Who the fuck is going to take them up on this offer?
Carnival Cruise Line announced Monday it will start cruises again with a fraction of its fleet this summer.
The cruise company, one of the largest in the world, did not say what changes caused by the coronavirus pandemic will be in place or whether itineraries will be altered. Cruises are set to start Aug. 1 on eight ships sailing from ports in Miami, Central Florida’s Port Canaveral and Galveston, Tex.
“We are committed to supporting all public health efforts to manage the covid-19 situation,” the company said in a statement. “We are taking a measured approach, focusing our return to service on a select number of homeports where we have more significant operations that are easily accessible by car for the majority of our guests.”
(Emphasis mine.) The tacit acknowledgement that planes probably won’t be flying at the same time when they expect a bunch of suckers to board their flagship, the Carnival COVID-19, is hi-fucking-larious.
“Let’s pack up a car with Ma, Pa and the kids and get on one of these floating petri dishes, because the planes ain’t flying, but we want to take the risk that we’ll be marooned off the coast if the ‘rona hits and we all get sick. Plus, we might even get diarrhea from the buffet!”
Talk about succumbing to stupid…
Tim C.
They all are going out of Florida and Texas… so…….
Snarki, child of Loki
Just in time for the National Review Online annual cruise!
They can enjoy being virusbait while visiting the Bermuda Triangle. Maybe dodging a hurricane also, too.
rikyrah
You can go on those floating petri dishes if you dare….
uh uh
no way.
and, they should be forced into 21 day quarantine the moment they get off the ships.
they should be put on buses to hotels for 21 day quarantine.
Elizabelle
@Tim C.: Yes. I noticed that right away. Two ports in Florida, and Galveston, TX. Yee haw!
Doesn’t Carnival own the Princess line, which gets the gold star for being especially negligent WRT COVID? As in passengers who had already heard about the quarantined Diamond Princess arrived to — no health check. Just a question about their travels.
Bnad
That plan is basically something like a grant proposal for the bailouts they’ve been getting. No relation to future reality, no purpose except to justify receiving money from the government.
Emma from FL
What’s the O/U on idiots wanting to thumb their noses are those darn liberals and their fake regulations?
Elizabelle
The first WaPost reader comments on its story:
** Maybe discounts for anti-shutdown protesters? Get 20% off if you show us your swastika?
** Bring your assault rifle and get another 10% off.
** Apparently, Carnival subscribes to the old adage, “there is a sucker born every minute.”
** Special promotion: Wear a MAGA hat and get infected first and free.
** This will thin the stupid herd. The average IQ in this country might go up a tenth of a point or so.
Litlebritdifrnt
@rikyrah: petri dishes indeed. Anyone insane enough to get on a cruise right now deserves to get sick. Even my Sis and Bro in Law who have just recently had 3 future cruises cancelled are calling this madness.
r€nato
they should market it to the Trump Death Cult. “Take a cruise, what better way to own the libs and show them that their Covid concerns were pure hysteria?”
Hunter Gathers
I can’t wait for Chuck McFuckstick to show up at Disney World with his AK and some grenades and demand entrance so his daughter from his 3rd baby momma can visit Mickey while he wears a hazmat suit.
marklar
Perhaps the RNC can hold their convention on board. We can even start a gofundme to help!
Morzer
Just wondering if there’s any chance of a thread to honor Don Shula. Dead at 90. The greatest coach in NFL history. If I’ve missed something, my apologies.
moops
Too soon. *maybe* you can run a cruise ship a safe as a year ago by August 1 2021, but that would be with plenty of caveats. Now, a cruise ship was not the safest activity a year ago, so I have calibrated the risk accordingly.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
Since this is an open thread… Does anybody know how to go about finding an alpha reader for a story? I’ve done as much as I can on my own, and I need somebody else to take a look and let me know what I’ve done wrong, and which direction I need to go to fix it.
Gracias.
Emerald
I actually went on a cruise from March 1-18. The Eurodam from Holland America, from San Diego to Hawaii, which is owned by Carnival. We were OK, but they cancelled the cruise that would have boarded the day I returned. They did take measures, but not nearly enough.
They admonished everyone to wash their hands and they had Purell dispensers outside of all the food areas with someone standing there to be sure people used it when they entered. I said “I just washed my hands” (true) several times and breezed right by.
But the food areas were not spaced out at all. Everybody sat at tables together. Everybody stood right next to each other in the buffet.
I used a dry washcloth to push elevator buttons, but saw an officer of the ship just pushing them with his fingers.
Got the cruise for free from my lifelong travel industry friend, but don’t think I’ll be taking another one.
raven
@Morzer: You’ll be lucky if they don’t ban you for talking about football here.
Mary G
O/T, but hurray:
senyorDave
We were scheduled for a Princess cruise to Northern Europe out of Copenhagen, leaving on August 2nd and returning August 12th. We were going to tack on 4 days in Berlin at the beginning of the cruise. We had until this week to cancel, we waited to see what they would offer us. We got four upgrades, going from a balcony (about $2,300 pp) ending at a penthouse suite (about $6,500 pp). The balcony is about 180 sq ft, the penthouse suite was about 675 sq ft. Even if the sailing goes ahead no way in hell we would be on the ship. We take a cruise almost every year, but it will probab;y be years before we do it again, if ever.
Elizabelle
Gruesome thought, but we should keep an ear out for if Carnival etc. are increasing space in their onboard morgues. The secret is out.
I wonder if they will run with a reduced crew? Because you cannot put folks two to a tiny room, as now.
Baud is probably right that this is just mouth-flapping to qualify for funding.
r€nato
A great business opportunity for attorneys! Pay someone to stand at the dock handing out business cards.
Elizabelle
@Emerald: I am curious about mortality and illness statistics from the crew working the ships before the industry shutdown. Have not followed it.
And Holland America is a very good line, or so I have heard.
JPL
@marklar: omg.. You could so sell that to trump. Send him pics about how it would look and the message it would show. America is back on the open seas.
Betty could do the mock up.
Laura Too
Who the hell do they think will let them pull in to port? We will have so many active cases by then that no other country will allow it.
northlander
Talk about the Voyage of the Damned (Stupid)…
moops
@Laura Too: Florida. Florida will allow it. And Brazil I would guess.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
I am not Bnad.
Bnad is not me.
Odie Hugh Manatee
All I can say is that I am rooting for sickness and death for the fucknuts who think that Covid-19 isn’t a real threat to life. I want them to get it and spread it among their friends and family just so they can experience how fake this is. I just wish we could get them to sign advance medical directives stating that they willingly infected themselves and will forgo medical treatment.
I want reality to take a shit in their lap.
hells littlest angel
SS Ship Of Fools is now boarding!
r€nato
@Odie Hugh Manatee: very little I disagree with there… at some point compassion is just wasted on the #TrumpDeathCult. They are fucking determined to deny the severity of this pandemic, let them enjoy the bed they have made for themselves. Just like Ayn Rand.
Just One More Canuck
Ship of Fools
hells littlest angel
If you’ve been thinking about setting granny adrift on an ice floe, but thought it seemed just a little too cruel …
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I do hope the West Coast States refuse them port of call rights. They can keep their ship’s of the damned in the Gulf.
Laura Too
@moops: I didn’t think of Brazil, thanks. I have a feeling I’m not going to be able to explore Canada until at least next year. No country will open up to us until we can show we are responsible in getting this under control and that isn’t happening until 46 comes in.
Yutsano
Oh. Lucky me. I can’t stand cruise ships. Friends got married on one once and that was enough for me. I even found the food mediocre and they didn’t let us buy booze cards.
James E Powell
@Just One More Canuck:
Obligatory – Ship of Fools – World Party
Avarice and greed are gonna drive you over the endless sea . . .
lumpkin
They sell some tix to some dumb people. Maybe some ships sail, maybe they don’t. Some people get a refund, some don’t for various reasons. The cruise line pockets the diff. Win win for the cruise line.
I bet you can’t get trip insurance.
moops
avid cruise takers often have complicating risk factors. Yet only 10 deaths from the Diamond Princess and Grand Princess. It just seems remarkable. They couldn’t hide their death rate. is it really impossible to get that fatality count below other deadly outbreaks that we have learned to accept on cruise ships?
Matt McIrvin
We went on a cruise once, as part of our last big adventure before having a kid, and decided we really weren’t cruise people. But my daughter had been suggesting recently that she wanted to go on one. I don’t think so.
Benw
If these cruises actually happen, the Titanic will become the *second* stupidest boat-related thing that becomes a metaphor for humankind’s hubris.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
Depending on the number of idiots who take them up on the offer, and I’ll bet there will be takers, oh yeah, there will be takers, the nation’s IQ should go up by more than a tenth or so.
I’m wondering what the offers of employment look like for the crews. Bet it’s not fantastic…..
Elizabelle
@Baud: Right. Accept no substitutions.
Ruckus
@Hunter Gathers:
There was the Florida story about the guy living on an island inside one of the rides, who the cops found, he said he thought it was OK as the park was closed. He failed to notice the many no trespassing signs…….
MisterForkbeard
@Tim C.: Completely unsurprising. Also unsurprising that their California ports aren’t on that list.
The sad thing is, I’d love to do something like take a cruise ship just out to the ocean for awhile. Not even any stop, just fucking around out there for a nice change of scenery and being around some people. IF they could test everyone before entering the ship, that is. And the staff. And they can’t. So…. nope. Nope nope nope.
NOTE: Especially nuts because I give August even odds of having MORE cases than we’ve got now.
Elizabelle
What are they going to do with these cruises? Just float around in the Gulf and the Caribbean?
Because if any of their ports decides not to admit cruise ships, and cannot imagine Carnival can force that happening, how do you not just have a ship sailing around … to nowhere.
And: the passengers might want to fly to meet the ship. Good luck with that. If you’re from a small city … your carrier might just cancel your flight. (Happened to a friend this week, for travel in June. The flight is not full enough, and is not going to be full enough …)
James E Powell
@Yutsano:
I learned everything I ever wanted or needed to know about cruises from David Foster Wallace.
Kent
So, cruise from Houston to Tampa across the gulf past all the oil rigs. Maybe stop into say Pensacola for shopping.
Fun.
I gotta wonder how this is all going to work. Do they still have their crews on board? If they sent all their crews home to the Philippines then I don’t see how they get them back.
Wishful thinking I expect.
JPL
@Baud: Then who the hell is Bnad?
Dread
We live in ‘Murika where half the population thinks the virus is a hyped up lie to spread socialism and wearing a mask in public is fucking tyranny.
I can easily see those plague ships filling up with MAGA-hatted jackasses from Bumfuck, Mississippi or Montana.
Delk
@James E Powell: Save me from tomorrow.
r€nato
@Dread: good, then they can give it to one another. *checks calendar* if they all go cruising in August, pretty good chance they won’t survive long enough to mail in their ballots this fall. To be clear, I don’t wish them dead… but if they are fucking determined to defy the sound advice of doctors and epidemiologists, then fuck it, you do you boo.
All the more reason to practice strict social distancing with and generally avoid the company of the #TrumpDeathCult. It’s no longer about partisan politics, it’s about your health and your life.
Matt McIrvin
Disney has been building this Star Wars-themed hotel at Disney World that is basically supposed to be an expensive 2- or 3-day experience simulating a cruise on a spaceship (fake windows looking out into space, everyone gets to cosplay, there are supposed to be costumed staff all over, the bus to Hollywood Studios’ Star Wars land is themed like a landing shuttlecraft, and there are little LARP-ish stories of intrigue and spy missions you can participate in).
It’s about half-constructed. I can only imagine that they’re considering just taking a wrecking ball to it.
Sure Lurkalot
I have traveled a fair bit but I’ve never gone on or wanted to go on a cruise. I’ve been in ports where ships dock and saw first hand the throng of humanity overwhelm the 1st 3 blocks of the port city, many never venturing much further than that. But I have lots of friends and relatives that love cruising!
And I have little doubt that if you sail them, people will board.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: MAGA guy, they don’t read, Just like Trump.
Elizabelle
@Delk: World Party, for the win! Love that song! Karl Wallinger.
Matt McIrvin
@Sure Lurkalot: The one time I went it seemed like, basically, being trapped in an OK resort hotel that you can’t leave most of the time.
The thing that kept tripping us up was that there were all these potentially interesting activities you had to sign up for a couple days in advance, and we’d hear about them shortly after the sign-up window had closed. Probably if we did it again we’d be more on the ball–it seemed to require a certain amount of situational awareness that Cruise People used to the life would have, kind of like, come to think of it, managing a Disney World vacation. But I don’t think we’re going to do it again.
r€nato
@James E Powell: thanks for sharing that.
I am old enough to have discovered that most people’s company is unpleasant, once we all get past the pleasantries and begin to learn more about one another. Hell, even people I thought I liked, I went on vacation with them and discovered something about them I cannot stand. Such as the friends of the wife who fucking stiffed me for the car rental on an international trip. I did all the driving, took all the risks (substantial) of a speeding ticket… they reneged on chipping in for the car rental. Instead they seemed to think it was OK to just throw in for gas when they felt like it. Some people turn out to have really rancid opinions, others treat/tip wait staff horribly, yet others insist on splitting the dinner bill but run it up with appetizers and expensive drinks so that you get to subsidize their dining and drinking, still others have contentious/abusive relationships with their partner that you only discover once they feel comfortable enough to let their guard down.
Therefore, I very much prefer to spend my vacations in the company of people whose company I know I will enjoy. Stuck on a cruise ship with a couple thousand people, many of whom I will dislike at first sight and well over 90% of whom I will likely despise within 120 seconds of them opening their fucking mouths? No, thank you.
Elizabelle
@Matt McIrvin: Actually, maybe that will be the new cruising experience.
But: do love the open water.
Elizabelle
@Kent: Maybe Trump/Mnuchin have assured them the crews … gonna be us. (Or younger us, anyway.)
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Last big boat cruise I went on was in 2006 (mother in law was in her last month of Stage 4 colon cancer – she insisted, we complied). It was a spring break trip.
– Captain was on 1MC the entire time shouting “vash your handssssss”, as the screaming shits (norovirus) was quite the thing in that era.
– On our way down, we stopped overnight south of Chattanooga. Some young woman was getting railed from behind in clear view from a room above the entry, face out the window. I pretended not to notice. Fun.
– People were hoggish. The midnight buffet was pretty, the kids, father in law and I were happy and patient, and in the first third of the line. When they opened it up, people hit it like monsters; men had plates piled full of the shrimp that weren’t there when we arrived on station. At the desserts, on woman had two porters helping her load up 4 to go boxes, as the rest of us tried to find things; two crewmen stood by, mouths agape at her being so damned hoggish.
– It was a Spring Break Cruise. There was one little shit, about 17, had a drink grafted to his hand most of the week because the moms were on the balcony decks not supervising their teens. The little bastard probably fathered at least 4 children on that trip given the number of girls in his orbit. I got to witness the moment his mom confronted him with 4 pages of bar bill (had to be over $1000) in the corridor – it was a magnificent display of parental rage, and I got to laugh at it.
Anyway, we don’t do big boats anymore.
moops
Perhaps they can drop some cruise ship rules to get more ridership. Open carry allowed while not in port, toplessness encouraged? dispensary on the Lido deck? More reckless on-board activities? If they can raise the risks from other causes then COVID can drop in the overall rankings.
CaseyL
I’ve taken three cruises, and enjoyed all of them. I also got sick on two of them – and that’s despite using hand sanitizer every time I went into and out of the eating area (not a bad sick; just a cold).
Coming down with something on a cruise ship seems a foregone conclusion to me: hundreds of people, from all over the place, living cheek by jowl for anywhere from 2-15 days. All swapping microbes.
You’d have to be going to one of my Most Desperately Desired destinations before I’d get on a cruise ship again. And the only most-desired cruise destination I have is Antarctica. (Yes, there is no Covid-19 there – because they’re not letting anyone in right now!)
A friend of my aunt’s was planning to go on a cruise in March, and was being defiant about it. But the cruise company cancelled, so she didn’t have a chance to act on her bullheaded stupidity.
Matt McIrvin
@Elizabelle: It would have the advantage that, compared to an actual cruise ship, evacuating it is easy in a pinch. You could just shut it down at the first sign of a disease outbreak.
trollhattan
Three words: National Review Cruise.
Oh please, oh please, oh please….
Roger Moore
@Bnad:
I agree with the people who have said that any bailout money should go only to American companies. If you want to relocate to an offshore tax haven, no relief funds for you. If you want to register your ship in a flag of convenience country with lax safety and labor standard, no bailout for you.
MoxieM
Cue Wagner, his Dutchman, and those morons from Michigan with the gun/dildoes. What could go wrong?
TheOtherHank
Back when the world was young and dinosaurs ruled the Earth, I was a wee lad. My dad was in the Navy medical corps and got assigned to work at the Navy hospital in Taiwan (before Nixon went to China; I told you it was a long time ago). At that time there were a small number of US-flagged cruise ships still in operation and as a way to prop them up the US government would send some military families deploying overseas to their destinations on these cruise ships. Dad won the lottery and we got to traverse the Pacific on a cruise ship.
Nine year old me thought it was the best thing ever. I saw my parents when I woke up in the morning and right before I went to bed at night. All meals and activities for kids were organized by the crew and we basically had fun unsupervised by parental authority for 17 days.
As an adult, though, the idea of a cruise sounds like nothing I’d like to do.
trollhattan
@Mary G:
They were actually requiring absentee ballots to be notarized? Dayumn, that’s so blatant I almost admire it.
joel hanes
I have read that cruise lines have been offering incredible discounts to people who would book ahead. I think that the people who actually embark will be those to whom the idea of taking a $15,000 cruise for $2,000 was impossible to resist.
For some of them, it will be a once-in-a-lifetime bargain.
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I think there is more to it. They decide to ignore because normalcy doesn’t apply to them, they are special!
Uncle Cosmo
@r€nato: In Europe Through the Back Door, Rick Steves famously noted that travel is intensified living, & your travel companions’ flaws get magnified to an unpleasant degree. In at least one edition he recommended that anyone considering getting married should travel with their intended for at least a couple of weeks, & if you can still stand the sight of one another…
(I first traveled through Eastern Europe just before the walls came down, with a good friend with whom I thought there might be some romantic potential. [Her idea, FTR.] It was such a fabulous trip that we did not exchange a single word in any form for the next 2+ years. Put paid to that notion. But I did get a look behind the Arn Kurton while there was still a curtain to be ironed…)
Closest I’ve come to a cruise is a couple of overnight trips on Viking Lines ferries between Stockholm & Helsinki. Essentially a 700′ duty-free extravaganza with an excellent buffet & a bunch of discos. Threading our way through the islands between Stockholm and the Gulf of Bothnia in the late afternoon – with the competition (Silja Line) right behind us – was very picturesque. /tmi
Jay
@Laura Too:
#1. Get your Class 1 drivers lisence
#2. Buy/lease/rent a rig with a sleeper
#3. Bid on a one way contract from near where you are, to some place in Canada.
#4. Camp in the sleeper for the most part, take one way contracts to where you want to go, when you want to go.
*bid fat time/low rate so if on the way there, you want to stop and look around at the scenery, you can.
Full Disclosure, have a buddy who does this to chase fish from the Baha to the arctic.
Roger Moore
@Matt McIrvin:
No way. Disney knows they’re going to make a ton of money on the place once they can reopen. They have a long enough planning horizon they aren’t going to let a little thing like COVID-19 stop them.
Ruckus
@James E Powell:
A good read.
A lot of the bits sound familiar. Not the luxury parts, not even close to the luxury parts. And as crew rather than passengers the navy probably was better. The food was sub par, to say the least, the recreation consisted of games of acey deucey or reading the same book 3 or 4 times, or trying to sleep without getting caught doing so at the wrong time and the days were 24 hrs long but, the time passed reasonably and you always went farther than 3 blocks away from the dock. Always. I’d bet a major issue for some was the no booze, and that everyone looked undesirable. Because they really were.
WereBear
As close as I can tell without every going on a cruise, it’s a somewhat affordable form of abundant luxury, like renting a lush lifestyle for a period of time.
For me, this would be ruined by the crowds. Were I to vacation luxuriously, I wouldn’t want to share it with a bunch of strangers in such close quarters.
J R in WV
We did a week long cruise from a tiny port in Baja California with friends. We have known them for 40 years, introduced them, actually, before they fell in lurve and married. The high point of that cruise was whales right up on the Zodiak boats… you could kiss them if you wanted.
Open bar, good food, no illness, except for some motion sickness as we moved out into the Pacific from the bay where the whales reproduced. Were something like 90 guests, very small ship, great crew.
There were a few well-to-do nut jobs, one guy wore a Yacht Club polo shirt, had yachts of different sizes in different ports, not too bad but certainly a Republican nut job. But I didn’t have to interact with him ever again. Would do a small ship like that again, but Carnival, et al??? No Fkin way!!!!
Miss Bianca
@Uncle Cosmo: Damn, I traveled in Europe for three months backpacking with my first fiance. Worked out just fine.
Guess I should have married that one after all.
Calouste
@TheOtherHank: Goverments used to prop up and sometimes outright subsidize cruise ships and ocean liners because they could be used as hospital ships and troop transports in times of war.
WaterGirl
@Morzer: I don’t know much of anything about football, but if no one else put up a thread honor him tonight, I am willing to put one up. But surely Betty or one of the other people who follows football would be a better choice. But in a pinch, I’m you’re gal.
WaterGirl
@Odie Hugh Manatee: It’s been nice to see your nym here more often lately!
Sloane Ranger
I came late to cruising and enjoy it. Have a cruise planned for March 2021 (Mediterranean) and another for Christmas 2021 (New Zealand). They’re both on small ships, around 1000 passengers. All the company’s ships are currently anchored off the north coast of Scotland with skeleton crews aboard.
They have given no date for when they intend to restart operations. I’m currently working on the premise that the December 2021 one will go ahead but the March 2021 might not. If it does, I will play it by ear. I will make a decision when they ask me for the outstanding payment. If I don’t feel safe, I won’t go. If I lose my deposit, so be it. I wouldn’t enjoy the cruise anyway if I was constantly worrying whether the guy with the constant hacking cough on the next table was just a heavy smoker or had the virus.
Kent
CPAC at sea!
Kent
Back then ocean liners like the Queen Mary were also home ported and paid taxes in real countries like England and the US. And had American and British crews. They weren’t tax and regulation-evading corporations established in places like Panama and Liberia with crews from 3rd world countries.
Kristine
@James E Powell: Love that song.
Wish it wasn’t so bloody applicable to the current situation.
Just One More Canuck
@James E Powell:
great song
Darkrose
Great–I have “I’m On a Boat” stuck in my head now. Though I guess there are far more inappropriate Lonely Island songs to get earwormed by.
catclub
@Bnad: I thought that Carnival is domiciled in some other country and therefore not eligible for US Gov handouts. It turned out that once the FED said it was willing to do whatever it takes to keep the bond market liquid, that OTHER people were willing to buy Carnival’s bonds.
No DIRECT US gov bailout.
Quaker in a Basement
If this works out for them, maybe the German Zeppelin Airline Company will be the next to make a comeback.
catclub
@Calouste: I thought I read that this is actually STILL the case for how military airlift would work in case of a big war emergency.
But with airplanes and airlines.
catclub
@Sloane Ranger: 1000 passengers does not sound like a small ship to me.
The largest oceanographic vessels I go on have 25 crew and 20-25 scientific party. And I think those are pretty large.
your ocean mileage definitely may vary
Sloane Ranger
@catclub: Definitely not small compared with what you’re used to but small compared with most cruise ships today. I think it’s the right size, large enough to avoid the people you don’t want to meet again but small enough to be able to find the people you do:)
Thirsty Pelican
Long time lurker here. I make my living largely off of cruise vessel calls to Port Canaveral. It is definitely a conflict for me. I have no doubt that the US and Florida will continue to be complete basket cases come August, but I also know that ships coming and going keeps the lights on around my house. I expect this date to be pushed back further, yet kind of hope it isn’t.
Morzer
@WaterGirl: Well, who could ask for a better gal? I am sure Don Shula would appreciate your thread!
Betty
They still have ships stranded at sea with crew onboard. This is crazy.
Thirsty Pelican
@Betty:
More than that. Many of those crew members’ contracts have expired or been cancelled, so they are stranded aboard without pay.
J R in WV
The ship we went whale petting on had about 95 passengers. The whole outfit has ships with fewer than 180 passengers, even the newer ones that visit Antarctica and cross the Northwest passage. Purpose built ice breakers for eco-tourism.
Lindblad Expeditions is the name of the outfit. They’re associated with National Geographic and have photography instructors and naturalists as guides. We enjoyed it a lot.
Laura Too
@Jay: Thanks! I will look in to that.
Zelma
I’m scheduled to go on a river cruise (Amsterdam to Vienna) in September. Not gonna go. Fortunately, the final payment isn’t due till June and I haven’t paid most of it. I have trip insurance but I don’t know if I’ll get my deposit back. But I’m not going.
My best friend – an enthusiastic cruiser – has signed up for a cruise to Bermuda at the end of October because she can get a real deal on a three-bedroom suite in the Haven. She wants me to go. Not gonna.
ET
I would assume that idiots that would take a cruise after all that went down would be the same idiots who wouldn’t hesitate to get on a plane.