The talk of a mandatory requirement to wear a mask on board concerns me. Even Norwegian and Royal Caribbean who announced their re-start dates and re-start polices made no mention of mandatory masks. The reason masks concern me is the following:
I would like
DCL to start up as soon as possible and to not just start up, but to be successful. The market for the Disney theme parks is many, many times greater than the market for DCL cruising. The market for DCL cruising is even smaller now because even that market has shrunk due to people's anxiety and concerns over cruising. To me, DCL is going to rely heavily on their hard core/die hard/loyal/
Castaway Club cruisers at the beginning of re-cruising. If you are coming on this board and posting on this board, then you are clearly a more dedicated DCL person than the average Joe Bananahead. I have seen many of the dedicated DCL cruisers post on this board that the mandatory requirement to wear a mask is a deal breaker for them. So my concern is that Disney may be able to get away with the requirement to wear masks at the parks because of the tens or hundreds of times more market the parks have versus that of DCL. But if even the hardcore DCL cruisers are saying they wont cruise if there is a mask requirement, I foresee a real issue for getting started back up. I got to say that I really don't blame people because making someone wear a mask at the themepark for the day is not the same as being required to wear one for a week on a Eastern Caribbean with 3+ days at sea or even worse on a Transatlantic or Panama Canal.
Now you're going to get people say that "if you don't want to wear a mask, then don't book the cruise". The problem with that is, OK, DCL's loyal cruisers that DCL is going to rely on to get started back up are not going to book a cruise, so that leaves us without success and the inability for DCL to get back to normal. People want to book a DCL cruise, not the hollow, limp along, just getting by cruise on a DCL ship. The mask requirement for theme parks does not translate well no matter how scientific or well intentioned you make it sound. For example, DCL has many bars and nightclubs on their ships, how many bars are there at
Disneyland? The mask thing may be healthy and safer (even though it doesn't protect the virus getting in your eyes) but it is just a different thing on a ship, just is.