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Comment by hannob | Hacker News Reader

This is of course all horrible, but I seriously wonder who at this point thinks: "Let's book a trip on a cruise ship right now!"

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Lots of the people booked on cruise ships right now probably made their reservations months ago. That's how we did it on the cruise we went on last year. Put down a deposit to reserve a room in September, paid in April, sailed in August.

Cruises mostly get more expensive towards the date of departure, so booking in advance is the thing to do if your ability to take the time for a cruise is predictable. I have a cruise scheduled for March 2022. If a cruise price does go down it is because they overestimated demand, and cruisers will be watching for when the price of new bookings drops below the price they paid. The deposit, so far in advance, can be both tiny and fully refundable.

I can see it. If you are healthy and you know that for most people the virus is mild and the mortality rate is roughly on par with the flu (they previously had it higher but the latest numbers look to be more like the flu at 0.1%, mostly all elderly or already ill), and you know the ships are likely to have less people on them, and you can likely get a deal, and they'll probably treat you like gold if you go...yeah I can see it.

Hell, just writing that out actually makes me think twice about calling and booking something. But I have young children and my wife would be unnecessarily worried the whole time and she doesn't even like cruises.

Companies like this are worried about more than the lack of new sign-ups. They're also trying to keep existing business, such as folk that booked their dream vacation a year ago and are now calling up to cancel or re-schedule it.

“Meet the Insane People Still Planning Cruise Ship Vacations”: https://www.thedailybeast.com/meet-the-insane-people-still-p...

How about people that have recovered from the virus ?

Assuming that immunity from the virus lasts longer than a few days/weeks.

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