San Juan sailings update

[smokeybandit]

Looks like they have a shore agreement in place

 

https://www.puertoricoheadlinenews.com/for-august-the-arrival-of-cruise-ships-with-passengers-to-puerto-rico/

[RG306]

I'm curious to how long this agreement is in place for as it caps capacity between 50-70% for each line and requires 95-97% vaccination rates. The article even said that NCL would be 100% vaccinated. 
 

We just booked Explorer out of San Juan for Feb and honestly, I'd be very happy to sail with all of this still in place. 

[smokeybandit]

Shore agreements will be gone as soon as the CSO is.

[RG306]

16 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

Shore agreements will be gone as soon as the CSO is.

Maybe but not to be political as much as things have opened up in the US and Covid seems to be a thing of the past, a lot of countries are still very restricted, under vaccinated, dealing with COVID outbreaks, and many of these ports do not have access to the same resources as the passengers and staff of the cruise lines. Tourist dollars matter but COVID outbreaks are also deadly and costly so there likely have to be some rules in place around how freely people can travel for a long while yet.

I want my family to be safe but I also want to keep others safe especially if they don't have access to preventative (vaccines) or post care we do.

[JeffB]

16 minutes ago, RG306 said:

I want my family to be safe but I also want to keep others safe especially if they don't have access to preventative (vaccines) or post care we do.

This is a solid take. We tend to over focus on the path to resumption of sailings from US ports as if it's a one way street to that objective. It's not. I actually think the port agreements thing in the CSO was good (without some of the enforcement provisions). OTH,  I'm not sure that the cruise lines weren't pursuing more COVID robust agreements on their own (that is in the HSP).

I have a Celebrity Equinox sailing booked in August that had a stop in SJ. About 3w ago, I got notified that the SJ and DR port calls were cancelled and replaced with a sea day and a call at Nassau (not great but glad to be sailing). I doubt this news will change Celebrity's operational plans even though it is 60 days out. Too many moving parts.  

[RG306]

13 minutes ago, JeffB said:

This is a solid take. We tend to over focus on the path to resumption of sailings from US ports as if it's a one way street to that objective. It's not. I actually think the port agreements thing in the CSO was good (without some of the enforcement provisions). OTH,  I'm not sure that the cruise lines weren't pursuing more COVID robust agreements on their own (that is in the HSP).

I have a Celebrity Equinox sailing booked in August that had a stop in SJ. About 3w ago, I got notified that the SJ and DR port calls were cancelled and replaced with a sea day and a call at Nassau (not great but glad to be sailing). I doubt this news will change Celebrity's operational plans even though it is 60 days out. Too many moving parts.  

Reality is, it can change again and again once you're onboard. I think this is the attitude we all need to have towards travel for at least the next year or two regardless of the type of travel we do. Be flexible. We're privileged to be in a position to do so. A smile and some kindness go a long way  
 

 

[smokeybandit]

43 minutes ago, RG306 said:

Maybe but not to be political as much as things have opened up in the US and Covid seems to be a thing of the past, a lot of countries are still very restricted, under vaccinated, dealing with COVID outbreaks, and many of these ports do not have access to the same resources as the passengers and staff of the cruise lines. Tourist dollars matter but COVID outbreaks are also deadly and costly so there likely have to be some rules in place around how freely people can travel for a long while yet.

I want my family to be safe but I also want to keep others safe especially if they don't have access to preventative (vaccines) or post care we do.

This all may be true, but wouldn't be impacted by getting rid of shore agreements (which are homeport shore agreements, not port of call agreements) and test cruises.

[JeffB]

38 minutes ago, RG306 said:

Be flexible.

Precisely ........ this is the hallmark attitude, among others, that we need to carry as sailing resumes and our own sailings materialize. The other one is insure your risks. That doesn't just mean travel insurance. For some it's required for others, it's a good idea.  Even though the cruise lines appear to be offer what amounts to full medical and evacuation coverage, you may need coverage for other medical emergencies. Know and take advantage of the cruise line's protections. Book your air through the cruise lines when it's available. That way if the sail dates change, the line will take care of re-booking - it happened to me for an October cruise out of Barcelona and air was rearranged at no cost to me.

Travel insurance has gotten expensive, especially for seniors, if you are insuring against COVID or if you want "cancel for any reason." Explore plan options. I've come to the conclusion that I have primary medical coverage through my insurance plans but I'm almost positive I'd end up paying a bundle after primary coverage paid out. I don't think we know how good the cruise line's medical and evac coverage for a COVID related circumstance. So far for the two teens and their families on AoS it worked. Keep in mind that is just for a COVID related illness. That could get tricky if, for example, you tested positive for COVID but had a heart attack. 

Medical Evacuation is costly. When I was younger and my risk of illness was lower, that's all I bought. Things are different now so, I purchase comprehensive coverage. Try not fully insuring the cost of your trip. For example if the whole trip costs $5K, buy $3 or $4K - cost goes down the less the insured dollar value you buy is. I've not had any luck in trying to exactly match what medical coverage I have with a travel insurance plan. The coverages are fixed, e.g., $24K, $50K,, etc. So, I guesstimate and look for the lowest cost coverage with the highest reimbursement value for a medical event. I also try to buy policies with the highest medical evacuation coverage. The actual cost of having to do that from Europe or Asia, for example, can be astronomical. From the Caribbean, not as high. Good hunting.   

[CruiseGus]

4 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

Shore agreements will be gone as soon as the CSO is.

Was the one part of the CSO that made sense and the only thing that would prevent a whole ship from being quarantined at sea again for long periods and not allowing passengers to disembark at all.

[JeffB]

.........@smokeybandit also seemed to imply that "port agreements" come in two flavors: Home Port berthing agreements and port of call agreements. If I'm not mistaken, and this may be @smokeybanditpoint, the CSO didn't make a distinction between the two, just saying (1) ports couldn't ban cruise ships from entering with COVID cases aboard and that (2) to make that workable, the cruise lines had to do X, Y & Z with regard to the handling of COVID cases being evacuated from the ship - this to prevent the Princess fiasco - and ports had to contractually agree to whatever the parties came up with on that score.

[smokeybandit]

1 hour ago, CruiseGus said:

Was the one part of the CSO that made sense and the only thing that would prevent a whole ship from being quarantined at sea again for long periods and not allowing passengers to disembark at all.

It may have made sense in October 2020, but not now.  Even the Diamond Princess in all its glory only had 19% of the passengers/crew test positive. 

[JeffB]

40 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

It may have made sense in October 2020, but not now.  Even the Diamond Princess in all its glory only had 19% of the passengers/crew test positive. 

That's one way to look at. Another is to consider that Princess had an R(0) of 2.6 back in March of 2020. That means an exponential time independent increase of infections of around 3X, 9X, 81X and so forth......a very steep curve of new cases. TBF, R(0) values apply to a completely naive/unvaxed exposed cohort. Clearly vaccines have helped, so has previous infection and conferred immunity therefrom.

So your view has merit. It is unlikely that going forward and as the pandemic wanes, R(0) values are going to remain closer to 1.9 and below at their peaks and we are actually seeing that in places with vaccination rates >  50% where the Delta variant is being reported as "surging." Rates of new infections are low  - remember "flatten the curve"? That's what vaccines and conferred immunity from previous infection are doing. Of course those details and context are not being reported - we just get a continuing fear monkey narrative. 

Those of us who have supported the development and implementation at the re-start of clear protocols for the handling of COVID positive crew/pax on a cruise ship either by CSO enforceable regs or by HSP recommendations consider that an important aspect of the line's responsibilities. That extends to their responsibilities to keep guests, crew and the communities they call on as safe as possible from COVID outbreaks. That starts with immediate isolation of case #1, contact tracing and quarantine of those who meet the criteria for that and, importantly in this discussion, how and where a ship makes a port call to off-load infected persons. Beyond that are all the other shorebased steps needed to make sure there's no community spread in the port area/city the ship is off-loading infected people. 

Personally I don't want the cruise lines or port authorities to make shit up as they go along, neither did the CDC or, for that matter the cruise lines through the HSP as far as we can tell. While it is true that the risk of that happening on a fully vaxed sailing is very low, slightly higher on a hybrid sailing, why not be fully prepared for that even remote occurrence? We've already seen that scenario play out a couple of times. It's happened and will happen again. These protocols and agreements worked. I'm glad it was all planned out before hand.

[Cruise Pirate]

So I am on the Vision of the Seas out of PR on September the 12th, and seeing the first ship sailing out of PR is the Vision of the Seas on September 5th, I am just wondering what is the chance of the cruise getting canceled and then having to deal with the BS FCC again to get on another ship later. I am trying to decide if I should just bail now and book for another ship in September.

With Test sailing for the CSO underway I do not see the Vision on any list to get certified. I know if the CSO goes away then no Test Cruises needed, but then does RC just get the crew back on the ship and start the engines and off sailing we go again?