Travel

[JeanLouiseFinch]

FYI - the link I shared in my prior post (#18) is getting updated daily.

[lulu2]

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@KathyPet wrote:

IF I have to stop in Nassau one more time I am not getting off the ship.  A very overrated port.  THe worst of the worst is Jamaica.  WHat a horrible island.  THe locals actually follow you around in packs pressuring you to buy their home made jewelry or get your hair braided.  THe only island I actually felt very unsafe on.

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@KathyPet

You could not pay me enough to set foot in Jamaica. 

More than 30 years ago, we were at a touristy open air market when suddenly the police appeared shouting "get down."  They were chasing 2 men and actually fired at them.

A few days later our room was broken into.  They stole clothes, make-up, food, jewelry and money. They broke into the (primitive) room safe.  The police came and determined we'd made up the story.

OT

How are YOU and your family?

[KathyPet]

@lulu2,

How kind of you to ask.  I am OK.  NOt great but OK.  I hate living alone.  I never ever lived alone and I am having a very hard time adjusting to that.  I took a part time job at Talbots so that gets me out of the house and interacting with people 3-4 days a week.  I have my 4 year old grandson 1 day a week and am happy to have a opportunity to,spend special,time with him one on one.  I will be 70 in Feb. and am celebrating by taking my DD, SIL and GS on a Disney Cruise.  IN April,of 2018 I am doing a 9'day Carribean cruise with a group,of 36 ladies from my community.  I have attended presentations from both the continuing care communities in my city and am considering selling my house and moving into one of those.  No final decision made yet but I would like to feel that I will then be settled for whatever remains of my life and not placing the burden of making those decisions on my daughter.  Financial affairs are all settled so I know where I am, what I have and can make decisions based on that information.  SOme little steps and some big ones but I am trying to move forward as best I can.

[Financialgrl]

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@Alter Ego wrote:

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@patbz wrote:

As DH said, there may be many "cruises to nowhere"(you cruise for the sake of cruising and in many cases, you basically just make a big circle in the ocean).  A lot of the 3-5 day cruises on the West Coast basically do this.

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Cruises to nowhere are not allowed under some archaic shipping or federal regulation.  I see people discussing the details on Cruise Critic all the time, but don't recall the name or exact explanation.  There has to be a distant foreign stop; the ship will be otherwise fined I think per person. There's two or three sticky rules.

Maybe you are aware of some smaller cruises that do this, but they are not the foreign flagged behemoths.  There are infrequent times, usually weather related, when the ship is unable to make a stop, thus making them noncompliant.  But, they can't actively plan it.

The only ship that is the exception is NCL's Pride of America in Hawaii.  But that ship is under a US flag and has to adhere to a different set of rules.  That cruise is also not cheap, particularly compared to a Caribbean cruise.

Edited to add - heaven help the cruiser because it's looking like Bahamas and Jamaica may be the only two island stops left for a while! Hoping some others may be able to bounce back quickly.

Editing again - I know itineraries are planned far in advance, but assuming the islands can't regroup quickly, I wonder if they would cancel some Caribbean cruises and move the ships to Europe or South America as someone suggested.  Add more Panama Canal cruises?

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Think it's called the Jones Act.  Explained to me years ago that it basically means you can have a cruise begin and end in US but somewhere along the line it has to have a stop on foreign soil.  We did a West Coast "coastline cruise" years ago that made a pretty quick stop in Ensenada specifically for that reason (got off the ship for all of a minute cuz nothing notable there).  I don't even think it had shore excursions!  

[Financialgrl]

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@KathyPet wrote:

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@seaBreeze wrote:

With Maria's path expected to be similar to Irma, there will not be anything left of St. Johns & a few cays.  I feel for the cruise lines too, and wondering if customers needed to have "vacation insurance" to get a reimbursement?

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IFthe cruise line cancels your cruise your money will be refunded.  If they re route your cruise I am not sure what will happen.  YOu may or may not be able to cancel and get a refund.  If you decide to cancel your cruise and have not yet made final payment you can get a refund of your deposit.  IF you have made final payment and then decide to cancel you will have to have travel insurance and even then you have to have a policy that allows you to cancel for any reason not just illness or a death which most standard policies cover.  The cancel,for any reason policies are more costly.

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I have experience with 2 things in your post, but who knows if that's changed.  I had a New Year's Eve island cruise planned this year and in August my travel partner had a debillitating stroke.  We've always gotten our own cabins.  We each had insurance (not cancel for any reason though) but our reservations were "linked".  To show you how confusing it is, I spoke with insurance ppl asking what would have happened if I waited till after final payment and got very different answers depending upon who I spoke with.  One guy said after final payment I may get back a certain % of my cruise fare bc they could take our cabins and use as upgrades for other travelers and deeply discount the inside rooms that got upgraded bc our reservations were "linked' and another said I would be out of luck.  Even though I had insurance, I'd added my airfare into the insurance but it didn't refund that bc I was told to deal with United A/L bc what should happen is they'll often charge a fee for cancelling a non-refundable flight but give you the difference in a voucher good for a certain amount of time to use on another flight (but they don't refund in cash) and I was angry cuz - - the insurance company had no problem charging extra $ to add my airfare to insurance!!

As to what happens if you miss ports - this info is old but about 7 years ago we still sailed even through a hurricane but they sail on the outskirts of it.  Instead of 2 days in Bermuda, we only were in port one day.  What they did then was refund one day's port charges for the day we could not dock and then they gave us free wifi/internet during the sail and I think we each got a free night in one of the specialty restaurants.  Sadly, with many islands devastated during Irma not sure they'll have that option.  

ETA:  Oh yeah, forgot, they provided free seasickness pills and instructed everyone to take them before we sailed before we hit the areas of the sea where they said it may be expected there NOT to hit at least some turbulance!  

[Alter Ego]

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@Financialgrl wrote:

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Think it's called the Jones Act.  Explained to me years ago that it basically means you can have a cruise begin and end in US but somewhere along the line it has to have a stop on foreign soil.  We did a West Coast "coastline cruise" years ago that made a pretty quick stop in Ensenada specifically for that reason (got off the ship for all of a minute cuz nothing notable there).  I don't even think it had shore excursions!  

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I think Jones Act and Passenger Vessel Service Act ("PVSA") are similar, but the 1886 PVSA act covers passenger vessels and Jones is cargo.  Not sure what else the differences are.  

More info than some of the posters care, but there is some interesting regulations involved with this.  Must be a closed loop and stop in a foreign port (I erroneously said "distant").  North America, Central America and the Caribbean are not considered "distant".  There may even be unusual cases in which the cruise line would not let you take a B2B. For example, you want to take a cruise leaving Alaska and ends in Vancouver - acceptable.  But, you want to stay on the ship and go from Vancouver to LA.  Not allowed as it considers this one trip (not two) and you do not stop at a distant port.  You could change ships or cruise lines for the 2nd cruise, but you can't continue on the same ship.  Unless you add on a third cruise from LA to Miami via the Panama Canal as the ships will add on stops that fall under the distant definitions.  This involves foreign flagged ships.  Why keep the regulations?  Because without them, it opens up all commercial vessels throughout the US to start sailing under foreign flags - thus allowing foreign ownership and labor laws (not to mention ways to shift taxes).

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There are already posts on Cruise Critic talking about significant price cuts on some 2017 cruises.  If people don't necessarily care where they go - and, frankly, some of the ships are the stars - you could find some deals.

[Alter Ego]

I’m not sure if I can post this, but since it’s not a link to buy something, I think it’s allowed.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2017/09/21/your-caribbean-cruise-destination-still-ope...

You could probably also google “USA Today Caribbean cruise destination port by port”. Shows status of each port as of 9/24.

[Lynnster67]

My parents are scheduled to go on a cruise (their first ever!) from Baltimore to Bermuda in mid-October.  I asked them if the recent hurricanes would have any effect on those plans and they didn't really know ... if Irma/Jose/Maria had impacted Bermuda, I presume we would have heard something.

[lulu2]

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@KathyPet wrote:

@lulu2,

How kind of you to ask.  I am OK.  NOt great but OK.  I hate living alone.  I never ever lived alone and I am having a very hard time adjusting to that.  I took a part time job at Talbots so that gets me out of the house and interacting with people 3-4 days a week.  I have my 4 year old grandson 1 day a week and am happy to have a opportunity to,spend special,time with him one on one.  I will be 70 in Feb. and am celebrating by taking my DD, SIL and GS on a Disney Cruise.  IN April,of 2018 I am doing a 9'day Carribean cruise with a group,of 36 ladies from my community.  I have attended presentations from both the continuing care communities in my city and am considering selling my house and moving into one of those.  No final decision made yet but I would like to feel that I will then be settled for whatever remains of my life and not placing the burden of making those decisions on my daughter.  Financial affairs are all settled so I know where I am, what I have and can make decisions based on that information.  SOme little steps and some big ones but I am trying to move forward as best I can.

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@KathyPet

Whenever I see your name I cannot help but think of this past (horrendous) year. I remember how much you and your husband enjoyed traveling and as I recall it was after a trip everything took  a horrible turn of events.

You are a strong (resilient) lady.  I know this was not your first great loss.

[Lipstickdiva]

Right after Irma hit, I happened to be on the RCL website and there were several "memos" about cruises and which would be rerouted and where, some that were canceled, etc.

A friend of mine was on a cruise when Irma hit.  She did the same cruise DH and I did.  Left from Tampa, went to Cozumel and then were cruising back to Tampa. They got held in Mexico for I believe a week before they were brought back to Tampa. 

DH and I were looking into a cruise in March for my b-day. We were planning on doing Key West, the Bahamas and back.  That cruise leaves out of Miami.