Some really good news, where that money goes, and in the "Now we know where the next big Covid spike is going to happen" department...
Watching the news, talking to friends, and just getting a feel for what's going on via osmosis I'm pretty sure we can all admit that whatever the new normal becomes it won't be anything at all like the old normal.
That said, the jury's out on what the new normal is going to be for folks cruising but my gut instinct says it will be a mashup of a lot of things. There won't be a single new norm but rather a lot of different versions of ordinary depending on your mindset, economic status, and political inclination.
One thing you can say about living in interesting times is it's going to be fascinating.
Offhand, as the overall trend of polarization continues, a lot of the places that were standard cruising destinations will no longer be as welcoming or affordable as they used to be. Which, I suspect, will have a two-fold effect of shifting the standard cruising routes to take advantage of locations more open to cruisers while the more affluent cruisers will continue to do the same old milk runs which will escalate greatly the cost to cruise those areas.
Which, when you think about it, would be no bad thing as it has always been natural that the less well-heeled and more adventurous cruisers have always been the explorers who discover while the more affluent tend to follow in their wake once those places have become trendy.
Which is all a roundabout way of saying that most of the interesting cruising in the new normal is going to be to places where there is not much in the way of cruising guides. Personally, I kind of like the idea of a new age of discovery and rediscovery.
Listening to Liraz
So it goes...
