My big concern would be that the people most likely to book a cruise right now are the people least likely to be worried about Covid. Which means people least likely to take any precautions, and therefore more likely to spread Covid. Such as my neighbors, who are leaving for a cruise today. They both had Covid (several months ago), and are vaxxed (J&J), and the ship requires a Covid test before boarding, but they also socialize regularly with crowds of other anti-vaxxers (they are only vaccinated because the cruise requires it), & never wear masks if they can get away with it. The thought of being on a boat with several thousand such people is horrifying on several levels.
No. Obviously not. My personal risk is irrelevant, for one very important reason:
We’re in the middle of a pandemic peak, where the hospitals are overrun. Our current vaccines do not protect from infection, and only have limited effect on hospitalizations. The last thing we should be doing is taking unnecessary risks simply for our own pleasure.
It’s not about me personally and how I would be affected. There are thousands on that ship, in a confined area where we know disease spreads even faster than normal. The people on also tend to have comorbidities. Even if they’re willing to risk it, are they willing to not go to the hospital? Unlikely.
I have a friend who has a necessary surgery that had to be postponed. She’s actually, at 30-something, making out her will. Not because her actual disease may kill her, but because she thinks it’s likely she will die if she gets COVID-19, due to her immunosuppressants. And, again, my mom’s death happened in part because they couldn’t get her to a bigger hospital.
It’s wrong to only consider one’s own risk when making these sorts of determinations. And it’s wrong to put one’s own pleasure about the wellbeing of others. It’s not like there aren’t pleasurable activities that are safer.
It’s one thing if you chose to do this when delta was receding. I didn’t have a problem with my sister going to Disney World when we thought things were getting better. But right now? I genuinely cannot understand why anyone would consider this to be okay right now.
I’m with the OP’s family, 100%. You should not go. And that’s without even getting into your own personal risk factors. It’s entirely based on the risk to the hospital system.
I’m curious if the people in this thread who said they wouldn’t go on a cruise right now feel similarly about air travel.
I’m one of those who wouldn’t go on a cruise, but OTOH I’ve been traveling by air a lot. I just came back from a weekend in NYC, and I have four trips booked over the next few months.
FWIW, though I hadn’t replied in this thread earlier, not only would I not go on a cruise for the foreseeable future, but I have no interest in being on an airliner anytime soon, either.
Pre-COVID, I used to fly a fair amount for work (probably a trip a month), plus some leisure trips by air. I’ve not been on a plane since February of 2020, and I don’t miss it at all.
I know that the airlines are stressing the environment in their planes (HEPA filters, fresh air coming in), but between being in close quarters with other people on the plane, and close quarters in the airport (such as in security lines), I simply don’t care to take that chance.
I’m 56, and I’m diabetic. I am vaccinated and boosted, and I wear an N95 mask whenever I’m indoors in a public space now (which isn’t that often at this moment). I don’t feel that I can trust my fellow Americans, enough of whom are unvaccinated and/or aren’t wearing masks properly, to not be spreaders, despite my own precautions.
Spending a half-hour in a supermarket, or getting my hair cut, is about my limit for risk right now; particularly given how transmissible these past two variants have been, I don’t care to spend multiple hours (much less days) in close indoor proximity to a large number of other people.
We are very different in this sense: I wasn’t on a plane for more than a year, and I missed it tremendously. I got depressed every time I thought about all the trips I had booked and had to cancel. As soon as I was fully vaccinated I started flying again. I’m still bummed that international air travel is pretty much impossible.
When our vacation to St Martin was canceled due to the medical emergency situation on the island I was honestly a little relieved. Although I was looking forward to being in the Caribbean, I was really dreading the plane, which I saw as a cesspool of contamination.
The data on airplane transmission appears to be pretty favorable, so as long as people are all wearing masks I’m pretty comfortable with relatively short-haul flights. My experience with the two trips I’ve taken during COVID times is that people have been pretty good at masking onboard, and the flight crews have been good at enforcing it. One flight attendant said this during her announcement - “This isn’t a restaurant, if you’re eating take a bite then put your mask back on.” My last flight I even had an empty row.
Yeah, old data on airplane transmission shows way less outbreaks than cruise ships. There may be new data out there that I haven’t seen.
Very different, for sure. I don’t often travel internationally, so nearly all of my air travel is on domestic U.S. flights, and most of my leisure travel is by car – so if I’m getting on a plane, for the majority of the time, it’s a business trip. Also, for the past decade or so, most of my flights have been on small regional jets, and prior to COVID, the flights I was on were nearly always 100% full.
Once upon a time, I enjoyed getting to fly. There’s no joy in the domestic air travel experience anymore, and I would honestly be OK with never flying again, unless it was for going on an awesome vacation.
Just checking in on the flight discussion -
Pre-covid/retirement, I used to fly every week at least. I have flown a couple of times since, including international. For what it’s worth, it is my perception that the airlines are making incredible efforts to make the experience safe. So, I take comfort in that.
I can’t even imagine how they could get data from air travel even close to what they collect for cruise ships. I’m not sure the comparison is fair.
I have a cruise scheduled for March, booked back when ‘things looked great.’ I’m still looking forward to it, but honestly, I’m more worried about the flight. We tend to keep to ourselves anyway, so we aren’t too worried about the cruise. At least on the cruise you can spend most of your time outside.
All my flying is leisure. I love the actual process of flying, the time in the air. The longer the flight, the better. It’s the only time I feel totally relaxed. I have no control over my life for a few hours, so there’s nothing to worry about. I’m sure there’s some deep psychological issues inside me that cause this. On the ground I’m constantly a nervous wreck, worrying about everything. In the air I’m at peace.
Sorry about the hijack.
So me, about flying, I stress in a car as a passenger, but flying, nah.
I’m hesitant to fly long distances. If it’s a short enough flight that there’s no meal service, I can at least choose to keep my mask on, even if others don’t (and hopefully they mostly will.) But for a cross-country flight, and especially an overnight flight, it’s hard to imagine I wouldn’t be breathing everyone else’s germs when we all inevitably need to eat and drink. Still, I believe the filtration system on airplanes is better than on cruise ships, even long flights are shorter than even short cruises (meaning I could only catch it on a flight from someone who was contagious when they boarded, not from someone who caught it on board from someone else and then passed it to me), and there are fewer people. So I would view flying as safer than cruising. If nothing else, you can pretty much guarantee that many people on your cruise will have been on a variety of airplanes immediately before boarding, so they’ll bring along the risks of air travel too; the reverse is not necessarily true.
Since many people do have to fly to a cruise port, maybe this 2pg PDF will reassure (about commercial aircraft and HEPA filtration).
The issue has been mentioned above, but maybe a cite will help some:
Briefing paper: Cabin air quality – Risk of communicable diseases transmission - PDF
This only works with masks and cabin superior ventilation, of course. So if mask rules aren’t enforced with lots of people “eating” throughout the flight, the whole thing goes out the window.
Here’s a controlled experiment from the DOD with American Airlines - https://www.ustranscom.mil/cmd/docs/TRANSCOM%20Report%20Final.pdf
Real-life data came from countries that quarantined and tested all passengers upon arrival.
NPR had a nice article back in the day emphasizing the importance of masks even with the ventilated air on a plane. What's The Risk Of Catching COVID-19 On A Plane? And Do Masks Cut It? : Goats and Soda : NPR
I don’t know if this still holds up anymore.
I’ve said many times on these boards that cruise ships are floating Petri dishes. And I was saying that a decade ago, no pandemic needed!
Now, I’ll admit that when my very generous Mother-in-Law offered to take us all on an Alaska cruise, I leapt at the chance. This was back in the Twenty-Oughts, but we still stayed away from crowded buffet lines, margarita bars, and cabaret shows. We tended to hang out near the pool or the deckchairs outdoors…
…or the Library!
The Holland America ship we were on had a beautiful mahogany-and-brass reading area sponsored by the New York Times (so free papers), on an upper level with beautiful 360º views. Oh, and Eames chairs!
The bonus was that this was never crowded, so even worrying about “friendlier viruses” like the flu and Legionnaires’ Disease, we felt pretty safe.
Good!! As I said, 48 hr. prior neg.COVID test, then tested at the pier. All fully vaxed. No cases that we heard about tho’ we probably wouldn’t have. Masked everywhere but the back deck, where a lot of the music happened,in the restaurants and in the bars where even more live music happened. And if I wasn’t sick (I’m not) sitting on the runway at DFW might kill me. 2 hour delay. And they lied about why we were sitting around.
I will say the pre-cruise hotel where we stayed was full up with cruisers, not just for our ship. There were 4 ships leaving port that day. I suspect none more than about 50-60% capacity.
What happened?