quote:

Originally posted by KevinCW:
I would be jumping off that ship and swimming for it.

Is it weird that I looked at the balconies, think I could keep jumping to the one below, get to the deck with a bunch of tied up sheets, tie them to the railing and get close enough to the water to jump?

Or that would be my first instinct to being on a cruise ship even if it wasn't the plague death ship?

You dont need to scale balconies like spiderman, tie sheets together like an Alcatraz escapee, to get close to the water. Just jump, its not that high. You'll be fine.

When I read of these cruise ship fiascos, I am reminded of an old movie:
Assault On A Queen
Frank Sinatra and crew re-float a sunken WWII U-boat and use it to hijack the Queen Mary.
Interesting concept.

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
yeah, I've always considered those big ships as like being in jail with a chance to drown

I am however considering a 12 day Viking River Cruise in Europe next year

Viking River Cruises are going to be a lot different than what you get out of those ocean going mega-cruise ships. Like anything, the higher you pay, the more discerning and sophisticated the guests/passengers, which usually means less knuckleheads, idiots and morons. Jump on one of those booze-cruise, bargain package deals, and you'll be amongst the types that hit the buffet hard or, end up on a You Tube video, drunk, fighting amongst each other.

You'll have a good time, just practice solid hygiene.

+1 on Viking River Cruises. We've done them in China (8 days), Amsterdam to Bucharest (23 days), and in a couple months we're doing St Petersburg to Moscow (two weeks). The longboats carry about 175 pax, and generally you stop a different city every day. And no unpacking your suitcase!

Yes, they serve booze, but we've seen older crowds and no stupid drunks.

Viking is not the only quality river cruise company. Avalon Waterways (now part of Globus) is another--I've done 2 river cruises with them and they were excellent: 15-day Bdapest to Amsterdam and 9-day Paris to coast and return (day visit to Normandy beaches).

flashguy

We have done 2 "cruises". One was the Rhein river, which was nice, and fun. Stopped at several ports to go ashore and sightsee.

The other was an 8 day trip from Europe to the USA on a regular passenger liner from France to NYC. Company paid for that as we were returning from an assignment in Germany.

That was the last trip for the ship as a passenger liner. They turned it into a "cruise" liner.

Oh! I forgot! My first "cruise" was on a troop carrier from NYC to Bremerhaven. When the 3AD rotated to Germany to replace the 4th(?) infantry division. Now that was UGLY.

Had a couple 1000 troops on board, most of whom got seasick all over the place.

Edited to add:

In thinking about this, it occurred to me that I have been on a number of other cruises.

The North Fork of the Clearwater River in Idaho. The Salmon River, The lower Grand Ronde river, Hells Canyon in power boats and rafts (4 times). Not to mention going on a couple of commercial trips from Lewiston up Hell's canyon as crewman, assisting the Pilot who was my brother.

A couple of those river trips were on my cataraft, powered by oars. The grand canyon trip was in 2 man rafts. I was with my brother in his raft. 14 days on the river. Great fun, really exciting at times, especially when we stopped to scout the next set of rapids. Some of them were rated at the highest level of difficulty.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Elk Hunter,

I always said I'd go on a cruise as long as the ship isn't painted grey! I have been on several over the years, but not in a while. We were considering taking one this year, but the plague has given us pause.

And that's why I always book a balcony. In all seriousness I avoid areas undergoing issues and I've had a fine time. My understanding is currently there is a ban on passengers from the Wuhan region and more screening. This wouldn't effect my travels but I also have no immediate plans to Cruise or travel to Asia in the near future.

Death of cruise industry? No. You're more likely to get a virus on the airplane flight getting to the cruise port. And if every major plane crash that killed 200+ people didn't cause the end of plane travel for leisure, this quarantined cruise ship won't end the cruise industry.

I've been on 3 cruises in the past decade and have never eaten at a buffet on one. If you think cruises are all about nasty buffets and petri dishes for virus exchange, you don't know cruises.

Hope they keep it off Navy ships.

quote:

Originally posted by flashguy:
Viking is not the only quality river cruise company. Avalon Waterways (now part of Globus) is another--I've done 2 river cruises with them and they were excellent: 15-day Bdapest to Amsterdam and 9-day Paris to coast and return (day visit to Normandy beaches).

flashguy

Yup, they've been around for awhile.
Tauck is another popular long-time river cruise operator
Seaborn is a favorite that my friend likes, he and his wife have taken a number of their Mediterranean cruises, smaller ships, daily port-calls, no idiots
Crystal has grown quite a bit getting into the river cruise game, premium-level, heard nothing but good things.
UniWorld has a solid reputation, they also have Asian river cruises.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:

quote:

Originally posted by KevinCW:
I would be jumping off that ship and swimming for it.

Is it weird that I looked at the balconies, think I could keep jumping to the one below, get to the deck with a bunch of tied up sheets, tie them to the railing and get close enough to the water to jump?

Or that would be my first instinct to being on a cruise ship even if it wasn't the plague death ship?

guys, they have lifeboats all ready to go. Complete with block and tackle. Just lower it and go.

Back to the plague ship deal. So what are they going to do? If it starts out with one quarantined case, but they're all locked up, and every day 30 more come down with the disease, how long until they all have it? Guess they could sink the ship and shoot any one who doesn't go down with it. Do it for the common good? I want to live long enough to read the history books and the entry about that.

And still no cases in Africa or India? Lots of them originating in France but its to be expected. I remember a couple of weeks ago where England and the US were each sending airplanes to evacuate their citizens, and the artilce said France was sending a bus? I just thought it was a misprint. But its to be expected from a country full of war heros.

And what about Pakistan? And the advanced health care system in North Korea? How would all of them deal with it?

I'm pretty convinced this will collapse the world economy to some extent. We can't even make our own face masks or sanitary napkins. Worse still, where is Para in all this, we need panic buying of bourbon and maybe vodka. How about toilet paper? We should activate the standard blizzard protocol. Time to empty the shelves of all bread and peanut butter. Oh, don't need paper plates, we can use the good china!

Anchor the ship off shore somewhere, and shuttle supplies in. Let the virus burn through the passengers and crew. Most will survive. when everyone has had it and either recovered or died, let them off and carefully decontaminate them.

quote:

Originally posted by rburg:
Back to the plague ship deal. So what are they going to do? If it starts out with one quarantined case, but they're all locked up, and every day 30 more come down with the disease, how long until they all have it? Guess they could sink the ship and shoot any one who doesn't go down with it. Do it for the common good? I want to live long enough to read the history books and the entry about that.

And still no cases in Africa or India? Lots of them originating in France but its to be expected. I remember a couple of weeks ago where England and the US were each sending airplanes to evacuate their citizens, and the artilce said France was sending a bus? I just thought it was a misprint. But its to be expected from a country full of war heros.

And what about Pakistan? And the advanced health care system in North Korea? How would all of them deal with it?

I'm pretty convinced this will collapse the world economy to some extent. We can't even make our own face masks or sanitary napkins. Worse still, where is Para in all this, we need panic buying of bourbon and maybe vodka. How about toilet paper? We should activate the standard blizzard protocol. Time to empty the shelves of all bread and peanut butter. Oh, don't need paper plates, we can use the good china!

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
Anchor the ship off shore somewhere, and shuttle supplies in. Let the virus burn through the passengers and crew. Most will survive. when everyone has had it and either recovered or died, let them off and carefully decontaminate them.

That's my take, too. We're scheduled for a 28 day Princess cruise into the South Pacific in April - maybe. Time will tell.

On a smaller scale, the island kingdom of Tonga refused four cruise ships from docking. Fearing the spread of COVID-19. They've been dealing with a bout of measels outbreaks, they don't need anymore invasive diseases.

Four cruise ships refused entry into Tonga

quote:

Originally posted by Patriot:
Floating cesspool incubators of mouth breathing, shit smearing, salad bar sneezing, low life’s.

Sink them all...

And sometimes the shit runs down the hallways and decks. An example of a floating cesspool. Literally.

Another quarantine ship:

https://www.foxnews.com/politi...-white-house-efforts

I got off of NCL Escape 6 days ago with a cruise out of Miami to 2 ports in Mexico , Belize and Roatan. The ship is huge! 4200+ guests, 1700+ staff. Sanitizing stations everywhere. Walk into the giant buffet area and your hands were sprayed with sanitizer, leaving the ship, get sprayed, returning get sprayed. Personally its the last cruise for me. Too many time constraints with "must be back on the ship by 2:30pm" (Roatan), and other ports. Id rather go all inclusive at an Beach resort and enjoy and relax. The wife and I were never nervous of the virus, as we were concentious of keeping our hands clean and sanitized. The best part of the trip was holding a Sloth in the Honduras! So very cool!!!