Can the Cruise Industry survive ?

[Woodland Hills]

Coming to the US because they sail from the US and have more people from the US aboard than any other country with Canada second. Port Everglades is their primary port and it was the destination of the cruise.

The Zaandam sailed from Chile. On March 7, long after the entire world had been watching the Diamond Princess disaster. They knew the risk they were taking, bet it would not happen to them and lost.

Why don’t they go to Norfolk and check into Walter Reed? Why do the people of Ft Lauderdale have to die to keep these people alive when their own irresponsibility is to blame?

 

[Donsan]

Marine Traffic is showing both the Zaandam and Rotterdam about 12 miles off the coast of Fort Lauderdale seemingly moving in a circle at about 8 knots. I assume the USCG has directed them to stay outside US waters until the Unified Command approves Holland America's plan. Anyone hearing something different?

 

[OldDan1943]

I think the solution going forward is quite simple. Foreign flagged vessels carrying more than 100 passengers will need to carry insurance for passenger health just as they must for hull liability. Million dollars per passenger, no self insuring, sounds about right.

Ted

Diver, that will be a pass through cost resulting in an increase in ticket prices.

 

[BandB]

Marine Traffic is showing both the Zaandam and Rotterdam about 12 miles off the coast of Fort Lauderdale seemingly moving in a circle at about 8 knots. I assume the USCG has directed them to stay outside US waters until the Unified Command approves Holland America's plan. Anyone hearing something different?

From a Broward Commissioner

Unified Command conferenced last night and reached cond. approval of Carnival’s Plan, subject to approval between Broward and Carnival. Final document will be released this morning. As of now, ships remain outside US Waters. Look forward to seeing a SAFE plan for all to resolve.

Udine released a lengthy statement later in the morning, saying Port Everglades has become the ships’ only option as they passed 14 countries along the way to the U.S., all of which denied the passengers and crew members medical treatment.

“I held firm with the cruise company, suggesting they find a naval base, find a port outside the ‘hot zone,’ use their private island to triage or use the arena in Miami as a field hospital and many others,” Udine said. “ALL of these plans were rejected by all, and the federal government did not assist with a plan.”

Udine said Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony and the U.S. Coast Guard are now putting operation plans in place for Carnival’s entry plan.

“Carnival will be providing legal assurance for the transport of many out of the area and many other safeguards,” he said. “Many crew and others will stay on ship. Critically ill people will be hospitalized. All of this will be at the expense of Carnival.”

 

[O C Diver]

Diver, that will be a pass through cost resulting in an increase in ticket prices.

And the problem with that is what? Do you think their hull liability insurance isn't a pass through? Requiring the insurance would require an insurance carrier to evacuate the risks and require changes to make things safer. IMO, the cruise industry has a financial obligation to absorb all costs incurred by ports that have to deal with sick or stranded passengers of these ships.

Ted

 

[O C Diver]

Does anyone have information on the other cruise ships? Florida's governor indicated at one of his press conferences this morning, that the ships coming in, have Americans onboard, and some other ships without Americans, were not being allowed in.

Does anyone have information on the number of ships and where they are?

Ted

 

[OldDan1943]

And the problem with that is what? Do you think their hull liability insurance isn't a pass through? Requiring the insurance would require an insurance carrier to evacuate the risks and require changes to make things safer. IMO, the cruise industry has a financial obligation to absorb all costs incurred by ports that have to deal with sick or stranded passengers of these ships.

Ted

I was merely pointing it out.
If requirement is passed, of course it wont hurt the cruise line.
IF the net price - all the pass throughs = x, then when the users drop off enough to effect profit, the investors will withdraw their investment for other opportunities. That is the point where the cruise industry will be hurt.
Just keep raising the price until it has an effect on the number of passengers.
This may result in the cruise industry abandoning the mega ships and return to the smaller ships.

I have not any of the Disney ships being involved in this crap. I wonder why?

 

[Donsan]

I have not any of the Disney ships being involved in this crap. I wonder why?

I believe the Disney ships are all associated with Cape Canaveral. There are usually a couple of them anchored off the port. Their cruises are of much shorter duration and have ceased. Disney has a limited fleet.

 

[BruceK]

We are hearing the Australians onboard, if well, will be flown by charter flight to LA and back to Australia, as soon as this weekend.
Meanwhile, it seems the cruise ships off Sydney, occasionally allowed to dock for fuel etc, will leave this weekend. Those onboard, believed to be crew only, on some or all ships will receive health checks as indicated. I`ll believe they are leaving when they have left.An Inquiry will be held into the Ruby Princess and its 2.29am fast disembarkation. Suggestion is the cruise ships(?shits) have been less than fulsome with the truth. Well I never!

 

[Group9]

My wife and I had been discussing the last few months, how it would be fun to go on a cruise. I don't ever see that happening at this point.

 

[firehoser75]

Even if someone would want to go on a cruise, I would suggest (from personal experience) do not book ahead!! We booked a cruise in early December 2019 that is scheduled to leave from San Juan in November of 2020, so the booking was before there was any knowledge of this virus. We tried to cancel it in early March. We were told by Royal Caribbean that we would only be given a partial refund, and that all of the "refund" would be held by them as a "future credit". When we complained about this and stated that we had cruised with them many times before and never experienced this, they told us that their policy had changed about 1 year ago, and that it was up to us to read all of the fine print which stated we had 24 hours from booking to cancel for a full refund.
For that alone, NEVER AGAIN, but Covid really changed the game!

 

[Art]

My wife and I had been discussing the last few months, how it would be fun to go on a cruise. I don't ever see that happening at this point.

My wife's previously consistent "we should" has become "we'll never"...

Whew... that's only relatively good thing because of this pandemic. I never wanted to get sardine canned alongside thousands of people inside a city sized floating tub!

"Elbow Room" - Cried Danny Boon!!

 

[AdkChris]

Who would regulate the insurance company? The same people who regulate the cruise industry.
Give me a some incentive and a few days, I will setup an insurance company and start printing insurance certificates. The certificates will be worth just as much as the derivatives that insured the 2008 crisis.

 

[O C Diver]

Does anyone have information on the other cruise ships? Florida's governor indicated at one of his press conferences this morning, that the ships coming in, have Americans onboard, and some other ships without Americans, were not being allowed in.

Does anyone have information on the number of ships and where they are?

Ted

Apparently there is another ship coming with Covid19 patients. I believe it's the Coral Princess. How many more?

Ted

 

[O C Diver]

Who would regulate the insurance company? The same people who regulate the cruise industry.
Give me a some incentive and a few days, I will setup an insurance company and start printing insurance certificates. The certificates will be worth just as much as the derivatives that insured the 2008 crisis.

I would imagine countries would require reputable companies such as required for their hull and liability insurance.

Ted

 

[slowgoesit]

From a Broward Commissioner

Unified Command conferenced last night and reached cond. approval of Carnival’s Plan, subject to approval between Broward and Carnival. Final document will be released this morning. As of now, ships remain outside US Waters. Look forward to seeing a SAFE plan for all to resolve.

Udine released a lengthy statement later in the morning, saying Port Everglades has become the ships’ only option as they passed 14 countries along the way to the U.S., all of which denied the passengers and crew members medical treatment.

“I held firm with the cruise company, suggesting they find a naval base, find a port outside the ‘hot zone,’ use their private island to triage or use the arena in Miami as a field hospital and many others,” Udine said. “ALL of these plans were rejected by all, and the federal government did not assist with a plan.”

Udine said Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony and the U.S. Coast Guard are now putting operation plans in place for Carnival’s entry plan.

“Carnival will be providing legal assurance for the transport of many out of the area and many other safeguards,” he said. “Many crew and others will stay on ship. Critically ill people will be hospitalized. All of this will be at the expense of Carnival.”

B & B: I'll believe the red above, when they post evidence of a surety bond taken out by Carnival, with the port as beneficiary in the event of default on paying expenses incurred. . .

 

[BruceK]

Princess seems overly represented in this context.
Despite trying to corral us into a 125% future credit, we opted for the refund option from Celebrity after they cancelled our Celebrity Solstice cruise to Hawaii. I`ll believe it when it hits my account. I think Solstice will leave Sydney waters this weekend perhaps for it`s hailing port, which might be a novel experience for ship and crew.
Anyone booking a cruise now deserves the Nobel/Candide/King Canute Prize for Optimism.

 

[slowgoesit]

Princess seems overly represented in this context.
Despite trying to corral us into a 125% future credit, we opted for the refund option from Celebrity after they cancelled our Celebrity Solstice cruise to Hawaii. I`ll believe it when it hits my account. I think Solstice will leave Sydney waters this weekend perhaps for it`s hailing port, which might be a novel experience for ship and crew.
Anyone booking a cruise now deserves the Nobel/Candide/King Canute Prize for Optimism.

That 125% credit probably wouldn't be worth much . . .after the cruise lines go into bankruptcy, plus one individual who was purported to be a cruise line spokesperson was quoted as stating (I paraphrase).

"Cruises have been too inexpensive for many years now. Due to planned upgrades in sanitation and common areas on our ships to prevent another occurrence of the recent unpleasantness, passengers can expect an increase in ticket/cruise costs in the future."

"Unpleasantness?" Seriously? Wow . . .

 

[BruceK]

Apparently there is another ship coming with Covid19 patients. I believe it's the Coral Princess. How many more?

Ted

I believe it has 78 Australians and 18 New Zealanders onboard. Not sure but it may have docked in Fl. I don`t think it is as bad as some but who knows for sure.
5 cruise ships left Sydney after overnight refueling, provisioning, and swapping crew between ships under "Operation Nemesis" under Police direction and supervision. Safe journey and good health. Ruby Princess remains off Sydney getting medical assistance and testing. I feel for the crew,confronted with sickness, anxiety, knowing they are losing their jobs, money worries, and being far from home. I hope the industry has a plan for getting them home.
It`s a beautiful autumn morning in Sydney. Thoughts for the crew on Ruby P.

 

[SteveK]

Boggles the mind there are still people left aboard.
Thoughts for the crews as well who may do better if they did not have to cater to passengers.

 

[Insequent]

The Princess ships do appear to stand out.

The Ruby Princess, now off Sydney, is set to exceed the Diamond Princess's awful statistics in many ways. It is linked to 600 cases in passengers and of the 1100 crew 250 are waiting on test results. There are now 10 passenger deaths (Diamond -11) with I think to date 9 crew transported to on-shore medical facilities. Hopefully none of them die.

It all means that the Ruby Princess is responsible for more than 10% of covid-19 cases and just under 30% of deaths in Australia. It is also responsible for cases in New Zealand where a tour guide, inadvertently infected by passengers, subsequently infected a 70 yo relative who in turn infected at least 3 others in his aged care facility.

It was all very much avoidable. The Ruby Princess departed Sydney on 8 March, 8 hours late. Why late? Well, it had docked at 6am with 158 sick passengers. No doubt the Captain and medical staff regarded cleaning as needing to be done! But with that many sick passengers from the previous cruise, a proportion of crew would inevitably be sick as well. How could they not see that? Particularly in light of covid-19 news from around the world? Perhaps some 'intelligence' and guidance from Princess Cruise's/Carrnival management could have beeb provided? They had seen the situations unfold before on other Princess ships.

The Ruby's Captain, medical staff and at least one Carnival Executive made serious errors. They need to be held accountable. The latter has been reported as telling NSW authorities that although an ambulance was required for two passengers, it was not covid-related. That claim resulted in a ban on docking being reversed. One of the ambulance passengers subsequently died of covid-19.

At face value, Carnival (possibly incl Ruby's Captain) have been complicit in a callous and unconscionable ruse to dump passengers ashore ASAP so they quickly became someone else's problem. Based on experience with the Diamond Princess, had Carnival acted properly then passengers would have been tested, taken ashore in an orderly and controlled manner and isolated or quarantined. Instead they dispersed far and wide. For example, QF 7 from Sydney to Dallas (16 hr flight) on March 20 had 170 people who had come from the Ruby Princess on board, which horrified the Qantas Captain and crew midway through the flight. That is in addition to spreading to every State in Australia.

The Grand Princess incident in San Francisco seems to be very similar. Dump some sick people ashore then load up for another cruise. And then create a shipload of people who become sick.

By accounts of the Ruby Princess passengers, they are quite nice ships. To bad that Carnival and at least some of its Captains, and at least some of the Ships Officers, are proving to be persons unfit to operate them. And as noted by others, pity the poor crew.

Five ships have now left Sydney after 'encouragement' from the police. Four of them, xxxx Of The Seas, were shuffling crew around. A crew member posted online that the intent was to get the crew home or close to home, so the ships were all heading in different directions to do that. But as this crew member said: "I am from Italy, but live in New York. For me it is best to stay on the ship in a tiny cabin, without pay, than go to either of those places right now."

Cruise ships are easy to kick right now, but when they exacerbate the problems out of self-interest or ignorance then they deserve to be kicked.

Post Script:
A criminal investigation into what has been termed 'the Ruby Princess debacle' has just been announced. Police stated that there are discrepancies in information provided by Carnival regarding covid-19 cases on board. Apparently Carnival has indicated that it will co-operate with the investigation.

 

[BruceK]

We were on Ruby Princess last November. It seemed hard to be anywhere there were not a lot of people. Not our experience on Norwegian or Holland America. Otherwise a good experience, but it could be indicative.
An inquiry is a good idea for the future, if cruise ships have one. Knowing what went wrong will not change the consequences we have to experience; getting testy with each other won`t help. Even the HSU (Health Services Union) disagreed with a call from a union aligned political party to sack the Health Minister.
That said, passengers from RubyP are dying in disturbing numbers, raising the Australian death toll to 35.


11 of 35 deaths in Australia come from Ruby Princess. Almost a third!


Carnival has as much to fear from civil claims as criminal investigations, judged of course by civil standard (balance of probabilities) vs criminal standard(beyond reasonable doubt)

 

[O C Diver]

Clearly an industry in substantial need of government oversight and regulation. Hope the Australian courts and next of kin hold them to account.

Ted

 

[Donsan]

This YouTube video by CNBC discusses the resiliency of the cruise line industry and how it has bounced back in the past. The US $2.2T bailout excludes the cruise line industry due to their being incorporated outside the US and the crews are mostly foreign nationals. They pay very little, if any, taxes to the US government. Carnival is seeking to raise $6B through issuance of new debt and stock. I can't image who would invest even 6 cents on them.

 

[BandB]

They've done such an incredible job over the years of avoiding being held accountable. Likely will continue to try to do so. Who can really touch them? Is anyone brave enough to take over some ships and say we're going to flag and station them in a country that will require us to comply with extensive regulation and will hold us accountable although we will be charging double what has been charged in the past? Is the consumer wise enough to remember and to turn away from the cruise industry? Five years from now will anything have changed?

We, consumers, have gotten what we deserved in many areas of shopping by demanding low prices and by arguing against regulation.

 

[BruceK]

RubyP has berthed at Port Kembla, an industrial port south of Sydney, to facilitate transfers of the seriously ill to hospitals etc, for perhaps 10 days. Let`s separate the safety of the crew(well, most of them) from possible misconduct of the ship and or Carnival, for present purposes.
It may be difficult to manage but perhaps the so far not sick crew should come off and go into quarantine. I heard crews are using pax accommodation to self isolate but past experience suggests that is less effective than hoped.
Our Police say while they wanted the ships gone, having RubyP alongside will assist investigations, they expect to find a lot of evidence on board. A lot of CV onboard too, so take care.

 

[BruceK]

Ruby Princess photographed off the coast. South Head Cemetery in the foreground. Not very nice, but true.

 

[Andy G]

Anyone booking a cruise now deserves the Nobel/Candide/King Canute Prize for Optimism.

Perhaps a nomination for a future Darwin Award.

 

[BandB]

RubyP has berthed at Port Kembla, an industrial port south of Sydney, to facilitate transfers of the seriously ill to hospitals etc, for perhaps 10 days. Let`s separate the safety of the crew(well, most of them) from possible misconduct of the ship and or Carnival, for present purposes.
It may be difficult to manage but perhaps the so far not sick crew should come off and go into quarantine. I heard crews are using pax accommodation to self isolate but past experience suggests that is less effective than hoped.
Our Police say while they wanted the ships gone, having RubyP alongside will assist investigations, they expect to find a lot of evidence on board. A lot of CV onboard too, so take care.

That's partially similar to what we've been doing. First priority is getting the seriously ill to hospitals. Now, we've dealt with full ships and step two has been to bus and fly by charter those without symptoms home.

Now, I can't imagine the police spending much time on board. Hopefully, they have hazmat suits that will protect them.

 

[O C Diver]

There needs to be the movie.
Seems to me, with all the fascination for disaster films, some movie company should do another sequel to the Poseidon Adventure. Maybe The Cruise to Hell, or Cruise Covid19 BYOBB (Bring Your Own Body Bag).

Ted