McHammer pants.
You know. In case your testicles swell up to the size of melons like Nicki Minaj's cousins friends fiance due to the vax.
Cruising constricted is a drag.
It points out the changed conditions problems on cruise ships from actual experiences.-Tom
McHammer pants.
You know. In case your testicles swell up to the size of melons like Nicki Minaj's cousins friends fiance due to the vax.
Cruising constricted is a drag.
Interesting.....
....would love to get away on one.......
......just get away....
“... one ship (Royal Caribbean’s Serenade of the Seas, sailing from Seattle to Alaska) where some of the key venues (including the ship’s pub, casino and wine bar) only were open to passengers vaccinated for COVID-19. You showed your vaccine card at the start of the cruise to get a wristband that got you into all of the areas.”
Hell, no.
Does not mention the food quality.
An important part of any cruise.
More power to those with the patience to put up with all that absolute crap.
Bookmark
Just returned from a Holland America cruise that traveled from Athens to Venice, with a stop in Dubrovnik, Croatia.
He’s correct about the pre-cruise stress - even though I am vaccinated, I was concerned about the Delta and figured worst-case-scenario would be to fly to Greece and test positive there. So I self-tested before leaving, and felt good to go with a negative test.
We were all tested before boarding in Athens, and had to wear face masks in public areas of the ship. That wasn’t nearly as onerous as having to wear a mask for all flights - from San Diego to Dulles to Athens, and then back from Venice to Dulles to San Diego.
Didn’t need any additional testing at any of the shore visits, and Holland America tested everyone before arriving in Venice and provided us with certified test results for the flight home.
The best part was that the ship was at about 35% capacity - so no crowds by the pool, no lines waiting to go ashore or return, and just a general feeling of space throughout the ship. LOTS of attention from the crew, who all seemed very happy to be back at sea. And Venice was wonderful, including St. Mark’s Square, which is “normally” a mob scene but was only pleasantly crowded this time.
The CDC’s travel advisory has Greece in the “Red Zone”, cautioning against travel there, but clearly most people aren’t listening. The United flight from Dulles to Athens was FULL (and a brand new, beautiful plane too.)
Thanks for posting this article. We’re keeping an eye on how things are going and would like to sail in 2022. Fingers crossed.
I'm a pilot for a cargo airline so I travel for a living. I've been traveling constantly for the duration of the pandemic and have seen all manner of lockdown, quarantines, and testing requirements out of countries all over the world. Most of them are arbitrary and unnecessary, all of them are a giant PITA. In most places in Asia I'm confined to my hotel room like a prisoner in solitary confinement. Some other places I have to wear a full containment suit to walk around the airplane, looking like a giant blimp. Still other places make you wear face shields and do dumb things like wrap your bags with plastic before you can take them off the airplane. The paperwork to go into most countries is beyond stupid (I guess paperwork cures Covid). In just about every case I'm treated like a criminal just for daring to fly an airplane into their country delivering things THEY need and taking their high dollar products out. It's long since gotten old being harassed for doing my job.
It's only when I get home to Florida that people act like normal human beings again, no showing your vaccine card, no stupid questionnaires, and no hassling about mask usage. The only way to get me away from Florida and into the insanity that is the rest of the world is to pay me to do it. I'd rather have my fingernails pulled out than go on a cruise right now and be constantly hassled with Covid restrictions. You quite literally couldn't pay me enough to go on a cruise now.
I love cruising. But it may be a decade before I will go again. If I ever do. Sad. So much stupidity in the world.
Informative post thanks you. Seems recreational travel is just not worth the hassle.
Thanks for posting.
It pretty much confirms what I had imagined it would be like to be a regular voyager on the seas.
While I have enjoyed my many cruises over the years, I think I will continue to wait it out until some sense of sanity returns in this world.
I have remarked that the world we are living in today is much like the 1930’s when countries were in the midst of threats of world wars. And then Germany and Japan ‘released the Kraken’.
Bookmarked
Can you recommend a river cruise?
How much are the cruise lines paying you to ensure this?
Interesting article. We’re not cruising yet. Hope things get better.
Thanks Capt. Tom.
Entropy, *PING* of likely interest to you.
Before Covid, I was a regular cruise columnist for the FoxNews.com website. I wrote over 110 articles for FoxNews and foxbusiness.com. I know Gene Sloan well (he once suggested I got him his job with USA Today). The circle of cruise journalists is a pretty small one and we have traveled on the same cruises probably a couple of dozen times.
Unfortunately, my journalistic outlets for cruise articles are not as avid as what Gene has found.
I also enjoy the cruise experience and have been on probably 200 of them (lost count). I even worked aboard ships in the 80s and 90s for almost 2 years.
In any case, it is sad but true that mostly for non-cruisers, cruise ships have a reputation for being breeding grounds for viruses. This is not a complete fallacy either, especially with some of the pre-COVID practices they used like buffets, arena shows, bars, and casinos.
The biggest challenge however is overcoming the memory of Diamond Princess which was one of the first COVID hotbeds in the world, sailing in Japan where the health minister made the mistake of forcing the ill to remain on the ship but not necessarily sequestered in their rooms. The C19 onboard spread far faster than any virus anyone had ever seen before and for a month it was in the news every day.
Honestly, if we had a vaccine that worked we all might be back to normal already, but the vaccines do not work, there are breakthrough cases, and those people are more likely to be asymptomatic carriers.
I miss cruise travel, but without the people watching and with even more red tape than ever, I fear it will be quite a while before the industry is back to normal - barring a miracle of course.
FYI: My name is Paul Motter and I was the editor of CruiseMates.com.
No business can survive with this cost to revenue ratio.
Enjoy it while you can, that cannot last.
bkmk