MidwestIA

Sorry to hear about your experience and most importantly, hope your wife is better.
What did the hospital diagnose your wife with?
At the end of the day, getting your wife to medical attention is the first priority. I think you'd agree getting her the necessary medical care is more important than anything else.
One thing for the future, travel insurance would have likely covered a scenario like this to cover a refund of time lost.

In UK we could never use free testing for any type of vacation, if going on vacation we have to pay for tests.
The point being raised was that Testing stations in UK are closing due to the fact most places no longer need tests and in UK all restrictions have been lifted, this makes it more difficult to find somewhere to get a test if you stay outwith major cities.

WRONG! My next cruise leaves Sept 11, so it will almost certainly be Sept 12th.

My cruise leaves Oct 27, so I’m guessing Oct 28th

If I've learned one thing about cruise ship protocols over the last 2+ years it's that trying to guess when a policy may change is an exercise in futility.

Since Carnival announced on Friday that the Pre-Test for fully vaccinated folks on sailings under 16 days takes affect on 9/6 --- My guess, for the fun of the post is, they'll make the announcement today or tomorrow, taking affect on Thursday, 9/8.  Pure speculation, but since Carnival's announcement, I agree with you that, like Thanos said, it's inevitable.  In fact, to my knowledge, RC is one of the last ones to drop it.
 

Can't speak about Allure's boardwalk donuts, but the normal ones available in the Windjammer are terrible.  Royal really needs to find a new recipe.

Ask for Kraken, not a Kraken floater although if they make it with Kraken AND add a floater 👌👌

I would say to that rep...

The CDC exited the game.  No more blaming the CDC.  

Spoke with reps again today as we changed our room and paid our gratuities for the 10/16 sailing on Oasis. This is the most information that I've been able to get from anyone so far. I was told this week 8/7-8/14 is a trial period for the CDC to conduct testing and there will be an official policy update out 9/30 after the data is reviewed. The rep claims the goal is to allow everyone to cruise regardless of vaccination status. As my wife and I are unvaccinated we were again reassured that we would receive a 100% refund as it is a change to the company policy. Obviously this is word of mouth so may not be 100% accurate but I'm somewhat inclined to believe this.

Updated Protocols 
Galveston & Los Angeles 6-Nights or more
We’ve been diligently working with our destinations and have made great progress towards welcoming all guests onboard our ships. 

Our relaxed sailing protocols are confirmed for our departures from Galveston, Texas and Los Angeles, California sailing on or after September 5th, 2022, visiting the Western Caribbean and Mexico.
The intention is to work in phases as we relax our protocols. And, as they change, we are committed to keeping you informed.
Vaccination Recommended
We recommend that our guests be fully vaccinated against COVID‐19, if eligible. While vaccination is not required, we kindly ask you disclose your status during check-in to ensure we maintain a highly vaccinated onboard population. 

For sailings that visit Grand Cayman: Due to local regulations, unvaccinated guests 12 and older can join our sailing however, they’ll need to stay onboard when we arrive in Grand Cayman.
Testing
Pre-cruise 
All guests aged 2 and older must present a negative COVID-19 test result taken within 3 days of our sail date — this adds an extra day for our vaccinated guests to test. Additionally, we’ve removed boarding day, mid-cruise, and departure testing.

Accepted Tests 
Any FDA‐approved PCR or antigen test supervised in person or supervised by a telehealth professional meet this requirement. To learn more about our accepted tests, visit our FAQ.
Check out our Healthy Sail Center for our full sailing protocols

We plan to do the exact same on the Liberty (Oct 23rd) when we port in Grand Cayman! Happy to stay on board and play in the water park and eat until we nap lol Just happy to cruise again!

When Covid first started and we were still in the office at my old job - I sent this to my boss and said we need to play it on the screens around the building 🤣
 
I was denied....and then I quit

We plan to do the exact same on the Liberty (Oct 23rd) when we port in Grand Cayman! Happy to stay on board and play in the water park and eat until we nap lol Just happy to cruise again!

We are booked on the Liberty out of Galveston in October, in the 4 bedroom villa (presidential suite). Pricing is not at all like oasis class in the Florida ports, I know, but it was $9,900 for 7 adults and 6 kids. We booked with “kids sail free”. We actually have 8 kids (two are over 12) and my in-laws and SIL are staying in the suite with us because we were able to get this particular suite. Otherwise, we would have been paying more to get rooms that could have fit the 10 of us into two rooms and my in-laws always stay in suites. If they had booked the grand suite for themselves and we were able to find rooms that fit 5 next to each other (ya right), it would have been more expensive. The $9,900 felt like an economical vacation with that many people/kids. 

We are booked on the Liberty out of Galveston in October, in the 4 bedroom villa (presidential suite). Pricing is not at all like oasis class in the Florida ports, I know, but it was $9,900 for 7 adults and 6 kids. We booked with “kids sail free”. We actually have 8 kids (two are over 12) and my in-laws and SIL are staying in the suite with us because we were able to get this particular suite. Otherwise, we would have been paying more to get rooms that could have fit the 10 of us into two rooms and my in-laws always stay in suites. If they had booked the grand suite for themselves and we were able to find rooms that fit 5 next to each other (ya right), it would have been more expensive. The $9,900 felt like an economical vacation with that many people/kids. 

We plan to do the exact same on the Liberty (Oct 23rd) when we port in Grand Cayman! Happy to stay on board and play in the water park and eat until we nap lol Just happy to cruise again!

We plan to do the exact same on the Liberty (Oct 23rd) when we port in Grand Cayman! Happy to stay on board and play in the water park and eat until we nap lol Just happy to cruise again!

I'm afraid the bad luck was worse than you know. When we got home, we found one of our two cats dead at the top of our second-floor stairway. As best I can guess, she died just a couple days before we got home. We have no idea why or what caused it, and it clearly wasn't "peaceful". She was always a shy cat and hid from strangers, so absolutely no one who had been coming to the house to check on them had any idea it had happened.
I spent an hour of my day back home burying her in our back yard, and the next 3 days getting over intense grief as well as jet lag. 😢 😢 😢 

JL Moran, thanks for sharing.  I    loved the read and loved the candid Princess info.  We've considered trying them a couple times, but stayed loyal to Royal.
My family regularly struggles with "hay fever" symptoms and allergies...it's a Michigan thing.  On any given morning, afternoon or night, we (one of our family of 6) could feel like we had a cold during the summer.....any.  Don't judge, unless I    am face down, feverish, stuffed up, and unable to operate.....I     wouldn't test.  Especially in light of the brevity of current CV variants.  If everytime myself or my family had the sniffles, stuffy nose, headache and tested....we would be one of Abbott Labs largest customers or we would be able to buy Big Screen TVS with CVS rewards points.  It simply isn't practical, since we've been like this way prior to CV and never paid it no mind.  I    in no way think it is wrong for you to test, I    am just curious at what point do you feel convicted on a 2 week expensive cruise of the lifetime to test?
Also, the bait and switch beverage change would be a deal breaker for any future cruise with Princess.  You can't do that to customers.

Ugh, Joe.  What a disappointment for all of you….but glad to see that you are well and back home, safely.  The FCC thing sucks bigly.  Interesting that they allowed you to go on excursions but not continue daily shipboard activities while in isolation.  Maybe I’m misunderstanding some of this…

I keep thinking about this and I tend to agree that it will only formalize the testing that they've already announced. I can't imagine they'd only keep the new protocols in place for a week. It seems like they'd want to have weeks, if not more, of getting everyone used to the new protocols. I'm sure they already have all the data they need as far as who tests positive at the port, the number of positive tests for each length of cruise, etc.  I don't think any of this is actually about seeing what happens (does that make sense?) but rather it's about weaning off the testing and vaccine requirements slowly. Surely all the data they need about efficacy can be extrapolated from the passengers who have cruised since the original protocols were put in to place.

My uninformed prediction is the only change on the 14th is formalizing the process for unvaccinated adults to sail.

We plan to do the exact same on the Liberty (Oct 23rd) when we port in Grand Cayman! Happy to stay on board and play in the water park and eat until we nap lol Just happy to cruise again!

slow build up......everyone together now, "Wash your hands it's the right thing to do, wash your hands you only have two....." la la la la 
My kids can all sing this song from memory!