and maybe hoped for?

 

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2021/04/15/norwegian-cruise-line-pushes-cdc-answer-their-proposal-restart-cruising

I don't think they were hoping the CDC would just ignore their proposal, I think they were hoping for and are still hoping for an answer from the CDC.  I think NCL like RCCL is frustrated and disappointed with the lack of corporation they are seeing from the CDC.

 

Requiring all passengers and crew be fully vaccinated with either an FDA, EMA, or WHO approved vaccine is a great mitigation tool.  It is much more effective at reducing the risk of on outbreak than testing lone and NCL would voluntarily restricted capacity.  For the CDC to simply ignore them and not respond is just childish and once again demonstrates that even when a cruise line presents a decent workable plan the CDC has no desire to actually work with the cruise line to help them resume cruising in July.

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