Can the Cruise Industry survive ?

[BruceK]

Originally Posted by O C Diver

So one has to wonder how many infected people boarded the ship. I'm not buying this was the fault of one person. So you then ask yourself, how people bought tickets, came down with covid (or may have suspected that they were contagious), and chose to go anyway (what's the policy if you have to cancel a couple of days before). While it might be easy to blame the crew (have to work), I think it may say a lot about a very very small percentage of the passengers.
Ted

To board Majestic Covid Princess, you had to take a RAT and photograph and submit the negative test result,to show you and mobile phone displaying time and date. Test had to be <24hrs before boarding. An alternative Laboratory PCR test had to be <3days old. RAT is of course open to abuse. We detected "coughing" on day 1. We heard of someone with a terrible headache who believed it was Covid, and had no intention of reporting it to avoid being "confined to cabin".
Only safe course is not to go. I suggested that to boarding pax walking on, right beside infected pax incl us, just off, in the taxi pick up/drop area. Unsurprisingly they ignored my suggestion. They`ll find out the hard way.

[heysteve]

Five thousand guests and crew test negative and board the boat. The next day fifty test positive as the virus emerges. That's not an easy problem to solve without draconian measures.

[guy with a boat]

Originally Posted by Benthic2

As for fire safety codes, there is a huge amount of attention paid to fire safety. You say that ships wouldn't meet building codes, but remember those codes are not for all metal structures with flame resistant materials, hourly fire inspections, a robust sprinkler system and a dozen trained firefighters, rescue personal and a medical staff within 800 feet. Before the pandemic 30 million people cruised per year and I honestly can't remember the last fatal fire on a ship. There are lots of reasons not to take a cruise, but concern for fire safety should not be one of them.

I know cruising isn't for everyone, but I have talked to more first time cruisers than you can imagine and for every "I'll never do that again", there were 100 "I had so much fun" responses.

You make some good points, and your description of safety measures is somewhat reassuring. I agree that fire problems on cruise ships has been very rare and I hope that continues in the future.

My observation was specifically about narrow passageways and minimal exits. A quick exit from the cabins for large numbers of people would be extremely difficult. We did an Alaska cruise (pre covid, on Holland America) and it was one of the first things I noticed. Then the last night on the ship, they had everyone leave their luggage outside the cabin doors so the crew could have it ready to offload in the morning. The result was that the already narrow passageways were further restricted and mass emergency exiting would have been literally impossible. It was frightening to me and one of a few reasons that we likely won’t do another cruise on a full-size ship.

Cruises work for many and I see the appeal. It can be a very cost effective way to see some great places and be entertained in many ways. It can be excellent for multiple generations traveling together. The food can be very good and the options for dining, entertainment and experiences are almost unlimited. But like many things, its not for everyone.

[BruceK]

I received an SMS from what purports to be a Medical Practitioner using a 3 letter acronym and no sender number, claiming an association with State Medical Covid program and Princess, telling me to expect a Telehealth call before 10pm(Covid patients tire and retire early) and to have my Medicare card handy.
A major medical insurer here just got hacked by Russian based hacker/blackmailers demanding a 10M ransom and is now posting embarrassing personal medical info on the dark web. I`m sceptical,and Medicare numbers are an accepted identifier.

A little cynical about Princess too. Maybe they sold my info to some medico to make $ out of a phone consultation, at after hours/weekend rates too.
Having already consulted my GP by phone, I`ll pass.

[markpierce]

You are all scaredy cats. Tomorrow I'm leaving on a western Mexico cruise, third time since 2020. Don't expect to leave the boat since I've done the cruise six, seven, or is it eight times. The destination is the ship. Cooks provide food, stewards make the beds and clean toilets, and all that other good stuff.

[BruceK]

Originally Posted by markpierce

You are all scaredy cats. Tomorrow I'm leaving on a western Mexico cruise, third time since 2020. Don't expect to leave the boat since I've done the cruise six, seven, or is it eight times. The destination is the ship. Cooks provide food, stewards make the beds and clean toilets, and all that other good stuff.

May it goes well. Imho the danger is on the ship, not the shore.

Had it already? Then you know what to expect. Age bracket? Older implies vulnerability to serious illness. We watched 2 intubated patients taken off.

Even you mask, take every care, shots up to date, you can,like us, get sick.

[Hippocampus]

Still don’t think the only disincentive to boarding a cruise ship is infectious disease. Agree with the sentiment it’s the voyage not the destination. When I was working I’d occasionally sail my boat east for a day. When west for a day. Enjoyed working the boat on my own out in the sea. Cruise ships are so large and such a contained environment there’s little or no awareness you’re at sea. And such an orchestrated interaction with the destinations you might as well sat at home and viewed it on VR. One may marvel at the engineering and mastery of crowd psychology involved or reject that as intrusive. Some may reject the profound negative impacts the industry has on the local populations that are visited or those environments. But I don’t think infectious disease with result in the demise of the industry but rather demographic shifts in how people wish to spend their vacation time.
Had a interesting conversation with Foxy at the time they were putting in the new cruise ship docks in the BVIs. What I abstracted was surprisingly that industry results in few jobs for the local population except for cab and van drivers. Although the upper echelon of the island may get money the general population gets only crumbs. Restaurants/bars see very little increase as that population returns to the ship to eat or drink. Tours to various attractions are prearranged with the ship long before arrival. Often done with ship personnel and/or with a selected few vendors shutting out the independents. Employment of locals is surprisingly low and given the unbalanced relationship of a large international company against the single local person supplying labor the laborer is in a unenviable position.
Resorts do employ locals labor. Some at all levels including management. Cruisers are even better as they bring dollars into the country and support all aspects of the society. Not just boat repair, maintenance and dockage but local supermarkets, bars, restaurants, hardware stores, laundries, fuel/propane, car rentals or locally operated tours. A cruise ship is self contained in all aspects for all activities of daily living. A resort is self contained but only by using local labor. A cruiser isn’t but rather has to integrate into that local environment to meet their needs.

[smitty477]

Originally Posted by BruceK

May it goes well. Imho the danger is on the ship, not the shore.

Had it already? Then you know what to expect. Age bracket? Older implies vulnerability to serious illness. We watched 2 intubated patients taken off.

Even you mask, take every care, shots up to date, you can,like us, get sick.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/austr...hnk/index.html


"After mass testing 3,300 passengers, around 800 tested positive for Covid-19, as did a small number of crew, Fitzgerald said.

“All positive cases were mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic, and those guests isolated in their staterooms and then separated from non-impacted guests,” parent company Princess Cruises representative Briana Latter told CNN."

[Benthic2]

"Danger, Will Robinson..."

If we get into name calling, seriousness of Covid, or necessity of prevention measures, we will quickly devolve into politics and get shut down. Let's give the moderators a break and police ourselves.

Just don't go there.

[BruceK]

Originally Posted by smitty477

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/austr...hnk/index.html


"After mass testing 3,300 passengers, around 800 tested positive for Covid-19, as did a small number of crew, Fitzgerald said.

“All positive cases were mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic, and those guests isolated in their staterooms and then separated from non-impacted guests,” parent company Princess Cruises representative Briana Latter told CNN."

Not confident about "mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic". We saw 2 paramedic crews take their ambulance trolleys equipped with intubation equipment into the ship, each emerging about an hour later with patient. It takes paramedics 1/2-1 hour to reintubate for transport to Hospital.

[Pete Meisinger]

Before I retired I did literally thousands of Covid tests. At that time it took 24 hours for the tests to be resulted. Patients often asked "So if I am negative I am good to go?"
I had to tell them that "NO, all a negative test means is that at the exact snapshot in time you had the test done you were negative" The minute you left my office everything could have changed.

pete

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Study hard! Pass those tests!

[Simi 60]

And in Australia and a lot of the world we are apparently shit out of luck if wanting to get into hospital in any sort of reasonable time frame
Seems to have only happened over the last couple of years
I wonder what happened?

Dirt people in denial?

We still mask up if going ashore
Time our trips for when most are still at home
Treat every unknown like a plague carrier
Haven't had a sniffle in 6 years and plan on keeping it that way

[smitty477]

Originally Posted by BruceK

Not confident about "mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic". We saw 2 paramedic crews take their ambulance trolleys equipped with intubation equipment into the ship, each emerging about an hour later with patient. It takes paramedics 1/2-1 hour to reintubate for transport to Hospital.

I have no idea what may or may not have happened just sharing some article on the subject. Perhaps there is more detailed information somewhere else that we all may find.
With that said and now open for conjecture there could have been others taken off the ship at previous points, or folks may have require intubation for any number of reasons other than covid. Given what we have seen here with covid if there are 800 people showing symptoms of covid over 5 days in an older trending population you would have many more intubations, 10-20X that level.

[Hippocampus]

S your prior post makes several unjustified assumptions.
Incidence of need for intubation depends upon a number of factors beyond just age. Age is just one variable in a number of risk factors. As you know these include co morbidities such as immune status, vaccination history, inter current cardiac or pulmonary disease, BMI, socioeconomic status etc.
I would suggest to you a population that’s sufficiently healthy to undertake a cruise may not have the same degree of co morbidities even if matched for age. I would also suggest a ambulatory population of any age able to walk on to a ship would have a very low frequency for the need for intubation in any reasonable time frame of weeks or even months.

[smitty477]

Originally Posted by Hippocampus

S your prior post makes several unjustified assumptions.
Incidence of need for intubation depends upon a number of factors beyond just age. Age is just one variable in a number of risk factors. As you know these include co morbidities such as immune status, vaccination history, inter current cardiac or pulmonary disease, BMI, socioeconomic status etc.
I would suggest to you a population that’s sufficiently healthy to undertake a cruise may not have the same degree of co morbidities even if matched for age. I would also suggest a ambulatory population of any age able to walk on to a ship would have a very low frequency for the need for intubation in any reasonable time frame of weeks or even months.

I am not sure if this is a response to my post or what exactly it says.
In any larger population there are numerous reasons for medical procedures.
Based on what I understand currently in Australia there are no requirements for isolation for a positive covid test and there minimal covid tests being performed. In spite of that data there is a rise in weekly positive tests in the population whether symptomatic or not.

[Benthic2]

In addition to Hippo's points, remember that all of these folks tested negatively before the cruise. I would guess that the time from infection to intubation is greater than the 7 days of a cruise.

[smitty477]

Originally Posted by Benthic2

In addition to Hippo's points, remember that all of these folks tested negatively before the cruise. I would guess that the time from infection to intubation is greater than the 7 days of a cruise.

My hope was that some folks would be able to provide some real facts about this cruise as I was only able to find the ones in the article linked above.
Since this did make the news feeds one would like to think that there was enough interest that one of us here on this site would find out more details eventually.
Back to unsupported drama - if folks on the cruise did take tests 2 days prior to departure then there would be plenty of time to require intervention for folks who became very ill.
I think there are much better questions out there:
- were most all of the folks on the cruise symptom free?
- were the folks intubated due to covid?
- how many folks were intubated in total and were other folks removed at any stopovers?
- was Australia's positive numbers for that week really 56,000+?
- how many folks did get tested to arrive at that weekly 56,000+ number?
- are most folks testing positive now symptom free in this area?

[Shrew]

Originally Posted by Pete Meisinger

(The last time I used the word "IDIOTS" on this forum the moderators gave me a warning)

Discussing moderation is also frowned upon.

[BruceK]

Originally Posted by smitty477

My hope was that some folks would be able to provide some real facts about this cruise as I was only able to find the ones in the article linked above.
Since this did make the news feeds one would like to think that there was enough interest that one of us here on this site would find out more details eventually.
Back to unsupported drama - if folks on the cruise did take tests 2 days prior to departure then there would be plenty of time to require intervention for folks who became very ill.
I think there are much better questions out there:
- were most all of the folks on the cruise symptom free?
- were the folks intubated due to covid?
- how many folks were intubated in total and were other folks removed at any stopovers?
- was Australia's positive numbers for that week really 56,000+?
- how many folks did get tested to arrive at that weekly 56,000+ number?
- are most folks testing positive now symptom free in this area?

I was there, I have Covid, and zero interest in responding to your strange interrogatories.