Cruising choices with an active Pandemic

[Pushka]

Well the treatment of the pax disembarkation from the Ruby Princess was incompetent but the treatment of the crew by the same authorities is inhumane and cruel.

The Captain of the Ruby Princess must shoulder a good deal of the blame.He must have known that he should report if anyone on board had respiratory symptoms when he arrived in Sydney.

It's a human tragedy all round. Denials, lack of honesty, incompetence, mistreatment of crew - everyone shares responsibility here. Too many deaths as a result.

 

[Pushka]

Carnivals agreement to allow the HAL ships to disembark in Florida. An escrow of $1,000,000 required plus all costs.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/ips-cic-filestore/j283755/monthly_2020_04/Carnival-Complete-Agreement_pdf.ccaa07e1b8571b05217245a201211cd6?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAI3TJTOYHZJGUGHPA/20200404/us-east-1/s3/aws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20200404T023710Z&X-Amz-Expires=1200&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&response-content-disposition=attachment;%20filename*=UTF-8%27%27Carnival-Complete-Agreement.pdf&response-content-type=application/pdf;charset=UTF-8&X-Amz-Signature=cd48b9e84d41683b936f76863f0d2948ed05645600dbb8f3175867c3c045a11e

 

[PineappleSkip]

There is still a lot of noise coming out of NSW but of the ships just offshore I count 5 ships off South East Queensland, one heading for GLT, with 6 more off Sydney. Of the 6, two just sailed this morning. A couple of others look like they’re meeting vessels just off the heads, to take sick people off perhaps.
MarineVesselTraffic

The ‘go home’ noise coming from NSW Police about vessels that aren’t in territorial waters would be low farce in any other time. Mind you, the ‘Aw, we just check passports’ comments from ABF weren’t any better.

 

[get me outta here]

On 7 News just now, there was a report of 2 pax taken off the Ruby P in the early morning with other health issues BUT, they both also had upper respiratory sickness too.

I'd like someone in authority (Harbour, Police, Ambulance, Princess Captain, NSW Health) to refute the story that a passenger was disembarked at 2.30am and sent immediately to hospital and who later died. If that did occur then everyone knew what was happening.

 

[Pushka]

There is still a lot of noise coming out of NSW but of the ships just offshore I count 5 ships off South East Queensland, one heading for GLT, with 6 more off Sydney. Of the 6, two just sailed this morning. A couple of others look like they’re meeting vessels just off the heads, to take sick people off perhaps.
MarineVesselTraffic

The ‘go home’ noise coming from NSW Police about vessels that aren’t in territorial waters would be low farce in any other time. Mind you, the ‘Aw, we just check passports’ comments from ABF weren’t any better.

They are shuffling crew now onto their various ships, reprovisioning them, then moving out. All except for Ruby. Another positive in SA today. That's 14 days!

 

[Princess Fiona]

I'd like someone in authority (Harbour, Police, Ambulance, Princess Captain, NSW Health) to refute the story that a passenger was disembarked at 2.30am and sent immediately to hospital and who later died. If that did occur then everyone knew what was happening.

You won’t get someone to do that.
It doesn’t mention the time of the passenger’s transport to hospital but they have confirmed it took place in a NSW Health Media Release.
Cruise Ship Passengers
Also confirmed the death of the passenger in another media release.

Covid 19 Statistics

 

[tgh]

Another day another Glacier….

 

[tgh]

Another crew member with COVID-19 evacuated off cruise ship as 93,000 crew remain at sea

Read more here:

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/co...2nHmSZQzNEepQdgsKHRvPsZE2sNsqWs#storylink=cpy

 

[Princess Fiona]

3 of the 4 deaths in NSW in the past 24 hours are Ruby Princess Passengers.

ABC NSW Coronavirus

 

[Pushka]

3 of the 4 deaths in NSW in the past 24 hours are Ruby Princess Passengers.

ABC NSW Coronavirus

That is just awful. I think that's 10 deaths now from this ship?

 

[moa999]

7 promising an expose tonight with a smoking gun letter. Obviously some stuffups around the disembarkation process - but subsequent spread in Australia is limited (11 cases according to News - Ruby Princess update)

Also looks like the ship has caused a 16 person cluster in Napier NZ where it visited briefly. A small number of sick passengers were actually tested there for Covid and came back negative.

Covid-19: 16 cases linked to Ruby Princess cruise ship

Cases linked to the Ruby Princess cruise ship in Hawke's Bay makes it one of ten clusters nationwide.

www.rnz.co.nz

But all the focus on the disembarkation is wrong. It wouldn't have stopped the now 600+ cases - they all caught it on board

The real problem was letting passengers board the cruise ship on 8 March in the first place
(Granted at that point Australia only had 80 cases and NSW 40)

 

[Princess Fiona]

7 promising an expose tonight with a smoking gun letter. Obviously some stuffups around the disembarkation process - but subsequent spread in Australia is limited (11 cases according to News - Ruby Princess update)

Also looks like the ship has caused a 16 person cluster in Napier NZ where it visited briefly. A small number of sick passengers were actually tested there for Covid and came back negative.

Covid-19: 16 cases linked to Ruby Princess cruise ship

Cases linked to the Ruby Princess cruise ship in Hawke's Bay makes it one of ten clusters nationwide.

www.rnz.co.nz

But all the focus on the disembarkation is wrong. It wouldn't have stopped the now 600+ cases - they all caught it on board

The real problem was letting passengers board the cruise ship on 8 March in the first place
(Granted at that point Australia only had 80 cases and NSW 40)

I think unfortunately the 11 cases spread by Ruby Princess will be NSW cases rather than Australia wide.
I hope I’m wrong

 

[Pushka]

7 promising an expose tonight with a smoking gun letter. Obviously some stuffups around the disembarkation process - but subsequent spread in Australia is limited (11 cases according to News - Ruby Princess update)

Also looks like the ship has caused a 16 person cluster in Napier NZ where it visited briefly. A small number of sick passengers were actually tested there for Covid and came back negative.

Covid-19: 16 cases linked to Ruby Princess cruise ship

Cases linked to the Ruby Princess cruise ship in Hawke's Bay makes it one of ten clusters nationwide.

www.rnz.co.nz

But all the focus on the disembarkation is wrong. It wouldn't have stopped the now 600+ cases - they all caught it on board

The real problem was letting passengers board the cruise ship on 8 March in the first place
(Granted at that point Australia only had 80 cases and NSW 40)

There were many Americans on that cruise. And many are sick as a result as they are posting on Cruise Critic and one poster whose husband is very unwell has tried to be tested but they keep being refused. They are self isolating. They live in NY. There are suggestions the virus was also onboard from the cruise before. Could then have been carried by crew. Their embarkation tests are useless against this virus.

There have been 80 positives from Ruby in SA. I don't think there has been any community spread from it.

 

[I love to travel]

You really have to wonder whether cruising will ever recover. It will be a very brave government that will be the first or second to put up their hand and say yes we will open our borders to you. Also for some people, even when COVID19 is gone, they will equate cruising with getting sick and possibly dying.

 

[p--and--t]

You really have to wonder whether cruising will ever recover. It will be a very brave government that will be the first or second to put up their hand and say yes we will open our borders to you. Also for some people, even when COVID19 is gone, they will equate cruising with getting sick and possibly dying.

I have 4 prepaid cruise deposits that I absolutely won't be using unless the ship has been modified with HEPA air-conditioning filters, introduced a whole lot more infection controls and a COVID-19 vaccine has been made available to the general public.

 

[Pushka]

You really have to wonder whether cruising will ever recover. It will be a very brave government that will be the first or second to put up their hand and say yes we will open our borders to you. Also for some people, even when COVID19 is gone, they will equate cruising with getting sick and possibly dying.

You'd think wouldn't you. But on Cruise Critic there are people asking about their June 2020 cruise through the Med. They clearly have no idea about anything.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

I have 4 prepaid cruise deposits that I absolutely won't be using unless the ship has been modified with HEPA air-conditioning filters, introduced a whole lot more infection controls

What you need to fear is not the ship's AC, but the practices of your fellow passengers and the ship's crew. HEPA filters will not assist you one iota in comparison to the threat from the people.

and a COVID-19 vaccine has been made available to the general public.

Agree, until a vaccine is widely deployed no leisure travel will resume. Just essential travel such as air and sea freight.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Note: Based on the evidence to date on CV19, rooms that have CV19 aersols such as hospital rooms where patients have invasive procedures such as intubation need special AC. Otherwise no. Hospitals that have to deal with many things on daily basis, and bot just the current threat of CV 19 will have differently designed AC.

 

[Pushka]

And annoyingly cruise lines will not cancel until they've grabbed your final payment. Celebrity will not cancel cruises more than 6 weeks out, well after you've handed them many thousands of dollars. My cruise is July 27 from Rome. Final payment is May 18. It won't get cancelled until early June. The cruise getting the ship from the US to Rome has just been canceled a couple of weeks ago, and that would have left in 2 weeks time. Refunds are taking weeks to get, they want you to take a voucher instead. Yeah Nah.

 

[tgh]

Silversea refunds are taking much longer and the possibility of RCI default looms large.
I have read that they have used up most of their recent borrowings.
I am still waiting for SS to cancel , rolling the dice…..