What do you think will happen to US cruises if Coronavirus spreads?

[Lisa F]

But if the cruise lines issues credit, there are those who would take advantage and rationalize: why buy travel insurance if I can just tell the cruise line I am sick and get my money back when in fact that some other issue cam up that prevents me from traveling?

If you get lucky enough to want to not buy travel insurance and are traveling during a time when there is an epidemic that countries are trying to keep from rising to the level of a pandemic, then I guess you could come out ahead by canceling without penalty.

But that is a pretty big gamble to take, and there are bigger issues at play than a few people who would lie about being sick to cancel without penalty. I think it is a MUCH greater risk and also potentially financial hit for the cruiselines if people lie about not being sick and cruise anyway than if people take advantage of a relatively infrequent situation and use it to lie about not being sick to cancel without penalty. People book because they WANT to cruise, not because they are looking for ways to get out of it at the last minute without purchasing travel insurance.

 

[Lisa F]

This is an interesting thread but I haven't read every post.
One question I have related to this issue and I'm not sure if someone has offered their insight is this:

- What would happen if one (just 1) person on a DCL sailing shows symptoms of the coronavirus.
What would be the protocol?
I've heard of instances where ppl with norovirus have been quarantined to their SR's for as long as the duration of their cruise. And that's a good precautionary measure.

But what about this current virus? What if someone shows sypmtoms?

- Will they quarantine the entire ship? It seems to be the case given the current (and justified) fears.
I can't begin to imagine the chaos/frustration of ppl confined to their rooms for 4/7+ days
I'm just dreading this scenario.
And all it takes is one person who's had direct (travel to China) or indirect (a family member, someone catching it in an airplane, etc) contact with the virus.
Scary stuff.

Symptoms of the coronavirus are the same as the symptoms of the flu and if you can find a single cruise ship in February where no one has any flu symptoms it would be a miracle. So this situation HAS to be going on right now. It sounds like they are doing standard quarantine procedures as they would to prevent any viral outbreak - nothing has changed at least as of this RCL cruise. They did not quarantine the entire boat.

The people on the RCL cruise showing symptoms are chinese nationals so even though what they had was ultimately flu, they treated it like it could be coronavirus because there was a reasonable vector of transmission but they still did not quarantine the entire ship.

If you have flu symptoms but no exposure to anyone who has been exposed to coronavirus it is the flu. Of course with flying in the mix it is not completely nonzero but given how carefully they are dealing with people who are returning from hot zones right now, it's not super likely and it is not currently being transmitted that way here in the US - everyone who has it here got it directly from there, not from randomly flying a domestic flight.

That said I am cruising a week from Saturday and while I am not really worried, I am taking the extra precaution of bringing my work laptop in case of what I consider to be a really remote possibility of a 2 week quarantine. I work on commission and it would be financially devastating to lose nearly a month of work at once but I can do 90% of my work remotely and I am quite sure my coworkers would pull together to help me out in a tight spot.

I will also make sure the kid has his full complement of electronic babysitters and will probably grab a month's worth of meds for both of us. These are easy precautions I can take with about 30 seconds of extra effort on my part so why not have that little bit of extra peace of mind? I like knowing what my options are in a worst case scenario.

But I still don't think it's an actual concern but as remote a possibility as it is, it is so simple to address that I'd be crazy not to (I would have brought my personal laptop anyway so I will just bring my work one, which is the same model.) I usually leave my work laptop on vacation so that I really take a clean break so I will just have to be strong and not work on vacation

All of our meds are not life saving though but I think anyone who travels in this current environment would be wise to have a month's supply of whatever they take on hand.

 

[minthorne]

Originally I was planning a trip to Shanghai for my 50th birthday next month (March 2), but finances did work out and I ended up booking at WDW instead. In the end I was lucky - if I had booked a China trip there is no way I'd be going now! Just another one of life's little miracles...Thank the FSM!

 

[DisneYE]

@Lisa F
Thanks for the reply/feedback.
I think currently most ppl cruising in the next 1-4 weeks are well aware of what's happening and they'll take the same extra precautions you mentioned, me included: extra meds, sanitizers, entertainment, etc. I'll even take my own N95 masks and extra protein snacks in case things get hairy.

But this is unlike a flu outbreak. Flu is very manageable & we in the western hemisphere have it well under control to a large degree. You'll never see an entire ship getting quarantined over the flu, or even the Norovirus. This is a different scenario bc authorities don't have an effective cure/treatment for this strain of virus.
Had they had one, they wouldn't quarantine entire cities, ships and now South Korea has temporarily banned cruises from docking in their ports.

The ship in Yokohama now has 135 cases of the virus and 7 are Canadian, so its not all Chinese nationals.

My question still stands: What will happen if there is 1 case of someone with the corona virus on a DCL ship . Will they quarantine the entire ship?

IMO, IF (and I really hope it doesn't happen) they detect 1 cruiser with this virus on a cruise (not only DCL, but any cruise docking in the USA) it will trigger severe preventive actions, maybe even cancelations.
And tbh I'd rather they cancel/postpone a cruise I'm scheduled to sail with than having to be confined to a SR 24/7 for days.

 

[Lisa F]

Thanks for the reply/feedback.
I think currently most ppl cruising in the next 1-4 weeks are well aware of what's happening and they'll take the same extra precautions you mentioned, me included: extra meds, sanitizers, entertainment, etc. I'll even take my own N95 masks and extra protein snacks in case things get hairy.

But this is unlike a flu outbreak. Flu is very manageable & we in the western hemisphere have it well under control to a large degree. You'll never see an entire ship getting quarantined over the flu, or even the Norovirus. This is a different scenario bc authorities don't have an effective cure/treatment for this strain of virus.
Had they had one, they wouldn't quarantine entire cities, ships and now South Korea has temporarily banned cruises from docking in their ports.

The ship in Yokohama now has 135 cases of the virus and 7 are Canadian, so its not all Chinese nationals.

My question still stands: What will happen if there is 1 case of someone with the corona virus on a DC ship . Will they quarantine the entire ship?

IMO, IF (and I really hope it doesn't happen) they detect 1 cruiser with this virus on a cruise (not only DCL, but any cruise docking in the USA) it will trigger severe preventive actions, maybe even cancelations.
And tbh I'd rather they cancel/postpone a cruise I'm scheduled to sail with than having to be confined to a SR 24/7 for days.

if the RCL cruise is any indication
they had people with flu like symptoms who were chinese nations and they did NOT quarantine the whole ship of people, only people who had a geographic risk for coronavirus.

The Japan quarantine is different as it's in asia and has a lot more people exposed and a lot more vectors for the spread of coronavirus. HERE it is still far far far more likely to be the flu.

Right now all of the info we have about how any US itinerary would handle it is that they took the people who had sniffles in for medical testing and treatment and let everyone else on the ship go. The cruise lines are cracking down on even having anyone from these areas on board (I don't think DCL has followed suit yet but NCL and RCL are both not even allowing anyone who holds a passport to these areas on their ships regardless of whether they have traveled there or not.)

I still think the quarantine of an entire ship in a closed loop US cruise with bans on people who have traveled to these areas within the incubation period based on flu symptoms is very unlikely or it would have already happened because you can bet there are people with flu symptoms on every cruise ship sailing this time of year. I think the only reason it had any concern on the RCL cruise was because the people with the symptoms had a potential geographic connection. Now they are, in addition to what they were doing a few weeks ago, trying to keep anyone with ANY potential geographic connection off the ships. I think unless they find that someone has lied and did travel to that area or was exposed to someone who has, they will not jump to "coronavirus" for any little sniffle.

That said as I mentioned in another post, I am taking the very basic precautions of bringing work laptop, extra meds for myself and the kid and plenty of electronics for the kid to play with in case it happens - these are very minimal effort things I can do to hedge my bets in case things go into crazyland. I don't know for sure they won't (no one can predict the future) but I don't give it very good odds that they will... but if I can be a bit more prepared for a worst case scenario with minimal effort, it's silly not to. You could not pay me enough to travel to asia right now and forget going on a cruise there!

 

[MarkLT1]

My question still stands: What will happen if there is 1 case of someone with the corona virus on a DCL ship . Will they quarantine the entire ship?

IMO, IF (and I really hope it doesn't happen) they detect 1 cruiser with this virus on a cruise (not only DCL, but any cruise docking in the USA) it will trigger severe preventive actions, maybe even cancelations.
And tbh I'd rather they cancel/postpone a cruise I'm scheduled to sail with than having to be confined to a SR 24/7 for days.

I don't think we know for sure, but at this stage, I would assume that any cruise ship that has a *confirmed* case of coronavirus would be quarantined. It may not be on the ship- it could be a land-based quarantine, but seeing as this thing seems to be very contagious, if one person is showing enough symptoms to 1) be tested, and 2) come up positive, there are likely others onboard who are infected.

For a tiny bit of good news, the WHO said today that 80% of cases they've seen, result in mild cold-like symptoms. Unfortunately, for those other 20%, 3/4 end up with pneumonia, and 1/3 end up in the ICU. (*) Armchair quarterbacking from here on: I was talking to a graduate school friend of mine who is in the field of epidemiology, and he was speculating that the high rate of smoking (especially amongst men) in China, as well as the well known high levels of air pollution, may be causing a higher number of severe cases in China. I think we're going to start seeing a lot more concrete information in the coming days from sources outside of China. Hopefully that will start to shed a bit more light on the severity of this bug.

 

[mab2012]

But if the cruise lines issues credit, there are those who would take advantage and rationalize: why buy travel insurance if I can just tell the cruise line I am sick and get my money back when in fact that some other issue cam up that prevents me from traveling?

I imagine they would simply require medical documentation before issuing a refund.

 

[ludari]

What do you think the Chinese government is not disclosing that we can't independently identify/verify on our own by now?

Personally I believe that the true numbers of the infected and dead are either being under reported or not being reported by the Chinese government at all. When the Chinese government builds a hospital in 10 days to treat those infected I do get a little concerned about how bad it really is. I only hope we (the world) gets a handle on this virus to treat the sick and stop the spread.

 

[monkeydawn]

My question still stands: What will happen if there is 1 case of someone with the corona virus on a DCL ship . Will they quarantine the entire ship?

No one can possibly know the answer to this which is why you arent getting satisfactory answers (in your opinion).

Again, no one here can know the answer to this.

No on on the phone at DCL can tell you the answer to this.

The captain in conjunction with the CDC (and probably other organizations) will make the call given the very specific circumstances if this happens.

If you need a guarantee one way or the other what will happen, you either need to rework your expectations or cancel.

I am not wording it this way to be unkind, I am in a similar situation (worse IMO because it is a Med cruise so not out of US ports). I am less than 2 weeks from PIF so I need to make a decision based on the probabilities. I'm not scared to travel to Italy at this point but I am concerned being denied boarding or being quarantined (or a prior sailing being quarantined and not being able to board for that reason). I'm going to have to make y best guess about conditions unfortunately.

 

[smmco]

No one can possibly know the answer to this which is why you arent getting satisfactory answers (in your opinion).

Again, no one here can know the answer to this.

No on on the phone at DCL can tell you the answer to this.

The captain in conjunction with the CDC (and probably other organizations) will make the call given the very specific circumstances if this happens.

If you need a guarantee one way or the other what will happen, you either need to rework your expectations or cancel.

I am not wording it this way to be unkind, I am in a similar situation (worse IMO because it is a Med cruise so not out of US ports). I am less than 2 weeks from PIF so I need to make a decision based on the probabilities. I'm not scared to travel to Italy at this point but I am concerned being denied boarding or being quarantined (or a prior sailing being quarantined and not being able to board for that reason). I'm going to have to make y best guess about conditions unfortunately.

If your on DCL keep in mind you can cancel up to 56 days prior and only lose your deposit. I don’t know how much your deposit is but I’m taking my son on a Baltic cruise in August. My deposit was only 450.00 and my flights were booked with miles. I don’t know if its any consolation, but DCL has one of the more lenient cancellation policies.

 

[monkeydawn]

If your on DCL keep in mind you can cancel up to 56 days prior and only lose your deposit. I don’t know how much your deposit is but I’m taking my son on a Baltic cruise in August. My deposit was only 450.00 and my flights were booked with miles. I don’t know if its any consolation, but DCL has one of the more lenient cancellation policies.

Thanks, its actually MSC I just hang out here because y'all are so friendly.

 

[Lisa F]

I don't think we know for sure, but at this stage, I would assume that any cruise ship that has a *confirmed* case of coronavirus would be quarantined. It may not be on the ship- it could be a land-based quarantine, but seeing as this thing seems to be very contagious, if one person is showing enough symptoms to 1) be tested, and 2) come up positive, there are likely others onboard who are infected.

For a tiny bit of good news, the WHO said today that 80% of cases they've seen, result in mild cold-like symptoms. Unfortunately, for those other 20%, 3/4 end up with pneumonia, and 1/3 end up in the ICU. (*) Armchair quarterbacking from here on: I was talking to a graduate school friend of mine who is in the field of epidemiology, and he was speculating that the high rate of smoking (especially amongst men) in China, as well as the well known high levels of air pollution, may be causing a higher number of severe cases in China. I think we're going to start seeing a lot more concrete information in the coming days from sources outside of China. Hopefully that will start to shed a bit more light on the severity of this bug.

I saw an article that separated out "outcomes in developed areas with good sanitation and access to medical care" vs areas without those things and said the actual death rate was about middling in the range for a typical flu out break in developed areas with good sanitation and access to medical care. Areas without those things had higher death rates. It was a week ago maybe so not sure if data has changed but there is a reason that a lot of these viruses jump from animals to people and become epidemics in places without good sanitation and access to medical care.

 

[Lisa F]

No one can possibly know the answer to this which is why you arent getting satisfactory answers (in your opinion).

Again, no one here can know the answer to this.

No on on the phone at DCL can tell you the answer to this.

The captain in conjunction with the CDC (and probably other organizations) will make the call given the very specific circumstances if this happens.

If you need a guarantee one way or the other what will happen, you either need to rework your expectations or cancel.

I am not wording it this way to be unkind, I am in a similar situation (worse IMO because it is a Med cruise so not out of US ports). I am less than 2 weeks from PIF so I need to make a decision based on the probabilities. I'm not scared to travel to Italy at this point but I am concerned being denied boarding or being quarantined (or a prior sailing being quarantined and not being able to board for that reason). I'm going to have to make y best guess about conditions unfortunately.

All we know is what happens if there is a suspected case and they are not going to the point of quarantining a whole ship without confirmation. I believe they let the people on RCL off the ship before the test came back because I didn't hear anything about people being quarantined in Bayonne waiting for test results to come back but someone tell me if I am wrong.

At this point given that they are refusing passage to anyone with geographic connection that would make it likely to be coronavirus over flu, I think the chances of it being that are less than it was before they started taking those precautions and if it didn't show up in US closed loop cruises before, it is even less likely to show up after. This thing is not spreading through the US population at all except for the people directly exposed in asia and people close to them so at this point flu is a far far far greater risk.

For people worrying, get your flu shot. It's amazing to me that people will worry about something halfway around the world to the point of stressing about it while refusing to get a vaccine for something far more likely to strike them down right here in the US. (not saying anyone in particular posting hasn't gotten the flu vaccine but I know plenty of people who haven't who are fretting about the coronavirus.)

 

[MarkLT1]

This thing is not spreading through the US population at all except for the people directly exposed in asia and people close to them so at this point flu is a far far far greater risk.

I don't know if I'd assume the US is in the clear.. *yet*. Remember, routine US air service from China just stopped 4-days ago. You have a few groups that were evacuated from Wuhan, who are by far the most likely to have been infected, and yes, they are in quarantine. Those routine US carrier flights from China up to 2/6, did not include any quarantine for those passengers. The incubation period is up to 2-weeks. Unfortunately, that means we are still a good 2-3 weeks before knowing for sure that the US is in good shape. If the virus can spread before an individual is symptomatic (there are conflicting reports on this), and as the WHO stated 80% of infected individuals simply have "mild cold-like symptoms," there is a not-insignificant probability that some of those several thousand individuals who returned from China in the last 2 weeks, could be infecting more people in the US.

If the numbers stay low for the next couple weeks, I'll be feeling a lot better about how the situation here will play out. Not that I am overly worried.. just paying attention.

And yes.. for the love of all that is good in this world, get a flu shot if you haven't already!!!

 

[Ccll4]

I don't think we have reached the peak of this Virus infection, but who am I to speculate...

We are booked on a late April DCL cruise.

 

[otten]

@Lisa F
Thanks for the reply/feedback.
I think currently most ppl cruising in the next 1-4 weeks are well aware of what's happening and they'll take the same extra precautions you mentioned, me included: extra meds, sanitizers, entertainment, etc. I'll even take my own N95 masks and extra protein snacks in case things get hairy.

But this is unlike a flu outbreak. Flu is very manageable & we in the western hemisphere have it well under control to a large degree. You'll never see an entire ship getting quarantined over the flu, or even the Norovirus. This is a different scenario bc authorities don't have an effective cure/treatment for this strain of virus.
Had they had one, they wouldn't quarantine entire cities, ships and now South Korea has temporarily banned cruises from docking in their ports.

The ship in Yokohama now has 135 cases of the virus and 7 are Canadian, so its not all Chinese nationals.

My question still stands: What will happen if there is 1 case of someone with the corona virus on a DCL ship . Will they quarantine the entire ship?

IMO, IF (and I really hope it doesn't happen) they detect 1 cruiser with this virus on a cruise (not only DCL, but any cruise docking in the USA) it will trigger severe preventive actions, maybe even cancelations.
And tbh I'd rather they cancel/postpone a cruise I'm scheduled to sail with than having to be confined to a SR 24/7 for days.

We totally do not have the flu totally under control. Do you know how many people have died of the flu just in the US this year? It far dwarfs coronavirus.

 

[monkeydawn]

All we know is what happens if there is a suspected case and they are not going to the point of quarantining a whole ship without confirmation.

"They" being RCL in this particular instance. I still say that has no bearing on what DCL would decide to do in the near future (or even the not so near future) because our information seems to be changing on a day to day basis.

Even if everything else were the same as the RCL ship, DCL might have decided to quarantine because of the optics. There are just too many variables right now.

 

[Lisa F]

"They" being RCL in this particular instance. I still say that has no bearing on what DCL would decide to do in the near future (or even the not so near future) because our information seems to be changing on a day to day basis.

Even if everything else were the same as the RCL ship, DCL might have decided to quarantine because of the optics. There are just too many variables right now.

I don't think it's up to the cruiseline. I would think it would be up to the government agency. No cruiseline is going to take their ship out of commission and hold people captive for 2 weeks without the government telling them to do so. I can't imagine any business deciding to do this without the government telling them that they need to. So far we know the government is NOT requiring such measures based on what has already happened.

 

[Lisa F]

We totally do not have the flu totally under control. Do you know how many people have died of the flu just in the US this year? It far dwarfs coronavirus.

that is my point. Flu is a much bigger concern at this point right here where we live, and there is something (albeit not perfect) you can do about it. There are many people wringing their hands about coronavirus who won't even get a flu shot.

 

[DisneYE]

No one can possibly know the answer to this which is why you arent getting satisfactory answers (in your opinion).

Again, no one here can know the answer to this.

No on on the phone at DCL can tell you the answer to this.

The captain in conjunction with the CDC (and probably other organizations) will make the call given the very specific circumstances if this happens.

If you need a guarantee one way or the other what will happen, you either need to rework your expectations or cancel.

I am not wording it this way to be unkind, I am in a similar situation (worse IMO because it is a Med cruise so not out of US ports). I am less than 2 weeks from PIF so I need to make a decision based on the probabilities. I'm not scared to travel to Italy at this point but I am concerned being denied boarding or being quarantined (or a prior sailing being quarantined and not being able to board for that reason). I'm going to have to make y best guess about conditions unfortunately.

I'm not looking for "satisfactory answers". I'm just curious as to what other ppl think. It's why this place is called "a forum".. I guess the idea of a rational discussion triggers some ppl?

And no, I'm not thinking at all about cancelling, even if there is a full blown outbreak.. If the cruise line cancels, that's a different story.. but as I said I'd rather they do that than having to deal with a potential quarantine on the ship.