Up next in 10
In this big cruise update, I explore the unwelcome and unexpected fall-out from some big recent latest cruising news from the last week, especially what the situation is following the shock banning of cruise ships by Canada until 2022, what was so shocking in the Carnival Cruise Line return-to-cruise protocols that made them (and Seabourn too) pull them off their websites, and what Caribbean ports are proposing to get around the lack of progress or enthusiasm by the CDC in the USA
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0:00
there has been plenty of dramatic
0:02
fallout from the recent developments in
0:04
cruising
0:04
fallouts that will affect you and me as
0:07
travelers
0:08
and cruisers way more than we may have
0:11
first
0:11
thought join me as i explore four events
0:15
and the fallout that they have caused
0:17
and why they're important
0:19
let's talk about that canadian cruise
0:21
band and the fallout from that which is
0:23
rippling
0:24
way beyond the obvious where are we
0:27
are suggested workarounds like to get
0:29
anywhere
0:30
and why should you and i care even if we
0:33
don't have an alaska or canadian booking
0:36
for this year there are actually seven
0:39
things that you really do need to know
0:41
first of all the ban is on cruise ships
0:43
over 100 people
0:44
entering canadian waters and that also
0:47
does not allow ships of over 12
0:49
passengers to enter canadian arctic
0:51
waters until march
0:53
2022 secondly
0:56
any canada and new england cruises
0:58
simply cannot run
0:59
there is no option to get around this
1:01
and they will
1:02
be cancelled thirdly the great lake
1:06
cruises on ships like victory 1 victory
1:08
2
1:08
and ocean victory will also have to be
1:10
cancelled because they
1:12
fall foul of the rules fourthly
1:14
expedition cruisers
1:16
have already been cancelled adventure
1:18
canada that usually runs the
1:20
ocean endeavour in the canadian arctic
1:23
and greenland
1:24
they've already cancelled canadian
1:25
expedition cruises
1:27
fifthly on the positive side there will
1:29
actually be some cruising in alaska if
1:31
you really do want to cruise there
1:32
this year u.s owned built and registered
1:36
small ship lines can actually sail in
1:38
alaska and most of them
1:39
are aiming to start up when the season
1:41
opens in may
1:43
for example uncruised adventures they're
1:44
actually selling from may the 16th out
1:46
of juneau
1:47
lindblad expeditions the boat company
1:50
alaskan dream cruises and american
1:53
cruise lines
1:54
will all be able to sail in alaska this
1:56
year
1:57
they can do this as they carry less than
1:59
100 passengers
2:00
and they meet three rules of the us
2:04
passenger vehicle services act now this
2:06
is the act which
2:07
only allows u.s built u.s owned and u.s
2:10
flagships to sail between
2:12
u.s ports without calling on any foreign
2:15
port
2:16
they're also allowed to start sailing
2:18
while bigger cruise ships can't
2:19
because they carry less than 250
2:21
passengers
2:22
so they don't fall under the cdc rules
2:24
which currently prohibit
2:26
cruise ships from sailing the sick thing
2:29
to know is the larger cruise ships and
2:31
lines
2:32
are almost certainly not going to be
2:34
able to sail
2:35
as the three workarounds that are
2:37
proposed are
2:38
absolutely unlikely to succeed so what
2:41
are the options that are being touted
2:42
let's discuss those well
2:44
first of all technical stops in canadian
2:46
ports this is where no one gets off
2:48
but they call in to meet that
2:49
requirement of the passenger services
2:52
act this is just not an option the ban
2:55
is on
2:55
ships actually entering canadian waters
2:57
and they've been ruled out as an option
2:59
those technical
3:00
stops have been ruled out by canada the
3:03
other workaround was trying to get a
3:05
short-term exemption to
3:06
the passenger vehicle services act which
3:08
would then allow
3:09
foreign flagships to sell to alaska
3:11
using u.s port only
3:13
it's due to fail there's no precedence
3:15
in this over the 100 plus years of the
3:17
act
3:18
nor is there any political will despite
3:20
lobbying by three alaska senators
3:22
now even if cruise line executives of
3:24
the record
3:25
have agreed with this and clear the
3:27
cruise line association
3:28
also seem to have no optimism around
3:30
this really working now some people have
3:32
pointed to exceptions being made
3:34
in the past to allow delivery of
3:36
humanitarian aid to puerto rico and
3:38
mainland u.s after hurricanes however
3:41
this is not going to help because it's a
3:44
totally different act
3:45
the jones act of 1920 covers freight and
3:47
it doesn't cover cruise ships
3:49
and the exception was made to the jones
3:51
act it was made reluctantly by the
3:52
presidents at the time
3:53
it was very brief and for humanitarian
3:56
and life-saving reasons not
3:57
for basically vacations the other
4:00
workaround
4:00
is the same alaskan senators are lobbing
4:02
and absolutely placing hope as are the
4:04
cruise lines
4:05
that the ban says that if things improve
4:07
with the pandemic the ban
4:08
could be lifted and everyone sees this
4:11
as the greatest chance of salvaging
4:13
something of the season whilst it's
4:15
possible and the pandemic may improve
4:17
rapidly
4:18
the canadian british columbia government
4:20
where all the ports like vancouver
4:22
and victoria are based where the cruise
4:24
lines have to call on
4:25
they're actually pretty hostile to any
4:27
return this year so john hogan for
4:30
example
4:30
who's the premier of british columbia
4:32
where all those ports are he said he
4:34
absolutely prefers
4:35
to have no travelers coming into british
4:37
columbia until vaccines are readily
4:39
available
4:39
to all residents and this is just not
4:42
going to happen before the end of the
4:42
alaska season based on
4:44
current timing so the seventh thing you
4:46
need to know
4:47
is that holland america and princess
4:49
cruises because of the ban
4:51
plan to become land-based operators this
4:54
year
4:54
they've confirmed that they planning to
4:56
operate their alaska-based lodges or
4:58
certainly some of them so princess
4:59
cruises for example
5:00
has two denali lodges the westmark
5:04
fairbanks hotel and the canai princess
5:07
wilderness lodge and also both princess
5:09
and hot in america they have a railway
5:11
service
5:12
and bus services that move people to and
5:14
from and around alaska
5:16
and they plan to operate all of those so
5:19
bearing all this in mind why have the
5:20
lines not actually
5:21
cancelled anything and what should you
5:23
be doing now the lions
5:25
still have to work through all of these
5:27
issues that i've raised above
5:29
and finally draw up plans as they see
5:31
whether these things are possible
5:33
now once they decide to cancel they also
5:35
need to be
5:36
ready to process and manage what is
5:38
going to be an avalanche
5:40
of cancellations the workload is going
5:42
to be enormous
5:43
and of course they need time to get
5:44
ready for that so that's why i think we
5:46
also haven't seen
5:47
much movement so what should you do well
5:49
you could hold on tight
5:51
uh because when they cancel you're
5:52
likely to get options
5:54
like you know bonus future cruise credit
5:56
however
5:57
if your deposit is movable or your
5:59
booking is movable
6:00
it's worth looking and booking 2022 now
6:03
before
6:03
everyone starts rushing into 2022
6:07
now my cruise i'd actually already
6:09
shifted from 2021 into 2022.
6:12
there was a pretty dramatic and often
6:15
negative reaction
6:16
to the return to cruise protocols that
6:18
carnival cruzine
6:19
published on their website the fallout
6:23
was so big that they actually pulled
6:25
them off their website within a day
6:27
saying quickly that they had published
6:29
them too early and they were still
6:31
working progress and they'd publish them
6:32
again later the reaction of cruisers
6:35
online
6:35
was quite a surprise to me and it also
6:38
showed that the lions
6:39
should expect and will see a pretty big
6:43
negative reaction to these new protocols
6:45
even though
6:46
there is actually nothing in there that
6:48
should really have been a surprise
6:50
to anybody in fact the biggest surprise
6:52
to me
6:53
was that some of the cdc framework items
6:55
were actually
6:56
missing explicitly from them although
6:59
they were
7:00
alluded to now a number of viewers have
7:02
asked my take
7:03
as there were some key things and the
7:06
fallout in the discussion was pretty big
7:07
so what do
7:08
i think well first of all let's take a
7:10
look at what was expected and shouldn't
7:12
have created a fallout but did
7:14
the same protocols were there that we've
7:16
seen in europe and singapore so
7:18
reduced capacity specific arrival time
7:21
for check-in
7:22
marks wearing for everyone over two
7:23
years of age health screening before
7:25
boarding
7:26
frequent temperature checks limited
7:28
numbers in all venues at all times
7:30
including the pool
7:32
and requiring booking in most cases to
7:34
go to the venues no
7:36
self-service dining contact tracing on
7:38
board likely using one of those wearable
7:40
devices
7:41
no leaving the ship in port unless on an
7:43
approved cruise line only excursion so
7:45
those were all expected but still
7:46
created
7:47
a big reaction what was actually missing
7:50
well the explicit
7:51
cdc testing requirements weren't
7:53
entirely covered but were alluded to
7:56
so the carnival protocols they published
7:57
required guests at their own expense
8:00
to arrive at the port with a negative
8:02
pcr test taken between 5 and 24 hours
8:04
before arrival it did then speak about
8:07
additional testing
8:08
as required now the cdc in their
8:10
framework requires actual testing
8:13
before boarding portside and also before
8:15
disembarking
8:16
so this would actually mean that
8:18
cruisers are going to have three tests
8:20
through their vacation through this
8:21
whole process now this is not that
8:23
different
8:24
from what is in place in europe and asia
8:26
where you do have
8:27
multiple tests uh before often during
8:30
the cruise and at the end of the cruise
8:32
so what was actually new that
8:34
surprisingly didn't
8:35
create a huge fallout but i thought was
8:37
really interesting was
8:39
around when you will or will not receive
8:41
compensation refunds so if you arrive
8:43
at the port without a negative test
8:46
results you won't be allowed to board of
8:47
course
8:48
but importantly you will not get a
8:50
refund
8:51
if you break any of the rules including
8:54
for example while on the cruise line
8:55
excursions not wearing your masks
8:57
you will also be disembarked and you
8:59
will get no refund
9:01
if a port has to be dropped or changed
9:03
because the line
9:05
deems that cases are too high before
9:07
they arrive
9:08
and itinerary gets changed again you
9:09
will not get any compensation for port
9:12
changes you will get a future cruise
9:15
credit refund if you
9:16
or anyone in your party test positive in
9:19
that test before leaving for the port
9:21
at the port or for any reason you have
9:23
to isolate you will get
9:25
a full future cruise credit refund
9:28
so there was a really big and surprising
9:31
fallout from those protocols they kind
9:32
of withdrew them and i guess they're
9:34
just going to wait
9:34
until we get much closer to cruising and
9:36
then they just put it out there with all
9:37
the new cruises
9:39
there is no more progress towards the
9:41
return of cruising out of the united
9:42
states
9:43
and it has been confirmed by the cdc
9:46
that we should not be expecting
9:47
any more progress for quite some weeks
9:50
this of course not surprisingly has
9:51
caused
9:52
a whole lot of fallouts and there's four
9:53
that i really want to talk about
9:55
the cdc remains pretty reluctant to
9:57
provide more details or any
9:59
more details on timing for the cruise
10:01
lines to progress along
10:03
the next stages of the framework for
10:04
conditional sailing now in a statement
10:06
to the cruise critic site
10:08
a cdc spokesperson said and i'm going to
10:10
quote here
10:11
returning to passenger cruising is a
10:13
phased approach
10:14
and our current focus is on the
10:15
protection of crew and working with
10:18
cruise lines to implement
10:19
the initial phase requirements of
10:21
testing all crew
10:22
and developing onboard laboratory
10:25
capacity so just those
10:26
two areas and when they were pushed on
10:29
the next stage which includes test
10:31
cruises in the details
10:32
what they said and again i quote we
10:34
anticipate the next phase
10:36
of technical instructions to be released
10:39
in the next
10:40
few weeks now for lions to be able to
10:43
start selling in may
10:44
which is when most have cancelled until
10:47
test cruises would have to happen
10:49
in february and this does look unlikely
10:51
because they're not even going to get
10:52
the specifications
10:54
so as a result of all this we're seeing
10:55
those four big fallouts now
10:58
first of all as already discussed in
10:59
past updates we've seen some lines for
11:02
example norwegian
11:03
are already sending back crew that
11:05
they're brought back
11:06
to man ships when they thought return to
11:08
service was a little bit
11:10
closer secondly we've seen
11:13
ports starting to adjust their plans and
11:15
their budgets port canaveral
11:16
expects just three ships sailing in july
11:19
with a small increase month by month
11:21
after that so we're seeing big
11:23
adjustments there happening
11:25
the third big fallout is cruises are
11:27
pretty much giving up on 2021 especially
11:30
until the end of the year and are
11:32
increasingly booking further
11:34
and further out 22 and 23
11:38
are seeing the most booking action now
11:40
even for example oceania 2023 world
11:42
cruise
11:43
sold out within less than a day or two
11:45
of going on sale and that's 180 days
11:48
long so we're seeing
11:49
cruises basically giving up and looking
11:51
much further afield now fourthly
11:53
some places that rely on u.s cruising
11:56
are throwing kind of wild suggestions
11:58
about home porting in the caribbean for
11:59
example cozumel which is one of the
12:02
top five busiest cruise ports in the
12:04
world based on passengers passing
12:06
through
12:06
is trying to rally support of lines for
12:09
using it as an embarkation port however
12:11
despite the buzz it caused this is
12:14
really a non-starter because the
12:15
logistics and the infrastructure
12:17
for lions to use something like cozumel
12:18
as a homeport just
12:20
do not exist now they were talking about
12:23
looking at and trying to encourage
12:24
european lines to move there but that's
12:27
not like to come to something now
12:28
european lines do send ships to the
12:30
caribbean
12:31
they do home port there but mostly they
12:34
use barbados
12:35
it because it has structures it has
12:37
supply chains
12:38
and has really good air connectivity to
12:40
to actually make
12:41
home porting possible but there is this
12:43
whole fallout where people are trying to
12:45
find
12:45
ways around this slow pace in the u.s
12:49
there is some encouraging news though
12:50
for australians australia's minister for
12:52
tourism
12:53
dan tehan in a tv interview in the last
12:55
few days
12:56
of recording this has come out really
12:58
strongly in favor of a resumption of
13:00
domestic cruising
13:02
saying consumers in australia should
13:04
have no hesitation in making
13:06
bookings for cruises in the future
13:09
he said he feels that the protocols for
13:11
resumption of cruising are looking
13:13
pretty strong
13:14
feels that they are in a good place now
13:15
importantly nothing on timing was
13:18
mentioned by him
13:19
the ban on cruise ships in australian
13:20
waters expires on the 17th of march
13:22
but the minister of health sets that
13:25
date
13:26
so it's definitely something to watch as
13:27
it must be coming close
13:29
to australia making a decision on if
13:30
they're going to push that out but
13:31
certainly
13:32
some good news if you found this update
13:34
interesting why not
13:35
enjoy another one of my tips for
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13:39
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