The last place I would want to be during Coronavirus is on a cruise ship. It’s not that I’m super excited to get on a plane donning a mask for however many hours, but once it feels safe enough to be at a destination, I’ll also be willing to get on a plane. I don’t know yet when I will feel up to that, but I am hopeful about taking a December trip to the Maldives and Sri Lanka (rescheduled from April).
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Would you get on a cruise ship now, though?
Apparently, and I know, I know – this is via TMZ – American Express’ Cruise Planners reports that since Carnival announced that they would resume some cruises in August, bookings shot up 600% in the following 3 days. More crazy is that while they don’t give exact figures on the number of bookings, they say that it’s a 200% increase over the same time in 2019. That’s nuts.
I enjoy a cruise. It’s not my top method of travel, but it can be very fun.
However, aside from time on the deck, it’s a ton of time in enclosed spaces with a huge amount of communal areas. Let’s not forget that cruise ships were an epicenter of early virus spread and outbreaks on ships were essentially uncontrollable – even once they were locked down. So much so that they had trouble finding ports to let them in!
There were infected ships trying to dock in Florida, in Japan and in California when letting that cruise ship dock meant doubling the number of coronavirus cases in the United States. Since then, the US has added 1.34 million new coronavirus cases with over 79,300 deaths.
How do you feel about a cruise in the near term, or about flying for that matter?
Even though I’d rather get on a plane, we don’t know what kind of international options there will be for American residents in the near term.
That may explain a small percentage of bookings on cruise lines, but I think that the majority of these bookings are younger and more care free people that haven’t really thought through what a quarantine on a ship would be like.
I’d be genuinely curious who among you would feel comfortable getting on a cruise in 2020 or, frankly, before we have a vaccine or a solid treatment for the Coronavirus.
What do you think?
Let me know here, on Twitter, or in the private MilesTalk Facebook group.
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