I can’t believe this is actually news this week. LISTEN UP–
I worked at a major cruise line for a number of years. As long as the pandemic is going on, DO NOT BOARD A CRUISE SHIP.
Multiple times different cruises lines have tried to re-open, and every time there was a Covid outbreak. At the beginning, they shut down one of our ships, cleaned it top to bottom, started the next cruise, and there was IMMEDIATELY another outbreak. This was early on, of course, so maybe they missed some things, but it doesn’t matter because all the cabins are connected via the heating and cooling system. It is cost-prohibitive to make every room separate in terms of ventilation, so there is literally no safe place to go maskless on a ship unless you’re outdoors in the wind. If you take your mask off in your own cabin, you CAN still be exposed. Cruise ships are already floating petri dishes of bacteria (one idiot guest not washing their hands can give everyone at the buffet a nice helping of norovirus), and something airborne is catastrophic for the industry. CATASTROPHIC. Like, ‘whatever happened to Blockbuster Video’ catastrophic.
I know people want to cruise. I know major cruiselines are running out of money after having been shut down for so long, and are getting desperate. Heck, pre-covid I’d even recommend cruising so long as you’re safe and keep clean and use hand sanitizer. But even with the vaccine, there is NOTHING. SAFE. ABOUT. CRUISING. Don’t do it. People are coming from all over the world and even if they’re vaccinated, they can still carry it, and they can still infect you, and you can still infect people you take it home to. Going on a cruise ship from October 2019 to present and beyond is AN EXTRAORDINARILY BAD IDEA. Cruise lines will tell you they took steps, and they are clearly not doing nothing, but THESE DO NOT WORK, it is an airborne virus that is mutating and even if 100% of guests and crew are vaccinated, you are putting yourself at even more risk than a concert or sporting event because most major cruise lines sail for seven days minimum.
I’m not some ex-employee with an axe to grind, I understand why they let me go and I already have another job. This isn’t about their business model. It’s about them trying to tell you a closed bacterial environment has been made safe when it is literally the dictionary definition of the last possible thing you should do during a pandemic. This article shouldn’t be news, it should as obvious as the Earth being round, but here we are.
