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CRUISE UPDATE : Latest On Setbacks, Cancellations, Resumptions & USA !
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Jan 28, 2025
In my 9th weekly cruise update, I review and discuss breaking cruise news and analyse what it means for you as a cruiser. In this cruise update I look at news like some hiccups and drama as Germany resumed big ship cruising, what the latest cruise resumption and cancellations tell us about where cruising is heading post Covid-19 shutdown and also some encouraging and positive news about cruising in and out of USA ports. Links mentioned in the video: EU Cruise Guidelines Video: https://youtu.be/yJ372hgC-_E CDC Cruise Objections Video: https://youtu.be/FUtdilcZyPE CDC Consultation: https://www.tipsfortravellers.com/CDC Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_qE-Obs2ocdmPXY0TIU-cw/join SUPPORT THE CHANNEL BY: Buying my Cruise T-shirts: http://bit.ly/TFTStore Gary Bembridge's Tips For Travellers aims to help you make more of your precious travel time and money on land and when cruising the oceans or rivers of the world. To help you, in every video I draw on my first-hand tips and advice from travelling every month for over 20 years and 77 cruises at time of making this video. Follow Tips For Travellers on: - Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/garybembridge - Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/tipsfortravellers - Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/garybembridge #CruiseUpdate #LatestCruiseNews #CruiseShutdown
View Video Transcript
0:00
you're about to find out what the latest
0:02
cruise news and updates mean for you
0:04
as a cruiser including some of the
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hiccups and drama around the startup of
0:08
mainstream cruising in
0:10
germany what's happening in the united
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states and how you can have a major
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influence
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over what happens to the future of
0:16
cruising plus
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some news on some brand new regions
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opening up to mainstream
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cruising this and much much more coming
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up right now in this
0:26
cruise update one of the biggest cruise
0:29
updates and news of the week
0:30
was what happened when mainstream
0:32
cruising started
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again in germany the royal caribbean
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owned mine
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shift line started sailing again and
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it's due to be quickly followed by aida
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from the carnival corporation and also
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hapag lloyd which is also owned by
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royal caribbean in a joint venture
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however things didn't go quite as
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smoothly as
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had been planned first of all one of the
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mine shift
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ships had to cancel their sailing
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because they couldn't get crew
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back fast enough to re-board and
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basically get the ship up and running
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this is going to be a challenge i think
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as you see cruising starting up again in
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greater numbers around the world just
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getting
1:09
crew back however there was a slightly
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more important
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and perhaps more dramatic incident when
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10 of the crew that were brought back to
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start up the aid operations
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tested positive for covert 19. on the
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plus side
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what aida argued and again eaters owned
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by the carnival corporation
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they point out that it did show the
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importance of their screening and how
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their screening
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is making sure that asymptomatic crew
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don't come on board
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however of course it did again raise the
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whole question around the role of
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testing particularly
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when bringing passengers on board
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because passengers weren't being tested
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before
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boarding they were just being going
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through temperature screening
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the second thing that we learned is
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although cruise lovers are
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adamant that there is a huge demand for
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cruising
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these cruises are not sailing full first
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of all because
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they have lower capacity as part of the
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agreement to start selling so they're
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actually
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only booking or making booking available
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for around 60
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capacity so the first mine shift ship
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sailing could
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normally take 2 900 passengers it was
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allowed to take 1
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600 however only 1 200 passengers
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actually booked a cruise
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and i think this is a big learning
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although there is a lot of
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hype and belief that there's a huge big
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pent-up demand for cruising
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it is probably going to take a while as
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these ships start selling on the plus
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side
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these ships are now sailing and of
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course learning can take place
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what does it mean for you as a cruiser
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well first of all it probably means that
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as these cruisers
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come back on stream after a long period
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of lockdown is everything is not going
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to go
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entirely smoothly and that's to be
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expected
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as new protocols come in place so you
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need to be a little bit flexible
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secondly as cruising comes back on the
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stream
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don't panic about the being availability
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because there is likely to be a
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reservation about
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going back cruising so the die hard
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cruisers are probably going to find
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as these cruisers come back on sale
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they'll get an opportunity to sell so
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don't panic too much
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about that the second really big bunch
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of news
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is cruising is increasingly looking like
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a
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regional activity for domestic travel
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for local residents of a particular
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country
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we're not seeing cruising opening up
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which is traveling between
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multiple countries so let's take a look
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at what's actually happening and was in
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the news to kind of reinforce that
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first of all another country in europe
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has just this week
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announced that it's opening to
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mainstream ocean cruising
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and that is greece now greece did have a
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couple of small lines like variety
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cruises
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which is a pretty small ship i think
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they only hold you know
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40 50 passengers but they're now opening
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two mainstream
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ships and they're allowing ships to sell
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around initially six
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key ports in greece and that includes
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the ports of perez which is athens
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rhodes heraklion volos catacolon and
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corfu and they do say that ultimately
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they will be opening tomorrow very
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importantly
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they are saying that cruises that sail
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around those
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ports need to follow the eu guidelines
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with their healthy gateways and the eu
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guidelines
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which are covered in another video do
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include things like low capacity
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uh restrictions on the amount of people
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that you have in any venues
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temperature checks screenings all those
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kind of things so you can watch that
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video if you want to find out more what
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those
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protocols are the greek cruises are
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going to be open to
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e eu passengers we're already seeing
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that happening across europe and a
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couple of other places so in norway
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you can go cruising initially only for
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norwegian and danish passengers there
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now
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as the eu board is open open to more eu
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passengers
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france is selling for french passengers
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initially around
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french ports as i mentioned earlier on
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germany you can now sail
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you can also sail around iceland if
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you're an eu
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resident we're also seeing very active
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negotiations for round the uk
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cruisers with hutu groton hoping to
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start selling in september
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but we've also seen for example princess
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cruises has
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announced a really big push in 2021 in
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around the uk
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cruises and they're selling them very
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aggressively at the moment to uk
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residents and they already did a season
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every year of round uk
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but they're really ramping that up for
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2021. we've also seen other cruise lines
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talking about looking at that so we're
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seeing more and more
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domestic cruisers for residents of that
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particular country so what's ironic
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about cruising is we're seeing that
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increasing become a domestic
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rather than an international experience
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as cruising reopens
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and all the news that's happening
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reinforces that so for example
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if we take a look at river cruising what
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we're seeing in europe
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is the river cruising lines that cater
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for either local residents or
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eu residents or the ones that have
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opened so across europe are sailing
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nico cruises is sailing arosa is
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sailing but what we're seeing is the
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river cruising lines that cater for a
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more international audience so those
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that rely
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a lot on particularly american
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passengers are
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holding back launching so scenic and
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emerald
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and avalon have all announced that they
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will not be cruising until november
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which is really the end
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of the river cruising season actually
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we're seeing other cruise lines like
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ammo waterways although they're only
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talking about sailing much later in the
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year
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have started doing some charter cruises
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which of a german-speaking
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cruisers only so we're seeing more
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evidence as the news comes out that
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again
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cruising is catering for a very domestic
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audience in the united states
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you can of course go cruising very soon
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on the
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u.s rivers if you're a u.s resident if
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you want to go
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ocean cruising in the united states you
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can do that by going up to alaska
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on uncruise where they have small ships
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they don't fall within the cdc
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no sale rules you do have to have a
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cover 90 test before entering
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alaska but you could go cruising there
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again
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it's a very domestic cruise for domestic
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passengers in asia we're seeing cruises
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opening for example in chile and taiwan
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with dream cruises
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selling for taiwanese passengers around
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the taiwanese islands and that just
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started
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this week but what we're seeing is those
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cruise lines that want to sail
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across multiple countries are not
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able to start up because of what's going
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on and the news we're seeing
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is actually pushing that further and
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further back so for example
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norwegian cruise lines announced that
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they're further cancelling
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right through now until november their
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cruisers princess cruises
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announced that they are cancelling all
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their cruises right through to the
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middle of december
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holland america even in january have
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cancelled now their world cruise party
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because they sold their ship
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that was going to do it but they're not
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replacing that with another ship saga
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cruises for example out of the uk they
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have cancelled
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their big exotic voyage which is going
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to head off around south america which
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is due to go
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in january 2021. so those cruises that
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sell from country to country
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are not happening and this is one of the
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big challenges if you're based in the
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united states
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because under u.s law any cruise ship
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setting of a u.s port has to visit a
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foreign port before it can come
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back into the united states so cruise
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lines in the u.s can't do for example
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around parts of the u.s itineraries or
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head out to the caribbean and back
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so this is a big big problem in terms of
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the way the cruising and the news that
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cruising is coming so i think we're
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going to keep seeing
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in the united states as we've seen this
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week more and more cruise lines pushing
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cruising further back this leads me to
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the third
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really big item of news and update and
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this is related to the cdc
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center for disease control and
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prevention who have
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big concerns about cruising i've done a
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separate video about what the cdc
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concerns however
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in the last couple of days there's been
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a big step forward where you have an
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opportunity to
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influence the thinking of the cdc they
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have started a consultation
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where they're asking views from the
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industry from agents
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from interested parties and from
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passengers about how cruising should
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start up in and out of the united states
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if you actually want to participate or
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find out more about the things that
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they're asking and consulting on
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you can find a link for that in the
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description and of course it's now
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coming up on
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screen the link for finding out more
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about that
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what sort of things are they consulting
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and they're consulting on everything
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from what the capacity on ships should
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be the role of testing
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both before boarding and on board for
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both passengers and
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crew they're talking about controls
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should there be controls
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on excursions should there be controls
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on the type of entertainment
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dining venues capacity in venues
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even right down to the length of cruises
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and
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all sorts of things around the whole
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protocols if there is an outbreak
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so again on the plus side the cdc for
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the very first time
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has started to look forward to the
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opening of cruising
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another really important aspect about
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that consultation though is
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they're asking for submissions to be
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submitted to basically about a week to
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10 days
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before the current no cell audit expires
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so this is a strong indicator of course
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that the no cell order is going to be
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extended because there's no way they're
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going to be able to get all that input
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all that consultation in digest it
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analyze it and have a view
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within about a week that this is going
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to happen so i think it's a really
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strong indication of course that they're
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gonna be pushing it out however
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if you want to have a say on how the
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united states
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starts up cruising again have your say
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directly into the cdc
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although mainstream cruising with those
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mainstream cruise lines
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is pretty much suspended around the
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world there is a lot of news and updates
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happening in the world of cruising
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what we're seeing is domestic cruising
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is starting up
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for local residents we're seeing
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of course inevitably various hiccups and
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starts and learnings
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as that starts up but another big key
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update is we're starting to see
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finally the cdc looking at how can more
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mainstream cruising start up
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in the united states hope you found this
10:42
update helpful every week i give you a
10:45
brand new update with
10:46
everything going on if you have any
10:47
questions comments i'd love to hear what
10:48
you have
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to say always a good discussion in the
10:51
comments as people comment
10:53
and have their thoughts so why don't you
10:54
leave your comments and thoughts now and
10:56
of course i have loads more videos
10:58
of updates advice and tips so why don't
11:00
you watch another one of those
11:01
right now
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