WAAAYTOOO

Just for reference here's the cost of long distance transportation not same as Jet ICU but probably comparable. I'd guess the flight was around $7K to 9K.
 https://www.flyingangels.com/how-much-does-long-distance-medical-transport-cost/

Royal and Celebrity are beginning to look like a bunch of clowns inside a pinball machine - jumping around reacting to one thing and then bouncing back in the other direction.  Sad, really

18h after RCL announced pre boarding COVID testing requirements, on Friday, Celebrity followed. I dutifully went out and got an antigen test at a local Walgreens to board Equinox out of PEV today. Late Saturday, got an email stated testing would be available in the terminal .....but boarding will be quicker if you already tested and have proof. At 11am today.... sail date got another email saying testing for vaxed not required. Like I've said flexibility is the key to sanity for cruising in COVID times. We board in an hour?

No, no separate Suites restaurant on Radiance class ships.  The Suites Lounge will have (or did, BC) some munchies during breakfast and happy hours but no full service sit down restaurant.  Breakfast only, as you noted.

This will cover you for a weekend road trip too..not just big vacations. 
Right before I bought my policy I had an incident with weather canceling a flight of mine. Couldn't get a flight out until the next day, which means the airlines aren't responsible.  The hotel, Uber and food allowances alone for that one incident would have equalled half of what I paid for my annual premium.

Wow, TIL. We actually have a lot (for us) planned for the next year, so this may make sense. Thanks you all!
Edit: I can't believe I didn't know the rates were so reasonable per annum. Just finished up buying an annual policy for our family of four.

I have had 2 price drops in the past 2 weeks on our Dec. 22, 2022 Oasis cruise.  Not that much money ($364 total) but considering this is a Christmas cruise, very much appreciated and fairly unusual.

These all technically were medivac flights though. I figure that adds some extra expense.

I have had 2 price drops in the past 2 weeks on our Dec. 22, 2022 Oasis cruise.  Not that much money ($364 total) but considering this is a Christmas cruise, very much appreciated and fairly unusual.

I totally agree with you - that Celebrity is best served by offering the tests on site....but I had read elsewhere that Celebrity was NOT going to offer the tests on site.  I doubted that to be the case and it turns out NOT to be the case, looks like.

$$

How big an aircraft was it, @smokeybandit?  Private or small commercial ?

A 6 passenger lear jet that can convert to an air ambulance.  

I think there are a lot of passengers that don't follow the community blogs and may even miss cruise line emails (especially when in transit).   Ship capacity is being kept very low,  if you start turning away large numbers of guests who are unaware of the newly released requirement, that adds to the bad press for the industry on the guest service side.  (There's already built in negativity every time a cruise related case is reported.   Its interesting to watch RCL stock movement between Covid reports and periods of no reports.  )  I think it wise if Celebrity and others offer the pre-test as part of embarkation process.   It helps the guest fill a square , and gives the cruise line a more current baseline of passenger infection status (+/-).

No, no separate Suites restaurant on Radiance class ships.  The Suites Lounge will have (or did, BC) some munchies during breakfast and happy hours but no full service sit down restaurant.  Breakfast only, as you noted.

I have had 2 price drops in the past 2 weeks on our Dec. 22, 2022 Oasis cruise.  Not that much money ($364 total) but considering this is a Christmas cruise, very much appreciated and fairly unusual.

Wow..effectively door to door service.  I have been trying to follow how different cruise lines have been handling positive cases and it appears the Royal brands have been doing a good job compared to the other lines.

(No offense JeffB but I'm writing a JeffB-length post here)
 
It all started Thursday night after the debarkation round of testing. All three in my group were negative, but about 10:30pm got a call from the ship's doctor saying our son was identified as a close contact for a boy in Adventure Ocean who tested positive. We never really asked for details on when or what they defined as a close contact since I figured we'd never get that detail as I'm sure they'd cite privacy. (Adventure Ocean follows strict masking and 6-foot social distancing rules as well as avoiding shared toys/supplies so I really doubt it was a 15 minute close contact, but we know the pressure cruise lines are under.)
The medical staff will only call you with results that late if they're positive (not that that stopped me from waiting up until after midnight for the first one).  The next morning we got a letter saying "dear guest" saying "guest" was quarantined. This step in the process is the one RC needs to work on. The letter didn't specify who (aka, just our son or all 3 of us?) had to quarantine (ended up just being our son) and had no "for more information contact XYZ" info on the letter. While the letter did list all the free services we'd have during quarantine (room service, internet, movies, phone calls) it didn't do a good job of outlining really what to expect. In my comments to RC I'm going to urge they have guest services call those people directly and lay things out for them instead of just a form letter, especially since the letter said staff would check up on us throughout the day and no one really did.  So we called the nurses station for some info, and the doctor called us back saying our son was indeed negative but they (I'm not sure who "they" is but I got the inkling it wasn't solely ship management) wanted another PCR test 24 hours later. Which meant 10:30pm again. 

By afternoon (Friday) we get a call that guest services wanted our passports, vax cards and health insurance info.  We never really got details on who wanted this, but we think it was the Bahamas government.  Because a bit later, the guest services manager called and finally we got a good line of communication going. Despite the negative tests, the Bahamas didn't want to let our son take a commercial flight home since he didn't fulfill the country's unvaccinated quarantine window (14 days, tell me that wouldn't suck). Apparently RC tried to get a waiver for us, but as of later Friday, the guest services guy was prepping us for a private flight home.  
The 2nd test Friday night came and went negative (and I'm going to assume all 4 other contacts were negative too, based on a talk with our pilots) and we got one more call from guest services that they'd have updated flight info by 8am this morning.

We got that call and they were still working out the details of the flight, but were prepping for it to be a late afternoon/evening flight and we'd move to the Hilton for a few hours. Somehow that got moved up and by 9am we got our 1pm fllight time and were just instructed to hang out in the room until noon. 
At noon guest services walked us down and we were off the ship.
They had a limo van (aka, party van) for us right off the ship, drove us right to the plane, got on the plane, flew right to our home airport and had the town car waiting for us at the GA terminal to take us home. Apparently whatever deal they had set up required actual door to door delivery, so I got dropped off at the parking lot to get our car, and our wife and son got the town car ride home.
 
So count me as the "I'm not an actor but a true story" for anyone that has concerns about booking a cruise due to fear of being covid-stranded (even if you aren't the one testing positive), RC has you covered.
I can't compliment RC enough for how efficient they were with getting us (and apparently 4 other groups for a total of 20 people in the "contact tracing kid" bucket) out of there and thus avoiding having to stay another 10-11 days for the Bahamas unvaccinated quarantine period.

I wonder this as well.  If you aren't "ill" and if the insurance company doesn't consider contacting COVID-19 itself to be a triggering event to interrupt the trip, then the triggering event has to be the cruise line forcing you to leave the ship.  I don't see clear cut coverage for that situation in the policy.  

No luck today but saved a little over $200 on our next cruise in the past by rebooking's. Thanks for the heads up and keep cruising!

$364 is huge in my book. I spent over 90 minutes on hold with Air2Sea today to save $36. LoL 

I have had 2 price drops in the past 2 weeks on our Dec. 22, 2022 Oasis cruise.  Not that much money ($364 total) but considering this is a Christmas cruise, very much appreciated and fairly unusual.

All I know is that, as an unvaccinated passenger, Royal has required that we are covered for potential COVID-related trip interruption and medical evacuation coverage.  Luckily, our annual policy already covered us beyond what was required so we are good on insurance.
Below comes from Allianz and is known as an "Embassy Letter".  These coverage amounts are per person limits.

I do note that the word "emergency" appears several times in this explanation of benefits but we were assured that this coverage meets all of Royal's requirements.  Let's just hope we never have to use it to find out !

https://www.foxnews.com/world/american-travelers-canada-fined-fake-documents
 
Two Americans fined $25K by Canada for having fake vaccination documents.

All I know is that, as an unvaccinated passenger, Royal has required that we are covered for potential COVID-related trip interruption and medical evacuation coverage.  Luckily, our annual policy already covered us beyond what was required so we are good on insurance.
Below comes from Allianz and is known as an "Embassy Letter".  These coverage amounts are per person limits.

I do note that the word "emergency" appears several times in this explanation of benefits but we were assured that this coverage meets all of Royal's requirements.  Let's just hope we never have to use it to find out !