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.
Thank you.
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.
I am one of the most injected and vaccinated people on the planet, but am right now at 86, and with plenty of comorbidities, unvaccinated, because I cannot find a vaccine or experimental drug that actually works against covid.
As far as the cruise lines making an economic recovery , I don't see it happening now, as the economic drain has gone on for too long, and the discrimination of vaxed and unvaxed will take a future economic toll, as will the covid prevention requirements aboard and ashore. -Tom