Annalisa12

Were any operating in the last six months? I thought they had all shut down.

8420PR

A few cruise ships from different companies are operating in Europe since last summer, with testing, capacity controls, masks and social distancing restrictions on board. There are some bargains to be had at the moment, as I guess there are limited passengers wanting to cruise (due to the season, travel restrictions, pandemic etc). If someone tests positive on board the close contacts (mostly people in the same cabin or group) are required to isolate themselves.

Global Adventurer

Yes. Like MSC in europe. Which actually is the only cruise company I can tolerate since their ships attract a variety of nationalities.

invisible

In Singapore they are called ‘Cruises to Nowhere’ - 3-4 days, leaving and coming back to Singapore without stopping at any ports, only passengers can be the current long-term residents, all measures - capacity controls, masks, distance, number of people in a single group are in place, passengers need to carry Bluetooth trackers all the time.

invisible

FYI. Regarding ‘normal’ travel below is what is served as a breakfast at Grand Hyatt in Singapore for 2 weeks hotel jail for what you are paying $3k.

My Singaporean friend who stayed at Marriott said that food there during that 2 weeks was worse than at his army base camp when he was doing NS. His friends were ordering food delivery for him during these 2 weeks.

On other hand, if you want to drop weight, this might be not a bad idea, one wrote that after 10 days she dropped 10 kg.

Global Adventurer

I like to eat and drink beer, THIS right here will keep me far away from any country mandating quarantine. Ain't gonna happen. Those eggs are disgusting!😳

TheOneThatGotAway

Travel will feel normal again when all of the coronavirus rules are gone. And I mean all of them. No tests. No masks. No quarantine. No reduced service. No nasty brown paper bag breakfasts. No silly dots on the floor telling you where to stand.

Global Adventurer

I've been planning my trip to see the Dubai 2020 (2021) Expo for many years, and just now cancelled all my hotels reservations. I really wanted to go, but thinking of the reality, I don't want to deal with all the precautions and issues that will be involved. It's only 6 months from now, so EVERYTHING will still be the same. Hopefully, when Doha has the FIFA match next year, I'll go to that event and stay for their National Day celebration. I've been to Dubai and Doha numerous, but rather completely avoid all the restrictions. I'll just be staying in Quintana Roo from Oct-Feb and do a lot of hotel jumping. Some major hotels there are only $34.00-$50.00 per day. It's a sad day for me, but with all the talk about vaccine certificates, more quarantine rules. I'm done.

i0wnj00

Well, I just got my first vaccination and waiting for the second one, but I'm worried how I'm supposed to prove I was vaccinated, other than using white and yellow cards as proof of vaccination. Or will this be even an issue or matter if I have to still do mandatory pre-covid-19 testing and/or quarantines?

The only thing I don't have to worry about is severe complications or death from covid 19, which I don't want to find out regardless.

Global Adventurer

Well, not so true, because if you get one of the variants you could be toast. So, basically you'll need a third booster shot. Moderna has already developed one for the south african variant, but it's only in phase 1 of clinical trials. I don't see how vaccination certificates would even work right now since none of them fully protect against the variants. It's like not having the vaccination. In the end, there will be just ONE vaccination that actually works better than them all, and it will still need annual reformulations as the virus mutates like the flu.

i0wnj00

Nobody knows where the virus will go, not even the experts. We can talk about the third booster shot when it's approved by the FDA and arrives for public consumption and how the virus will behavior later because its impossible to know how this will turn.

If it mutates like the flu like you claim then its probably something that can be skipped. It's not like I take the flu shot each year, it can be fatal for people who haven't been vaccinated, but for the rest of us, it will be just an annoyance. The only thing that the experts can say, is to get any shot you can take.That's the advice I took because I may have survived last year but this year is probably going to be different. Even then, it's still better than just a mask and social distancing, I've seen too many people coughing without using their elbows, not wearing their masks properly/at all or getting too close to me.

Even then there's already a discussion on this forum about how the US will provide immunity certificates because of increasing supply of the vaccine and rollouts of the vaccine and a lot us are wondering if things will be normal. Supposedly, Europeans are pondering such a scheme and China is likely considering such a thing to get their economy back up.

Global Adventurer

The experts do know where this is going. They agree that it's here to stay, but the vaccines can "help" reduce deaths. It's too late to stop it now, so life will go on and new vaccines will roll out as needed. Also, a recent study suggests that better protection was recorded in some people getting two separate shots with different vaccines than two with the same. Regardless, I'll let everyone figure all this out on their own without using me as a guinea pig 😃

Dublin_rfk

I don't see travel essential or otherwise returning to pre virus levels for a long time. I’m in a position that is considered essential and before this started was on the road @ 35 weeks a year. Last year it was 40 weeks of 2 to 3 day long trips and so far this year I have been home one stretch of 8 days. I’m monitored by customers for where and when I travel as well as daily recorded temperature checks (to bypass their quarantine requirements). I've been jabbed twice and as far as I'm concerned it was for nothing. A positive antibody test didn’t mean anything and proof that I’ve been jabbed doesn't either, I’m still required to be tested every couple of weeks. In most of my travels I'm limited to warm at best takeaway meals and hotels that change the sheets when I leave. What has changed is my customers are waiting longer for service calls and paying more for them because they take longer because I need stay in places with kitchens so that I can cook a hot meal once or twice a day. One positive point. I discovered Cancun. A place where for a very reasonable amount of money I can relax, get a hot meal and forget about the news.

Global Adventurer

That's where I'll be for about 20+ days starting next month, and then over the winter starting in the fall.

sdsearch

Nasty brown paper bag breakfast are not due to coronavirus rules. They're cost-cutting with coronavirus as an excuse. When in the exact same city another hotel can have hot food dished out by an attendant behind a table that you take back to your room, it's obvious that nasty brown paper bag breakfasts at the hotel next door which contain not even hardboiled eggs are cost-cutting, pure and simple.

Coronavirus rules may affect how you get your food, but they shouldn't affect what food can be prepackaged. If they don't prepackage even hard-boiled eggs at hotel brands like Hampton Inn and Fairfield Inn which always had hard-boiled eggs as part of the complimentary breakfast, you known that's cost-cutting, not Covid, that's the real reason.

And what if some hotels continue to do cost-cutting and just shift to another excuse?

Ie, some aspects of travel need business travel to get back to normal, so that hotel occupancy rates are normal, not just for coronavirus rules to go away. But since many businesses used Covid to learn how to do teleconferencing better than they knew how to do before Covid, it's not clear if/when business travel will get back to what it was pre-Covid, if more business travel than ever before continues to be replaced by teleconferencing even past Covid. And thus it's not clear if/when all hotel that relied on business travel can staff up to the degree that they were staffed before Covid. And staffing is needed for good food service at hotels.