THIS SOUNDS LIKE FUN...

So true. However, I think the overall percentage of people in that category will be greatly reduced, at lest for a time. IMHO, the pandemic educated (or shamed) a lot of otherwise clueless people on the importance of sanitation and hygiene. Since this has been going on for over a year, I think hand washing and sanitation will become ingrained behavior for a large swath of the population..................... again, at least temporarily. Will it ever get to be 100% of society? No, absolutely not. But I think it will be enough to make a difference for a few years, then complacency will probably set in for some as people forget what they have just been through. Overall though, I think personal hygiene awareness has increased to a whole new level for anyone who has lived through this.

Also, I read the ship's self service buffet's will be gone as well. No more touching those dirty, germ infected serving spoons.

Agree. The cruise ships will bend over backwards to be safe. But the real question to me is will other guests? Before Covid you couldn't even get people to wash or sanitize their hands before using a buffet. Americans in general unfortunately have a very "me" mentality.

I didn't say they are "safe." I said they are as "safe" as they are going to get. There's no such thing as complete safety.

Feel free to hide out until some government entity declares it "safe." I'm not sure they ever will.

I'm getting on with my life.

There will NEVER be zero cases of Covid....therefore....while infection rates will eventually drop to whatever the suits-in-charge consider "acceptable", there is no such a number for cruise ships...

Clearly with all the money they lost and all the money they've spent, I'm quite certain the cruise lines will be bending over backwards to keep their guests safe. It's a question of their survival, for any major (or I'd even argue minor) COVID incident or outbreak will have the news media and governments from around the globe descend upon them like locusts and beat the drum of "No Sail" until the pandemic is officially and formally declared OVER. In other words, bankruptcy.

OGW- you are spot on!!!

No idea but I know current conditions are not safe. They may be the new normal but they are not safe and we cannot go back to how it was at this point.

What do you expect to happen that will make conditions "safe?"

Just carry that to its logical conclusion. I'll bet that folks who haven't been vaccinated yet probably won't EVER be. And then what? "Inducements" are now being offered in exchange for getting jabbed. When they get up to $100 I'll get a few dozen....offset the cruise price increases...(probably make me glow in the dark)..thats IF we ever start again....

If people consider current conditions as safe as it is going to get then we are in some very deep doo doo