Uhm....Bahamas is now requiring vaccinations for all passengers over 12..

[sethschroeder]

I wonder if... some people in the cruise industry, in their meetings with the Bahamian officials, made some comments 'hey, you know what could really help us out getting cruising up to speed again... having a mandate from you that our customers that can be vaccinated need to be vaccinated in order to visit your ports. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge...' And then the cruise companies can tell the Florida Guv, 'sorry, we had too. we only collected the information for the ports.'

I think its more so that the Bahamas sees that all the other islands are doing it so we might as well too since were not going to lose business over it.

Possibly the cruise lines though as well.

 

[AquaDame]

I mean, they may lose business in the short term while lines scramble with what to do now. They were an easy port, now not so much.

 

[lanejudy]

I guess I don't understand Florida's restriction on proving vaccinations. Cruise lines for years have had to require vaccinations for certain destinations. Yes, that usually didn't apply to Florida, but nonetheless, still a requirement.

I was thinking Florida was saying that a cruise line cannot require vaccination proof just to get on the ship. As opposed to requiring a vaccination so the ship can actually port at a given country that would require a vaccination.

In a nutshell... FL will not allow any business in Florida to require customers to prove vaccination status. Along with that, they are claiming cruise ships that embark from a FL port fall under jurisdiction for this law. Other than NCL, no other cruise line has yet tested it based on "the foreign ports require X,Y,Z vaccine therefore we must require vaccine proof." (It's largely intended to prevent any requirement for the COVID vaccine; FL really doesn't care about proving malaria or other vaccination status.) NCL won a temporary injunction, which is specific to NCL at this point and does not extend to other cruise lines.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

They would hit the BVI requirement too right? Or was there a testing requirement for them as well?

BVI has full vaccination as their starting position. Fully vaxed passengers must also have:

• Proof of a negative RT-PCR COVID-19 test taken within 5 days prior to arrival;
• Proof of vaccination status
• a rapid COVID-19 negative test upon arrival at a cost of $50

 

[jrapps]

Depending on how DCL responds, this is the best news I have heard all day!

Other cruise lines already started requiring vaccines for routes to USVI without joining the NCL lawsuit (specifically Royal). Disney could more than likely keep the sailings, impose a new "vaccine required" rule, and then either point to international requirements and claim international travel rules supersede the FL law, or then just join the NCL lawsuit which is basically just a paperwork formality at this point. All they'd have to do is submit the paperwork to join, cite the exact same reasons why, and gain the same injunction as NCL has.

There is no way Disney just cancels the 9/3 and beyond cruises. They would sooner require vaccines since they have an obvious legal way to do so.

 

[Pooh93]

Depending on how DCL responds, this is the best news I have heard all day!

Other cruise lines already started requiring vaccines for routes to USVI without joining the NCL lawsuit (specifically Royal). Disney could more than likely keep the sailings, impose a new "vaccine required" rule, and then either point to international requirements and claim international travel rules supersede the FL law, or then just join the NCL lawsuit which is basically just a paperwork formality at this point. All they'd have to do is submit the paperwork to join, cite the exact same reasons why, and gain the same injunction as NCL has.

There is no way Disney just cancels the 9/3 and beyond cruises. They would sooner require vaccines since they have an obvious legal way to do so.

Disney lawyers on speed dial these days!!

 

[_auroraborealis_]

There is no way Disney just cancels the 9/3 and beyond cruises. They would sooner require vaccines since they have an obvious legal way to do so.

I don't know. It really depends on how much of the passenger load is unvaccinated. We don't know their percentages. At this point, anyone unvaccinated cannot be full vaccinated by 9/3, so it could cause sufficient cancel to bring them below viable sailing.

While some of the costs scale, many don't, particularly fuel.

 

[jrapps]

I don't know. It really depends on how much of the passenger load is unvaccinated. We don't know their percentages. At this point, anyone unvaccinated cannot be full vaccinated by 9/3, so it could cause sufficient cancel to bring them below viable sailing.

While some of the costs scale, many don't, particularly fuel.

Nope. All the data has shown that the overwhelming amount of people want vaccine mandates, indicating that those sailing now are more than likely to be vaccinated.

Yes, this will reduce the amount of people on the ship, but at some point they have to keep going. I truly believe this is what DCL wanted all along (12+ vaccines required) and this just gives them the ammo to do what they always wanted to do.

Maybe it accelerates the timetable a bit, but even if this reduces the occupancy by another 25%, I don't see them cancelling again at all.

But what do I know...I'm on the 9/3 sailing so I have a vested interest in this one, but the next few days/weeks will be very interesting!

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

This will be very interesting to watch to see how it plays out. Wish I was a fly on the Disney lawyers' wall

 

[JBeaty0507]

I don't know. It really depends on how much of the passenger load is unvaccinated. We don't know their percentages. At this point, anyone unvaccinated cannot be full vaccinated by 9/3, so it could cause sufficient cancel to bring them below viable sailing.

While some of the costs scale, many don't, particularly fuel.

You do have to think though, Disney has been moving their ships all along. So the cost of fuel is a foregone conclusion in order to keep the ships in working shape unless they are in dry dock. Therefore, getting some money back is better than getting no money back. Even if they are still losing money, they are losing less money.

 

[AmishGuy91]

This will be very interesting to watch to see how it plays out. Wish I was a fly on the Disney lawyers' wall

I would love for a tell-all book to come out from a high level disney exec about the past 18 months and the decisioning meetings that have taken place

 

[Pooh93]

I would love for a tell-all book to come out from a high level disney exec about the past 18 months and the decisioning meetings that have taken place

I was literally just sitting here thinking this!!! I hope one of them has kept a journal or something! Maybe there will be a documentary on Disney Plus one day!!

 

[Birdie dog]

I don't know. It really depends on how much of the passenger load is unvaccinated. We don't know their percentages. At this point, anyone unvaccinated cannot be full vaccinated by 9/3, so it could cause sufficient cancel to bring them below viable sailing.

While some of the costs scale, many don't, particularly fuel.

Not necessarily. The Johnson and Johnson vaccine is an acceptable vaccine and would work for the 2 week post vaccine requirement.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

You do have to think though, Disney has been moving their ships all along. So the cost of fuel is a foregone conclusion in order to keep the ships in working shape unless they are in dry dock. Therefore, getting some money back is better than getting no money back. Even if they are still losing money, they are losing less money.

Ships take more fuel running under speed than screwing around in circles. Kinda like your car.

 

[jrapps]

Ships take more fuel running under speed than screwing around in circles. Kinda like your car.

On the San Diego thread, there are people convinced that Disney is going to send the Wonder thru the canal just to do the few cruises to Mexico over there. If they were going to pay the fuel, plus $300k+ fees to go thru the canal empty, I don't think they are worried about the fuel to Castaway and back.

 

[n2mm]

Nope. All the data has shown that the overwhelming amount of people want vaccine mandates, indicating that those sailing now are more than likely to be vaccinated.

Yes, this will reduce the amount of people on the ship, but at some point they have to keep going. I truly believe this is what DCL wanted all along (12+ vaccines required) and this just gives them the ammo to do what they always wanted to do.

Maybe it accelerates the timetable a bit, but even if this reduces the occupancy by another 25%, I don't see them cancelling again at all.

But what do I know...I'm on the 9/3 sailing so I have a vested interest in this one, but the next few days/weeks will be very interesting!

we are getting off the ship on 9/3. Maybe you should jump on ours. I feel for anyone on our cruise doing a b2b with your cruise. not knowing, we are expecting cruisers to jump to our cruise now.

 

[kathi]

What a mess - I wonder if the Bahamas were giving any advance notice to cruise lines that this might be coming? Seems like they might not have cancelled the Fantasy cruises if vaccinations were going to be required (I am on the 9/25 Fantasy and now also the 9/20 Dream). Now they need to scramble to decide if they are going to require vaccinations or just cancel all the cruises. (My husband's money is on cancel, but he is very much being and Eeyore about DCL right now.)

 

[erin1715]

I may be in the minority but I have a cruise booked for December 2022 hoping this (Covid) would all be behind us by then. If the vaccine is required, we’ll be cancelling. That’s the price I’m willing to pay. And I know others will be thankful not to have my family on the ship.

 

[Tbird2281]

UGH...we are supposed to leave in less then a month...hello another change in the life of COVID!!! Just a random thought...do you think Disney would move to skip ports and just do a closed loop cruise like they do in the UK?

 

[orum]

UGH...we are supposed to leave in less then a month...hello another change in the life of COVID!!! Just a random thought...do you think Disney would move to skip ports and just do a closed loop cruise like they do in the UK?

They can't do closed loop unless they leave Seattle to go to Alaska, because they are a foreign flagged vessel.