February 9th - The Other Shoe Drops

It was announced this morning that we will not be going to any of the other ports in Asia.  That eliminates, Singapore, Vietnam and Bali Indonesia.  We will put into Port Kelang (the actual port name for Kuala Lumpur) for fuel and supplies sometime in the next couple of days.  No one will be allowed on but people can get off it they want.  Our next port of call will now be Fremantle Australia on the 18th.

Singapore was supposed to be a turn around port.  That means people were scheduled to get on and off the ship.  Without that stop the folks who were going to get off in Singapore, either on the 12^th, or for our second visit on the 18^th now have to stay on the ship.  Cunard is letting them stay on for no additional charge of course.

Folks will have the option to get off in Port Kelang and make connections through the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.  Cunard will arrange for transportation to there.  The Captain told people that if they take medication and it will not last through to the 18^th, they should get off in Port Kelang (I mean he put it very nicely but he wanted people to think about their situation).

Fremantle is in the south western part of Australia and was supposed to be our LAST stop in that country, it will now be our first.  They are trying to salvage as much of the original itinerary as possible but we haven’t seen the revised schedule yet. 

To give you an idea, take a look at the map above.  Our first port of call in Australia was supposed to be in Darwin (far northern central part of Australia) and that was going to be on February 26^th.  After that we were supposed to head east to Brisbane, Sydney, and then around to Melbourne, Adelaide and eventually Fremantle.  There were a couple of smaller ports in between.  Now we will be in Fremantle on the 18^th of February. 

Why Fremantle?  We don’t have that answer but we’re guessing its as simple as they had room for us on that date.  These Australian ports are very popular and berths can be hard to come by.  Of course, we don’t know for sure.

Now the big question becomes where are we going after Fremantle.  Will we head out to sea and go to Darwin and then go around Australia as originally planned?  Or will we do something else?  Sydney is another big turn around port and it’s very hard to get a berth there so I’m sure that will be in their thinking. 

For Fred and I this is not the end of the world (although that’s going to be an awful lot of sea days!). We can stay on the ship until New York as we originally planned.  For others this is a nightmare.  If Cunard booked your air transportation then they will take care of moving your flights around and there won’t be any penalties.  If you had your travel agent do the planning for you then you can get in touch with them and they can do the leg work for you.  You will be responsible for the change penalties but if you have travel insurance (we always do) then you can get reimbursed.

If, however you made your own arrangements, as many people do nowadays, then you’re on your own.  Cunard will let you have free internet time to rebook but the rest is up to you.  We were in the internet/computer area of the ship a week ago and overheard a lady trying to make changes to her flight from Hong Kong, when that change was first announced.  She needed to change them to Singapore (and now she’ll have to change those).  We felt so bad for her.  One of the staff was trying to help her but it was a struggle and very emotional for her.  Those are the people really suffering through this.

I think everyone on the ship expected something like this was going to happen and many I’m sure are relieved to be leaving Asia in light of the virus hysteria.  Still it’s a shame to be missing these ports, Singapore and Vietnam are always highlights of a world cruise.  I’ll post again when we have more information on the new schedule.