Will Disney follow Royal and not require vaccines?

[tvguy]

I don’t think it means anything. They are just starting out with a few ships.carnival and NCL did the same.
My hunch is DCL will start cruises on the Dream and cancel all other sailings.

Well, they had announced theyw ere starting out with 14 ships, now it is just three. So it is a pull back of major proportions.

 

[jrapps]

It makes sense to just start out with one or two ships and the increase one by one. They can also keep cruise high due to less supply.

Yep. Also, short 3-4 day cruises are always more profitable (higher $ per day) than 7 day, and less likely for a covid outbreak. If everyone tests negative on Day 1, very unlikely to see massive (if any) positives with symptoms after only 3 days.

7 day cruises a bit riskier and may need different levels of protocols. I see DCL waiting a month or longer later for the Fantasy than the Dream.

 

[jrapps]

Well, they had announced theyw ere starting out with 14 ships, now it is just three. So it is a pull back of major proportions.

This is not new news, and is the same info published days ago. They are restarting the entire fleet but it is all staggered. They cant crew up the whole fleet that fast. By the end of August, 12 ships will be sailing.

Look at NCL...they said all along they are going the full vax route and some of their ships wont start until next year. They can't get crew fast enough

 

[Sykes]

They can't get crew fast enough

They also need to manage capacity. There's a lot of pent up demand, but the venn diagram of people 1) willing to cruise right now, 2) with restrictions on onboard protocols and ports, 3) that are currently poorly defined and ever-changing, 4) who can legally enter the departure city and all the ports of call, 5) that are willing to deal with the uncertainty of an ever-changing environment ... has a pretty small area of overlap at the moment. I'm sure they'd rather fill a few ships as close to capacity as they can than crew a bunch of ships with 20% bookings. Hopefully it'll grow in the future, but I anticipate a lot of announcements and pullbacks over the next few months.

 

[JLTraveling]

I very much agree with your post about the challenges of a cruise vacation compared to a non-cruise vacation.

**Detour**
I’m curious what ship/size of ship you were on to Cuba. The reason I ask is that we have had to seek medical care on a couple DCL trips (ear infection for DD, cut leg for my dad from dishes left in the hall.) We were pretty impressed with the size of the medical center and how helpful they were. It was certainly not a full hospital, but it felt much better equipped than what you describe and I am curious if the difference is the line, the ship size...

Fair point. We were on the Fathom Adonia (now the Azamara Pursuit), the ninth sailing after the embargo was lifted. About 700 passengers total. The care my dad received was top notch, and the doctor was excellent. She did an EKG and a few other diagnostics, and did a wonderful job of getting him healthy enough to both enjoy the ship for the remainder of the cruise (couldn't go ashore at the last port though, he had a fever and Cuban ports were doing temp checks even back in 2016) and get home safely. Side note: someone we were friendly with on the ship had gotten a cut earlier in the cruise that had gotten infected, and we were good-naturedly ribbing him about walking around with an IV port in his arm. So you can imagine how hard he laughed when Dad showed up with a matching port a few days later.

I can definitely see how a bigger ship would have a proportionately bigger medical center, but even so, I can't imagine how they would cope with both a Covid outbreak and regular medical emergencies.

 

[TestingH2O]

but even so, I can't imagine how they would cope with both a Covid outbreak and regular medical emergencies

Exactly. Cruising is so wonderful and I can’t wait to go back, but there are realities that cruisers have to consider that a land vacationer does not. Access to medical care is definitely one of those things.

 

[tvguy]

This is not new news, and is the same info published days ago. They are restarting the entire fleet but it is all staggered. They cant crew up the whole fleet that fast. By the end of August, 12 ships will be sailing.

Look at NCL...they said all along they are going the full vax route and some of their ships wont start until next year. They can't get crew fast enough

It was announced yesterday. It may have been a rumor, but the announcement didn't come until yesterday. But I agree, it is mind boggling to me how may things have to come together perfectly for this to work. Crew. Passengers. Suppliers. Ports. Excursion Operators, all have to come together

 

[nancipants]

Exactly. Cruising is so wonderful and I can’t wait to go back, but there are realities that cruisers have to consider that a land vacationer does not. Access to medical care is definitely one of those things.

Yes! Same reason why pregnant people past 24 weeks are not allowed to sail: there are not facilities to take care of a baby that premature.

 

[DCLMP]

Well, they had announced theyw ere starting out with 14 ships, now it is just three. So it is a pull back of major proportions.

14 worldwide. When I go to the website I still see four different ships sailing in July and more in August. Two in the U.S, one in Greece, and one in Asia. I'm not sure how accurate the cruise hive is.
The ships I see sailing per the website this Summer are Odyssey, Freedom, voyager, Jewel, Adventure, Mariner and Serenade. Not 14, but not three either.

 

[DCLMP]

Exactly. Cruising is so wonderful and I can’t wait to go back, but there are realities that cruisers have to consider that a land vacationer does not. Access to medical care is definitely one of those things.

I've been on a lot of cruises where I've looked at somebody and thought they were brave to get on a ship. People cruise with all kinds of co-morbidity's and pre-existing conditions. People do die on ships and medical emergencies are not uncommon. Everyone knows the risks when they get on a ship.

 

[jrapps]

It was announced yesterday. It may have been a rumor, but the announcement didn't come until yesterday. But I agree, it is mind boggling to me how may things have to come together perfectly for this to work. Crew. Passengers. Suppliers. Ports. Excursion Operators, all have to come together

Well it was 2 days ago (Friday), but that's just splitting hairs.

They announced the following US restarts:

• Freedom of the Seas from Miami Florida, beginning July 2, 2021
• Odyssey of the Seas from Ft Lauderdale, debuting July 3, 2021
• Serenade of the Seas from Seattle, starting July 19
• Allure of the Seas from Port Canaveral, Florida, starting August 8, 2021
• Ovation of the Seas from Seattle, starting Aug. 13
• Symphony of the Seas from Miami starting August 14, 2021
• Independence of the Seas from Galveston, starting August 15, 2021
• Mariner of the Seas from Port Canaveral starting August 23, 2021

Outside US

• Harmony of the Seas from Barcelona and Rome, starting August 15, 2021

 

[JLTraveling]

I've been on a lot of cruises where I've looked at somebody and thought they were brave to get on a ship. People cruise with all kinds of co-morbidity's and pre-existing conditions. People do die on ships and medical emergencies are not uncommon. Everyone knows the risks when they get on a ship.

Right. But normally they can assume that at worst, there might be a norovirus outbreak on the ship. Which doesn't deny them access to shipboard medical facilities and/or airlifting to a nearby hospital. What happens if, god forbid, somebody has a heart attack on a ship filled with Covid patients? Normally heart attacks are airlifted to the closest major medical facility. But would the country where the hospital was located allow the airlift, even if the heart attack patient tested negative or was fully vaxxed? It's one thing to accept the normal risks of cruising. It's quite another to accept the risks of something going wrong in the middle of a Covid outbreak. Forget co-morbidities and pre-existing conditions for a minute. What if you're a perfectly healthy, fully vaccinated 25 year old and you trip on the stairs and break your leg? Want to risk being denied having it set in a hospital because there's a Covid outbreak on your ship?

 

[mevelandry]

Well that article makes it sound like there will be 2 “classes” of passengers. Unvaccinated will have to undergo testing and follow other covid safety measures. How in the world do they expect to administer that? And when do they plan to tell these unvaccinated passengers what the protocols will be? “At a later date” isn’t helpful for planning. Seems like setting themselves up for having to cancel cruises due to exceeding the threadhold for covid cases.

Agreed. This is pretty much my understanding of the situation and I wonder how they are going to implement that... And curious to see if there will be any outbreaks.

 

[mevelandry]

I just don’t want to wear masks. All vaccinated in our family. If vaccines are not required we are done for now.

Same. I have booked a balcony cabin just in case and we are currently looking at our options (if masks are mandatory in public areas on board but not outside, we will do more excursions.)

 

[DCLMP]

Right. But normally they can assume that at worst, there might be a norovirus outbreak on the ship. Which doesn't deny them access to shipboard medical facilities and/or airlifting to a nearby hospital. What happens if, god forbid, somebody has a heart attack on a ship filled with Covid patients? Normally heart attacks are airlifted to the closest major medical facility. But would the country where the hospital was located allow the airlift, even if the heart attack patient tested negative or was fully vaxxed? It's one thing to accept the normal risks of cruising. It's quite another to accept the risks of something going wrong in the middle of a Covid outbreak. Forget co-morbidities and pre-existing conditions for a minute. What if you're a perfectly healthy, fully vaccinated 25 year old and you trip on the stairs and break your leg? Want to risk being denied having it set in a hospital because there's a Covid outbreak on your ship?

Yeah and what if we get hit by a rogue wave? In all seriousness that's a lot of hypotheticals and what if's. You do realize unvaxxed cruises have been happening for months in other parts of the world without any major incidents. To your other point, this isn't March of 2020. Hospitals all are over the world are well adjusted to having covid patients and know how to treat them.

 

[brentm77]

There's a big difference between 100% vulnerability to it and a 5% vulnerability to it, so no, the two groups should not be treated the same way in that regard.

Amazing that 5% is such a small number to you
Especially when the virus carries an over 99% survivability rate….so less than 1% are effected…

That equates to 0.2% which is much lower than the 5% originally cited by Pfizer and Moderna.

I am not entirely clear from the comments, but it sounds like there may be some misunderstanding of what 95% efficacy means. It does not mean 5% of a vaccinated group will be infected. It means that those who are vaccinated have a 95% reduction in risk. In the original Pfizer study, that equated to an infection rate of .04%. The infection rate will vary based on conditions (and variants). But, as overall case rates drop, so do the number of breakthrough cases. But even when case are high, those who are vaccinated have very low infection rates, and if they do get infected, the odds of getting seriously ill or hospitalized are ridiculously low.

The above is one of the reasons I will probably choose not to cruise on a non-fully-vaccinated cruise for awhile. While I would perfectly comfortable with my own risk level as a vaccinated passenger, I would not feel comfortable that ships can avoid ship-wide outbreaks from time to time, bringing the cruise to an end. I would be really frustrated to use a week of vacation time and effort to only get part of my cruise because an outbreak occurred. The odds of a ship-wide outbreak on a fully vaccinated cruise is much much smaller. When you have all cruisers and passengers vaccinated, even if one or two people get infected, odds are that the virus won't spread on the ship.

My opinion may change once cruising resumes in the U.S. and I see what happens on non-vaccinated ships. It is possible that enough of the general population will be vaccinated, plus natural immunity, to reduce the risk of ship-wide outbreaks. But time will tell. I also won't cruise until some of the precautions are reduced or gone, like masks when you are sitting on an open deck in the hot son. Those restrictions will be harder to lift without mostly vaccinated passengers. For now, we are enjoying incredible land-based experiences, like seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time, and enjoying nice hotels on a beach. I am excited to cruise again (have two booked for next year), but the conditions must be right too.

I understand the varying opinions on this. I understand some lines have been cruising internationally without requiring vaccination with a pretty good (not perfect) track record. For me, it is just about the odds. And the odds would be ridiculously better of avoiding a large outbreak if everyone was vaccinated. If lines choose not to do that, I am not going to throw a fit because they didn't do it the way I thought they should. Instead, I will just choose alternatives until I see how it plays out.

 

[sugliac]

I am not particularly interested in getting bogged down in vaccine efficacy and those conversations about the "science". Rather, am I correct in my assumption that some of RC's cruises still require vaccines? Could be wrong here.

 

[DCLMP]

I am not particularly interested in getting bogged down in vaccine efficacy and those conversations about the "science". Rather, am I correct in my assumption that some of RC's cruises still require vaccines? Could be wrong here.

I believe only cruises in Florida and Texas won't require vaccines. Other cruise lines have apparently decided to start with vaccines and just pay the fine.

 

[DCLMP]

Carnival is requiring vaccines in July out of Galveston. News on August will come later. They'll announce protocols for Miami by Friday. My guess is vaccines won't be required out of Miami because of the fine or maybe they'll require them the first couple of cruises and just pay it.

 

[KathyTX]

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