An update from our partner Vacations to Go:
I hope this letter finds you and your loved ones safe and healthy.
I want to start today with a very sincere apology to anyone who has encountered long hold times on phone calls and long wait times for a response to an email sent to Vacations To Go. I can only imagine how frustrating this is for customers who need help with a cancellation or a rebooking, and for that, I apologize.
We are trying to manage about 10 times the usual number of customer inquiries due to cruise line cancellations and hotel closures. Each time cruise lines or hotels roll their suspensions of service forward for a month, we have tens of thousands of affected customers asking for assistance at essentially the same time.
All of our travel counselors and customer care specialists are working long hours under stay-at-home orders to provide the best possible service, but we know we are failing to meet your expectations--and our own--in terms of response time.
Please rest assured that we are doing everything we can to work through this backlog and we will be back to normal as quickly as we possibly can. I appreciate your patience and understanding as we navigate this crisis together.
Last month, I wrote to announce the suspension of oceangoing cruises worldwide due to COVID-19. Soon after, river cruise companies, escorted tour companies and hotels announced their own cancellations and closures.
International vacation travel has virtually ceased for the time being.
Most of the cruise line suspensions are currently set to extend into May with a few stretching into the summer. Alaska sailings are suspended until July at the earliest.
Last week, the CDC extended indefinitely their warning against cruise ship travel while the virus rages and I believe that more suspensions of service are inevitable.
In general, hotels in Mexico, the Caribbean, the Bahamas, and Central America are not accepting guests through at least mid-May, and Hawaii is effectively closed to tourists until a 14-day quarantine rule for visitors is lifted.
Many health professionals believe that new cases of COVID-19 will peak in the U.S. in the coming four to five weeks, with the peak week dependent on location. I've looked for projections for the peak week in Canada but haven't seen anything that looked official yet.
If the peak happens as predicted in the U.S., and the virus goes dormant in the summer, as many expect, there is still hope for a summer vacation for a travel-starved population.
Some countries in Europe were hit earlier than the U.S. and are already seeing new cases of COVID-19 decline, an encouraging sign for all of us.
In closing, I want to wish all of our friends and customers around the world good health, good fortune and an early return to the life we all enjoyed such a short time ago.
Sincerely,
Alan Fox
Executive Chairman
Vacations To Go