Princess Cruises announced its new Health Guidelines that will be implemented when cruising resumes. We feel they got the guidelines 95% correct, and they have plenty of time to fix that last 5% before we start cruising again.
Cruising is going to change due to Covid19 and with that will come more rules, more stringent health checks, and other changes. We applaud Princess and all CLIA members who are addressing the needs and concerns for both passengers and crew.
The guidelines Princess released are so close to being spot on, just one item on their list needs to be further addressed and it can be before they start sailing again. They're just going to have to be a bit more creative. If something is going to 'inconvenience' the passenger a little but keep us safe, we say bring it on. We'll gladly take the inconvenience to get back on a ship sooner than later. Just so long as we are all as safe as can be.
Full Transcript, apologies for typos.
0:01
Hey folks, welcome back to Where's Walter. Now in another episode, we talked about Genting Cruise Lines out of China and some of the changes they're going to make based on the COVID-19 outbreak. Now we have Princess Cruises just announced their changes. And I think they got it about 95% right. There's just one thing that I hope that they will still change before we start sailing again. But let's take a look at what they're doing.
0:22
Now pre cruise, obviously, they're going to be monitoring everything that's going on around the world. So you can expect that itineraries will change. Cruises may be completely canceled based on things that are going on. They've also made a change that obviously, no one was flu like symptoms will be allowed to come on board. If you are exhibiting any kind of flu like symptoms even before you leave your hometown even before you leave your home.
0:47
They will obviously, they're not going to let you on board and they will allow you to cancel the cruise and they will give you a full cruise credit or a refund. So obviously that will be within a 14 day time period of you having to go on a cruise. So what Princess is saying is, if you have these symptoms, we're not gonna let you on board anyway. But you're not going to lose your money we'll allow you to take a full cruise credit or take a refund. They just don't want you to show up at the port.
1:16
Okay, so that's really great because in the past, you had to have traveler's insurance to cover anything like that in the past, you would have just lost your money. So this is a really, really good move by Princess to say, hey, if you are sick, if you're showing any kind of symptom that might be flu that might be COVID. Just don't even show up. We'll give you a refund. We'll give you a full credit. That's a great move.
1:36
Now on embarkation day, as we've discussed in the past, the health screenings are coming back and they're coming back with a vengeance. There's going to be a lot more questions on there. You will be subject to a mandatory Thermal Check, check your temperature and make sure you're okay. If you have the flu or any kind of flu like symptoms, you will be denied boarding. So even if you're there at the port, you've got the flu or you've got something that looks like the flu, they will deny you getting on the ship.
2:04
But again, they will give you a full cruise credit or a refund, you're not going to be out the money that you paid. Again in the past if you showed up and you were sick and you were denied boarding well, that was on you and you lost your money. Now Princess is saying, we get it. If you are sick, we're not going to let you on board but you're not going to be out your money. So expect that.
2:27
Obviously there's going to be a lot more sanitizing in the in the cruise terminal. They're going to stagger people, they're probably going to be more vigilant about when you can show up at the ship. But again, if you show up at the port on embarkation day and you have any kind of symptoms that looks like the flu, they will deny you boarding but you'll get full credit or a refund.
2:49
Oh, one more little thing about that questionnaire. If you are found to have falsified the information and you're actually sick. One, they're gonna kick you off at the next port. So goodbye. Two, you may face legal consequences. You know, keep in mind this is a deadly disease and if you knowingly lied and you brought it on board the ship, Princess is saying, we may come after you, you know because we're going to be liable for everybody on the ship. So if you knowingly lied and brought this on board, you might hear from our lawyers.
3:20
Now on board, obviously, the ships are always great at sanitizing anyway but they are going to step that up even more, you know, tables, chairs, menus, and things like that. The high touch areas are going to get much more sanitizing. Open decks and sanitization is going to happen. You know this, they say the loungers, the outdoor furniture, the mini golf and all those sports equipment, anything that is high touch, it was cleaned a lot already. They're going to clean it a heck of a lot more and they're going to put even more hand, hand sanitizers out there.
3:52
In addition, expect them to clean your stateroom much more often. Rather than do it just once in the morning and then a turndown service. There will be more times that the room steward will come in, and they're going to wipe down the whole room as well.
4:05
Now the crew is going to be trained and they're going to be reinforced to help make sure that people wash their hands. They're going to be encouraged to not have as much contact with us, you know, shaking hands and all of that, you know, we'd love to shake hands, we'd love to hug our crew, we're not gonna be able to do that anymore. And they're going to increase the the personal protection PPE equipment for the crew onboard, that's going to be a good thing.
4:32
Now medical evaluations will be stepped up so any crew, that's showing any kind of respiratory flu like symptoms, they're going to have to go to medical personnel, and guests are strongly encouraged to. And at the same time, the crew is going to be required to report any guests who may be displaying symptoms. And if they do, then you're going to have to go down and see them.
4:51
Now it's the food service where they got it so close, but not quite. And they've got time to fix this before we start sailing. Here's what it says. Where possible food service will be by crew members with crew manning all food stations including the buffet and ice cream machines. If not possible due to layout restrictions. Many of the Princess buffets have serving islands to reduce traffic making crew service nearly impossible. Dedicated personnel will be posted to monitor these stations and ensure they are clean and sanitized regularly.
5:25
So what that means is, in some areas, people are still going to be able to self serve themselves. And crew is going to be right there somewhere close by to clean up. But passengers are still going to be allowed to touch the spoons and the tongs and this, that and the other.
5:43
Now, we just sailed on it on the Crown Princess not long ago. And you can see from these pictures, I kind of get what they're saying. If you look at the islands, they're in the middle. There's no center core where a crew member might be in the middle of the food like the salad bar. That's just one long line. And then on the side of the picture over here, you see, there's no there's no station, there's no place behind the food for the crew to stand. Unlike on Celebrity, the Solstice Class ships every buffet station, a crew member or two could be manning it from behind and serving.
6:21
So I have a problem with this one, you know, on the Crown Princess and some of the other ships of the same design. First of all, you can see the buffet is actually very tight. There's not a lot of room. So I'm hoping that they're going to direct flow, and that they are going to limit how many people can be in there. But secondly, if you can't serve us because of the layout of your buffet, well then just come up with creative ways and change things.
6:50
I mean, we're talking salad bars, we're talking very often cold food and we're talking desserts. So shut down those islands. And you know, maybe set up some tables out in the buffet, maybe take some of your main dining rooms that are usually closed at lunch. You know, usually there's like one portion of the dining room that's open at lunch. Why not turn part of the dining room into a big buffet? And then you can serve people.
7:16
I don't agree with allowing passengers to go ahead and still do self serve until we have a vaccine, and that people can prove that everyone on board the ship is now vaccinated. It seems like for whatever reason, the buffets have gotten worse with the hand grabbers with the you know, and even though you're gonna have crew right there, look, everybody's human. The crew is not going to be able to see every little thing. I would much prefer that you come up with creative ways to go ahead and serve us those items that you say it's not possible because of the layout. Then change the layout.
7:54
I'm curious to know your thoughts. I mean, would you still like to see self serve buffets in these times. I mean, personally, I'd like to to just see it go away, I would much prefer to have crew serving me. And if that means a cruise ship need to change some things, then go ahead and change them. I mean, we're just going to be happy to be on the ships again. Okay. And if there's some inconvenience because of the way foods are being served, I think we're all going to be okay with that because we would like to get back to cruising. We'd like to do it safely. I don't necessarily trust my other passengers to you know, do things safely all the time. So the more that Princess can take things out of our hands, and they do it, I'm all for it.
8:31
So hey, if you got comments about that, I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you like what we're doing, please subscribe and hit that little bell icon so that you'll know when we've got more cruise and I've got cocktails here, got some great recipes and we got some travel tips. So thanks for watching. I'll see you next time.