Best odds of sailing

lunaland

Mouseketeer
Joined
Oct 20, 2014
Hello All,

Prior to Corona we had a 6 night on the Wonder booked for December out of Galveston. We want to cruise, would cruise today, and will cruise if Disney will have us. However, out of a concern about the Wonder being allowed through the Panama Canal, we switched to a cruise on the Magic also in December, out of Miami. I am now wondering if delays in the dry dock or getting a crew on the Magic may result in Disney restarting with only the Fantasy and Dream out of Port Canaveral. So now we are thinking, should we switch to one of these cruises? We want the best chance possible of sailing in December. However, we do prefer the Magic over the Dream or Fantasy.

What do you guys think is our best bet for actually sailing, if in fact Disney is sailing.
 
Honestly it really is Up in the air right now for all cruises.

I have been going by the motto "the farther out the better" for cruises. My Next is planned in December on the Magic. We can speculate, but the longer the amount of time before the cruise the better in my mind. No one, not even the cruise companies know for sure at the moment when they will be able to start cruising again.

I have not heard of any issues with the Panama Canal and the current COVID-19 situation. I would assume it is just business as usual there so that shouldn't hold you back from the cruise on the Wonder.
 


I can’t imagine when the cruise industry will recover from this. I just read a couple of articles, one from the Miami Herald on 5/15, that said thousands of employees are still trapped on cruise ships and are unable to return home. They are very angry. Two of Disney’s ships just sailed to England on Tuesday hoping to fly their employees home from there, but most were denied repatriation yet again.

Who will agree to work on these ships ever again if another lockdown means they may be kept isolated in those tiny rooms while not getting paid for many months?

It is shocking how governments have done so little to rescue these forgotten people from all over the world.

The CDC caused so much of this by insisting that managers of the cruise line be held personally responsible if any of their employees cause another to get sick once they leave the ship. The managers did not sign, so the employee’s suffering continues. Some countries will not allow their people to return. It is outrageous, and will most likely contribute to the industry’s demise.
 
Who will agree to work on these ships ever again if another lockdown means they may be kept isolated in those tiny rooms while not getting paid for many months?
It is shocking how governments have done so little to rescue these forgotten people from all over the world.

The CDC caused so much of this by insisting that managers of the cruise line be held personally responsible if any of their employees cause another to get sick once they leave the ship. The managers did not sign, so the employee’s suffering continues. Some countries will not allow their people to return. It is outrageous, and will most likely contribute to the industry’s demise.
Most of the workers stuck on the ships are from nations where pay is low. They work on the ships because the pay.......by their home nation standards.......is huge. People wait years to get jobs on ships, and even after this I don't think there will be any issue getting people to work on the ships.
We took a break from cruising from 1988 to 2003 and were amazed at how high a priority sanitation is on ships now. This would be after the norovirus outbreaks. I really think the cruise industry is probably better equipped that any other vacation destination to deal with the changes necessary after the coronavirus.
 
I have not heard of any issues with the Panama Canal and the current COVID-19 situation. I would assume it is just business as usual there so that shouldn't hold you back from the cruise on the Wonder.

I know one line had to wait outside the canal for a few days for premission to go through. I think it was a Holland America ship?
 


I really think the cruise industry is probably better equipped that any other vacation destination to deal with the changes necessary after the coronavirus.

Well, except that profit on a cruise ship requires a full ship, and a full ship by its very nature isn't pandemic friendly.

The major expenses of a ship do not go down if you have half the people on board.
 
Well, except that profit on a cruise ship requires a full ship, and a full ship by its very nature isn't pandemic friendly.

The major expenses of a ship do not go down if you have half the people on board.
Well, a ship doesn't have to be full to be profitable. You just need to find ways to get those on board to spend on the spa, bars, and extras. We were on a Celebrity Cruise in October and the next cruise was an Atlantis charter. They will be sailing at half capacity, but Atlantis cruisers spend 4 times what an average cruise passenger spends on alcohol, so half capacity will mean double the normal profits on booze and wine.
 
We have our 7th cruise booked on the Magic for March 2021. We aren't cancelling or changing any plans right now. Our PIF date is at the end of Dec. We will wait until then to see how things are going. Our first Disney cruise was on the Magic nearly 20 years ago. This will be our first cruise on the Magic since then. All our other cruises have been on either the Wonder or Fantasy. I'm really excited to sail on the Magic again, so I hope she will be sailing safely by then. If the Magic can't sail, but the other ships are we will switch, but until DCL makes an official announcement we will just keep the cruise we have booked. Unfortunately I think it will be a long time until they will know when they can sail again(which makes it hard to not second guess anything).
 
We are booked for mid-August, which was a rebook from May. If that gets cancelled (a very real possibility), I'm not totally sure what I'll do. With all the missed school this spring, I really really don't want them to miss more, but seems a shame to miss out on my placeholder by booking thanksgiving or christmas/new years week, which are blackout dates in addition to being MUCH more expensive. I also hate that Thanksgiving or Christmas would be peak cold and flu and noro season, even setting aside Covid (we were quarantined on our first cruise due to noro--not eager to repeat the experience). If I were to wait until 2021, I'd probably just wait until the summer to avoid cold/flu season. I hate to do that, though, because my work has a "use it or lose it" vacation policy.

In other words REALLY hope we can sail in August; otherwise it's probably going to be a long wait before our next cruise.
 
I know one line had to wait outside the canal for a few days for premission to go through. I think it was a Holland America ship?

That was a different situation than I anticipate with the Wonder will experience. That was the Holland America ship that was trying to get back to the United States and their passage through the Canal had not been previously scheduled. I don’t know if the Wonder will do her EBPC With guests, but she does already have a scheduled slot for the Canal in November.
 
I honestly would be more concerned with a second wave of virus outbreak with the cold weather than one ship vs. another not sailing. Ports may not be open even if DCL were able to sail. I think you should book the one you want the most and just keep an eye on how things go.
 
Well, except that profit on a cruise ship requires a full ship, and a full ship by its very nature isn't pandemic friendly.

The major expenses of a ship do not go down if you have half the people on board.
The major expenses of a ship do not disappear if no passengers are on board and it's anchored for weeks, such as during this crisis. (Unless Disney is willing to anchor it somewhere unattended. Good luck restarting cruises after that!) Will Disney maximize their profits by operating with less than a full passenger load? Obviously not, but they may lose less money than they would having the ship idled.

(And let's dismiss the idea that profit "requires" a full ship. Disney obviously makes more money on packed Christmas cruises, but since they offer cruises for much less at other points of the year with open rooms, it's not a "requirement". Cruise pricing is set to maximize revenue based on what they forecast demand to be.)
 
We are booked for mid-August, which was a rebook from May. If that gets cancelled (a very real possibility), I'm not totally sure what I'll do. With all the missed school this spring, I really really don't want them to miss more, but seems a shame to miss out on my placeholder by booking thanksgiving or christmas/new years week, which are blackout dates in addition to being MUCH more expensive. I also hate that Thanksgiving or Christmas would be peak cold and flu and noro season, even setting aside Covid (we were quarantined on our first cruise due to noro--not eager to repeat the experience). If I were to wait until 2021, I'd probably just wait until the summer to avoid cold/flu season. I hate to do that, though, because my work has a "use it or lose it" vacation policy.

In other words REALLY hope we can sail in August; otherwise it's probably going to be a long wait before our next cruise.
I am in the same boat as you are. Had a cruise on the Magic in May and spent so much time planning everything out. Once it was cancelled I decided to choose August but towards the end of the month on the Fantasy. At this point I cannot see Disney sailing in August so I'll probably just take the refund and step back from cruising for a while. I really want to be an observer right now and see how the cruise lines will handle new procedures and policies. Once they start removing certain activities and amenities....the vacation loses its appeal.
 
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And let's dismiss the idea that profit "requires" a full ship. Disney obviously makes more money on packed Christmas cruises, but since they offer cruises for much less at other points of the year with open rooms, it's not a "requirement". Cruise pricing is set to maximize revenue based on what they forecast demand to be.
This. So weird to see multiple posters insist that a less than full ship equals lack of profits. That ignores the huge price increases, far outpacing inflation, that DCL has instituted year after year for the past ten years, and how widely the prices vary based on time of year and itinerary for each sailing. DCL cruises cost roughly double the amount they did a decade ago, and there is no way that operating costs rose nearly that high in the same time period. With a half full ship, their profit margin will definitely go down, but it won't disappear. They might have to scrap or postpone the building and launching of one or more of their new ships, but that's not the same thing as not bringing any profits to their shareholders.
 
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