May 4, 2020

Carnival Ready To Cruise Again. Viking Is Coming To America!

It's a big news days for cruising as Carnival announces a planned phased restart to sailing and Viking River Cruises is coming to the Mississippi River. We break all of this exciting news down in today's episode.

Full Transcript, apologies for typos.

0:00 Hey folks, welcome back to Where's Walter. Carnival's ready to sail again and Viking is coming to America. 0:15 Well, let's get right to it. Carnival Cruise Lines just announced that on August 1, they hope to start a phased restart of cruising from select cities here in the US. Reading right from Carnival, all North American cruises through July 31 will be canceled. Beginning August 1. We plan to resume sailing on the following ships. 0:39 Out of Galveston, Texas it'll be the Carnival Dream, the Carnival Freedom and the Carnival Vista. Out of Miami it will be the Carnival Horizon, Carnival Magic and the Carnival Sensation. Out of Port Canaveral it will be the Carnival Breeze and the Carnival Elation. Other than what we just said. All other North American and Australian homeport cruises will be canceled through August 31. 1:07 This is interesting. They're saying that on August 1, they are going to attempt to start sailing again. And they've got a couple of their big ships in there. They've got the Horizon and the Vista in there, which is two of their very large ships. Nothing in here about are they going to limit the amount of passengers or any other procedures it's just, this is what's going on. And they're saying that they are going to contact all the guests who will be sailing and things like that. 1:32 So what do you think would you hop on to one of these ships right now? You know, I've not sailed Carnival yet. We're going to be on Mardi Gras next year. And I've always kind of had a bias against them. I'm not sure I'm not sure. Now if it was Celebrity, I'm biased. Yes, I would hop on a Celebrity ship and I would hop on a Princess ship on August 1. Still undecided on Carnival but this is cool. 1:56 The interesting thing is, you know here in the US, we are just starting to relax the rules and people are just starting to be you know, we're getting rid of a lot of the mandatory lockdowns. So there is a fear from health officials that you know cases will start spiking again as we get into June, July and August. And with them announcing on August 1 this could be interesting. I'm sure this will be greatly affected by what happens in Florida and Texas over the next few months. 2:22 I find it interesting that Carnival just put this out there I guess try to get people excited. After last week, Congress sent a not so nice letter to Carnival saying we'd like to talk to you about all the situation going on and the cleanliness. If you don't know what I'm talking about. Tony over at La Lido Loca did a great job explaining it all link up there link down below. If you don't know what I'm talking about. He takes care of i t for you, 2:44 So it's interesting that Carnival does this. Obviously trying to get people excited about cruising again, we're excited about cruising again. I don't know that I would have to hop onto one of these. But we're set to sail and 2021 on the Mardi Gras and we're going to be going on Scarlet Lady from Virgin Voyages, we might go on a Christmas cruise, we're kind of keeping an eye out to see how things go. But again, you know, with the with the country kind of opening up, and we could start seeing cases rising again, it's going to be very interesting to see if they can start sailing again on August one. 3:17 And then if that wasn't enough, Viking River Cruises comes out today and says we're coming to America. We like the Mississippi River. We'd like to sail on it. I didn't see that coming, did you? So starting August of 2022. Right now they're showing four itineraries on their website. 3:34 We've got the heart of the Delta, New Orleans and Memphis, we got America's Heartland which is St. Louis St. Paul, a southern celebration, which will be a round trip to New Orleans. And then America's Great River St. Paul to New Orleans. Well, how about that Viking River Cruises coming on over now I have to believe this is really targeted towards the European cruisers. They've got obviously an amazing reputation as one of the best river cruises out there. 3:59 I'm curious with My American friends, would you hop on the Viking River Cruises? Or would you stay with say like American River Cruise that has.. or American Cruise Lines that does many Mississippi river cruises, I find it interesting that they just made this announcement. I think it was a week or two ago, the small American cruise lines actually announced a coalition. One to try to separate themselves from the big cruise lines that are in the news a lot. And two, to help promote, you know, smaller cruising a 250 passenger or smaller cruising going up the rivers and along America's coastlines. So I think it's very interesting that Viking just put this out a week or two after those cruise lines announced that coalition. 4:40 So some interesting things going on with cruising hey, here's another video on cruising I think you'll like and YouTube thinks you're gonna like that one. Please subscribe, click the bell icon. You'll know when we've got more stuff because in addition to cruising, oh, we've got recipes on here. I've got some great cocktails. We've got travel advice, and we've got some interviews and discussions with folks about all kinds of things travel and lifestyle. So thanks so much for watching, I'll see you next time.