Will the Cruise Industry even SURVIVE?

[Trinnity]

You guys know I love to travel, having spent a month cursing the Danube and the Rhine, over 2 trips...will any of us ever get to go or go again? One wonders. (it'll take me several years to pay off the last one, so maybe I'd never get to go again anyway).

Sep 24, 2020 Viking Cruises Founder Loses 66% Of Wealth As Pandemic Hits Norway’s According to the latest annual list produced by Norwegian financial magazine Kapital, Hagen has seen his personal wealth drop from $6.28 billion down to an estimated $2.1 billion in the space of a year. It is the biggest single-year drop ever recorded in the 30-year history of the report. [...] The sudden drop in revenue combined with a refund obligation to many thousands of passengers left it desperately short of cash.

How bad is it now I wonder? The cruises were under-booked so they lost money on that. I kept thinking under normal circumstances we'd never have had the ease of no crowds. NO crowds. Amazing.

[Authentic]

Maybe.

I put my foot in my mouth on Facebook saying that Vegas was going to shut down because the pandemic was affecting its hospitality industry.

While that is the money machine, Vegas has other economic drivers; among other things, it is a military town.

Which I knew when I posted, but I was drunk that night.

[Authentic]

I never have been on a cruise and don't want to. I have relatives who are big cruisers. They offered to pay for my ticket and I turned them down.

There are other ways to see ports, I can go to the desert if I want to see stars, and almost everything that can be done on a boat can be done on shore.

A trip down the Rhine and Danube sounds amazing, but I would prefer a small boat to being aboard a floating petri dish.

[Jen]

I've never been on a cruise. I have never wanted to go on a cruise........but I can see how the cruise industry might be damaged. Putting a lot of random people on a ship, stopping at ports where who-knows-what diseases are rampant.... then getting back on a ship again is just asking for disease to spread.

I have traveled quite a bit. I've crossed the Mediterranean on a big ship more than once. I've ridden trains in Italy and Germany. I've traveled 7 or so European countries in my own car......... and I never got the crud.

Sadly, I doubt the travel I did would be possible now. I did it before the Euro when American money was worth a lot and that was a time I had plenty of American money on hand and not much else to do with it but travel.

Times have changed. My travel days are over - well - unless Covid magically lifts and we are able to go to Japan to see our son who will live there for a few more years.

[Authentic]

Now, there is one long boat ride that I want to make before I die - the Alaska Marine Highway route from Bellingham, WA to Ketchikan Alaska.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Marine_Highway

And I have absolutely no problem boarding a Washington state ferry. Have done it several times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_State_Ferries

[Authentic]

Ships should be cancelled. Black slaves were transported on ships.

That makes ships racist.

[Authentic]

And see? The cruise ships industry is white supremacist.

The passengers are overwhelmingly white, while the crew is often non-white.

https://thesocietypages.org/socimage...ruise-ship-ad/

[Jen]

Now, there is one long boat ride that I want to make before I die - the Alaska Marine Highway route from Bellingham, WA to Ketchikan Alaska.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Marine_Highway

And I have absolutely no problem boarding a Washington state ferry. Have done it several times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_State_Ferries

Oh heck............ ya need to drive the AlCan from Anchorage to Seattle. We did it in the winter (with 3 kids and 2 cats). Most beautiful trip EVER.

[Authentic]

Oh heck............ ya need to drive the AlCan from Anchorage to Seattle. We did it in the winter (with 3 kids and 2 cats). Most beautiful trip EVER.

I'd need a passport, right? Don't you have to make it least one stop in Canada, like Whitehorse?

Well, I suppose I'd need the passport crossing the border.

I've lived practically my entire life within 200 miles of either the Canadian or Mexican border, and never been to either foriegn country.

Only been to eight U.S. states, two east of the Mississippi.

[Authentic]

I've been 7 miles from the Mexican border and 8 miles from the Canadian border.