JeffB

Not sure I know the "real story" but ........ the voters in key west passed 3 popular ballot initiatives that effectively banned large cruise ships from porting at Key West by limiting the number of cruise passengers allowed to enter through the cruise port to 1300 people. Cruise ships with 1300 or less passengers are welcome according to the mayor who wants to make Key West a small cruise ship destination. Good luck with that. On April 24th, the FL Senate passed Bill 426, known as the "State Preemption of Seaport Regulations", in a 24 to 14 vote. That legislation never advanced to the FL House as the authors withdrew it after state ports objected to it's unintended consequences. and it died. Proponents of limiting the authority of ports to close them to legitimate commerce attached an amendment to a Transportation Bill that did recently pass and is currently on the Governor's desk ..... but it is a political hot potato with environmentalists making their usual claims and FL conservatives arguing they are baseless. To my knowledge he hasn't singed it yet. So, right now, large cruise ships can't go there. Stay tuned.

100% @icf75. The problem is the scourge of cruise ships sailing isn't going to go away in the post pandemic near term. Clearly your implied suggestion that the CDC needs to get real with it's CSO is needed. Maybe that is happening behind the scenes as Fain seems to imply. Would be nice if so.

Update on Celebrity Check in for my 7/9/21 8n, Greek Isles out of Athens....... if I attempt to check in on my PC from the main Celebrity web site, after you log-in, go to scheduled cruises, select the cruise you want to check in on > manage reservation > check in, it takes you to a page that says check in closed. Check back closer to your sail date. So, I went to the updated app I just installed on my android Samsung A51. After you log in (same as your usual web site log-in) it pulls up your next cruise automatically. At the action buttons at the bottom of the page, click check in. Follow the prompts to check in, voila'. I think they're pushing people to use the app. It's possible it may be the only way to check-in. I expect they will have a way for people not so tech savvy to do check in at the line and counter thing. The cool thing about the app is that you can scan passports (fills in all the entries automatically in the form or you can enter manually) and allows you to scan your photo. You can do everything to check in except complete your health form. Tells you that you'll get notified to fill this out at the app one day before your sail date. Don't know what it looks like. Hoping you can scan your CDC vaccine card. Edge class ships allow you to complete check-in on the app, show up at the terminal, go through whatever security is required, pass through a gate where your express pass is scanned (like boarding an aircraft) and go right to the ship and your cabin. None of this going to a counter, showing your Express Pass, showing your credit card and passport, having a picture taken, being handed a key, maybe allowed to board, maybe not and sometimes waiting an hour or more for your cabin to be ready. The cabin key is a card and will be inserted into your cabin door lock. If you have walk-on bags, no waiting until you're cleared to proceed to your cabin. You can go right to it and leave them in your room even if it's not ready to occupy yet, then proceed unencumbered to lunch - nice touch. Pretty techy and allows no contact boarding. The Fort Lauderdale cruise terminal was modified three years ago when Edge was introduced. It is set up for no contact boarding. We've done it twice pre pandemic and it is a breeze. Very cool. No telling if it will be that easy at Piraeus port in Athens. Hope so. The one thing not present pre-COVID that will be added for boarding in the pandemic circumstance is a face to face health screening some where in the terminal. You sign up for a time for this on the app. I suspect it is here that you will certify no current illness and have your vaccination card verified.

@smokeybandit, I take your point. I acknowledge the extremely low risk of un-vaxed under 16s of transmitting the virus but it is, nonetheless possible for this cohort to become infected and transmit the virus to other unvaccinated PAX. That's a risk Fain seems to be betting on the come line that (1) he will meet the 95% vaccinated requirement in a reduced capacity circumstance, e.g., for 3000 guests on a mega-ship normally accommodating 6000, you'll need to have less than 150 under 16s. (2) He won't have to deal with a scenario where kid # 151 has to be turned away. If this is the path he is actually going down, not only does he have the risk of even one or two infections happening on a ship but he has to deal with the eventuality that he'll get swamped with under 16s without a defined path (that we know of) of how is going to deal with that scenario. I think that's dumb compared with Celebrity's - albeit less likely to have that many kids aboard - approach. I suspect he knows more about where the CDC is actually going with the CSO than we know about because, he and the people around and advising him are not dumb.

Just to be clear, which I don't believe RCL is (Celebrity, IMO, clearer)....... RCL will be recommending but not requiring vaccinations. That means you have a mix of non-vax and vax passengers. The CDC guidance in that circumstance is questionable. If You want to read about the confusion the latest CDC guidance that vaccinated people don't need to mask, read here: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/cdc-mask-guideline-question-answer-coronavirus-covid-pandemic I can see why RCL appears to be hedging on protocols and procedures and also why they are planning on following the provisions of the CSO .... .whatever that document will evolve to before RCL sails it's first revenue cruise. RCL want's cover and I don't blame them. Here's what one expert (from the article linked to above) has to say about the vax passengers: Do you see the kinds of problems Fain courts? If RCL actually goes through with recommending but not requiring vaccination to sail he appears to be choosing to go down a path where RCL will get each ship they plan to sail in July through the test sailing process. Do you see how Lutoff-Perlo at Celebrity has eliminated issues Fain is setting himself up to deal with by requiring all passengers to be vaccinated? - no test cruises; straight to revenue sailings. Smart woman, IMO. Fain should think about taking a page from her play book. On what appears to be Fain's approach, if EVERYONE gets a rapid PCR test during the boarding process, you're creating something of a bubble that then requires a second set of COVID tests in 72h to catch leakers. If someone pops positive, they get quarantined. You would also have nearly foolproof contact tracing (the App) and contacts of that positive also get quarantined. PCR tests after each port call or no port call where the level of circulating virus is high in that port? Fun....... I prefer Celebrity's approach.

This may be old news but check-in for Apex out of Athens late June - July -appears to be open (first time it has been since last time I checked 6d ago). It's difficult to use your phone but it can be done. You'll need to add a photo for each traveler per their guidelines. You can also book packages and shore excursions. My booking is 7/9/21, 8n, Greek isles. I was impressed with pricing of shore excursions..... rarely use the celebrity offerings preferring to arrange my own. Will use Celebrity offerings for safety and convenience. Greece has moderate levels of circulating virus at present - stable or downward trending. Vaccine distribution is slow. If you have the Celebrity app on your phone, uninstall it and reinstall updated version. Everything is functional except daily schedule and these come later. You'll need the app during the boarding process.

Go to another consolidator like vacations to go, Costco, delta skymiles cruises. Find and price the cruise you're getting this deal on. Group rates will be pretty consistent among legit consolidators. This will give you a sense of the prevailing discount on group rates. You also have to be careful on not just taxes and fees but also on cabin class. Everything has to match up when price shopping. Have a look here by clicking "here's some stuff....."too:

@ksenese ..... you're not alone. I missed the FCC only thing on the CWC program. Its very difficult to keep up with all of this. If I understand you correctly you want to "change" and rebook, not pay the final and get an FCC. Is that correct? You'll get hit with another change fee if you take that route. If you pay and take an FCC you'll be better off money wise but there may be other considerations for you, your schedule for example.

Right @TXcruzer, I overlooked that.

Agree with @smokeybandit ....... I think the CDC wanted live, unvaccinated bodies that were not crew members to simulate all kinds of shipboard activities aboard a ship sailing w/o a requirement for PAX to be vaccinated. The desired outcome was zero cases. After that and if you had one, how did each ship handle it. That was before vaccines. One thing the CDC backed off on and provided an option to restart was to require 98/95%. There's some other tweaks but basically the CDC is standing pat with the CSO. Since I view this whole thing from the perspective that the CSO is unlawful, it's hard for me to get worked up by the details of compliance ...... that didn't stop from submitting a request to be considered for a test sailing though. Shoot, I'll play along ?

Well, actually it's a lot different than washing hands and not touching your face. I think you know this because the airborne thing was mentioned up thread. Just want to make sure?

@ksenesedid you book a refunadale deposit fare? If so, make the final then cancel under Cruise with Confidence program. RCL is pretty quick with the refund. I've gotten refunds back from Celebrity in under 3w. If the deposit is not refundable or not under CWC, best bet is to plan to sail but be prepared for RCL to CNX. If they CNX, usual options pertain. If air is involved book that through RCL. I got airfare fully refunded in 2w. That's not going to happen if you book independently. Good luck.

I don't disagree with your implied position @JSB_Z51. The data so far demonstrates that unvaccinated children under 18 do not pose a significant health risk to vaccinated people. But the data that supports that view is not yet sufficiently robust to claim certainty. That's what virologists seek. They're not in the business of assessing the cost of a particular position. Again, first, this is what's been missing in assessing the value of a particular mitigation measure from the beginning. Is it lives saved? That's a hard one to argue against. Second, the need for certainty that virologists seek. I think all of us here would argue zero risk is unobtainable and unreasonable. Seeking for certainty in the data assumes zero risk that a hypothesis, in this case, kids don't transmit virus, is accurate. In statistics, there are ways of identifying degrees of probability. We're not clued into this and you can be sure data geeks know what the probability is. I've seen numbers below 3%. That means a 3% chance that if you go on a cruise with unvaccinated kids where one or more of them have COVID, your risk of getting it - just getting it, let alone getting seriously ill or dying - is 3%, or 97% chance that won't even happen. The risk of serious illness or death is infinitesimally small. So cruise lines look at this and evaluate the costs of the 3% chance that an unvaccinated kid causes an outbreak on a cruise and you have your answer to the question you ask. From a political POV, it would be catastrophic. The visuals would be very bad for business. Here, the lines are being as risk averse in this analysis as the CDC is too many of thiers. But this is the era we are living in where being reasonable about COVID isn't something that we see a lot of.

The reality is that PH authorities like Walenski, Fauci and others are not in the business of risk analysis. They are in th business of evaluating disease risk and then PH policy should spring from that ....... after the costs of various mitigation measures are evaluatged. The object is to maximisw bang for the buck. With SARS2 that never happened. It's that failure of the last two administrations to evaluate the benefits v. costs of a PH policy that has to be corrected going forward and I beleive it will be. The CDC, in the case of the cruise lines, fashioned PH polcy that clearly exceeded their authority given outcomes. That can't happen ever again. I think PH authorities can make a case that regulation of the cruise industry's health and safety procedures and protocols is needed to prevent profit from driving operations. But, there is plenty of regulation that's already on the books that could have been tweaked short of what happened from March 2020 onward for the CDC to fulfill it's regulatory responsibility. The NSO and now the CSO were way overboard, some of it legal, most of it not. We're left with the ashes that were once a vibrant, growing and important industry that contributed heavily to the global economy. It's shameful that it happened in the first place, moe shameful that it hasn't been corrected wholesale. That could have happend with a ruling from Judge Merryday and could still happen if mediation fails.

A capacity limited ship may be able to sail immediately, without test sailings if unvaccinted children comprise less that 5% of all pax. Not a hard bar to get over ....... around 75. But I take your point. RCL May not want to risk running up against that number during the booking period and then before to limit that cohort.

Just curious ..... none of the screen shots of the advisory on vaccinations shows who the sender is. RCL? I'm remain distrubed by the poor, often confusing and/or contradictory information being promulgated by RCG. As I posted earlier/elsewhere, it isn't hard to make sure that offficial policy is coming from one source, is accurate and is reflective of current federal and state guidance. I've also said this: RCG has to have some level of insight into what CDC's stand is on the CSO or they would not be making plans to sail from Seattle in July, completing logistical and staffing reuirements for the ships that will begin revenue sailings and taking bookings. The announcments of and the bookings for an Alaska season from Seattle and promulgation of a policy that vacination will be required to board any RCG sailing from a US port signals that (A) RCG knows they are going to sail in July and (B) they aren't going the test sailings option route to restart. Given this logical reasoning, there is no reason at all for RCG to not open check in for bookings inside 90d and publish COVID protocols and procedures that will be in place when the sailing occurs on the check in pages. Cruisers understand that ports in countries being visited on a sailing may have addional COVID requirements. Just state that in announcments of the ship's COVID protocols and procedures and then reinforce them with announcments, adding any updates, the evening before the port call. This isn't rocket sicence. As well, it's a call for RCG to get it's act together with regard to the critically important aspect of information dissemination involving passenger health, safety and comfort.

I agree with this @smokeybandit. What distrubes me is that if RCG knows they can sail out of FL per @AGSLC5 then why don't they say so? Why doesn't the Governor clear this up by saying his no proof of vaccination policy does not apply to the cruise lines? I think it's pretty clear cruiselines will not be subject to the Desantis no proof of vaccination requied when sailing from FL ports. So, tell us that in clear an uncertain terms. Instead there's nothing in writing. Cruisers, businesses that rely on the revenue crusiers bring to town, port service providers are all asking this question. The fog of uncertainty, the tittilating slow release of critical information by RCG seems to me to be unnecessary.

Agree. The entire Alaska thing is pretty uncertain at this point amid what I consider putting the cart before the horse.

The first Alaska sailing from Seattle is 7/19/21. That's just inside 60d. Two obstacles to that sailing are the one I pointed out (compliance with the CSO v. easing of it v. PHE ends or CSO is enjoined and Port of Seattle/Seranade are cleared to operate) and the one @12thman points out ( logistics). I have trouble with cruise lines taking bookings and I'd assume full payment given those obstacles. OTH, the lines could have what Matt called an "understanding" and I called a guestionable "hand shake" agreement with the Seattle Port Authority and/or the CDC. As I previously advocated, this is where I believe the cruise lines owe customers more transparency. I'm unaware of any memos released by RCL that provides a semblance of reassurance that "we got this." Instead, we've got "trust us on this." Not that I don't trust RCL but the last 3-4 months have seen future outcomes as anything you could call clear. It's mostly foggy with visibility near zero. And RCL wants our money? I don't think so, not mine anyway.

So, nothing formalized thats in the public domain? A hand shake? I would not put any money on any July Alaska cruise out of Seattle until the CDC formally and in writing green lighted sailings from Seattle. That any cruise line is accepting bookings under circumstances where this is not the case seems to me a bit shady.

Wait. Has the CDC waived the CSO for these ships and has RCL negotiated all its contracts with the Port of Seattle per 2A? I don't think so. All of these sailings are truly in limbo until these obstacles are cleared. Amiright?

Does this CDC rejoinder mean that once the "statement of non partipation" signed by Rivkes is obtained by RCG and sent to the CDC that RCG no longer has to obtain contracts from port service providers such as hotels, hospitals, etc. that might have to deal with COVID crew or passengers being debarked in a FL port? I don't think that's accurate but what do I know? Another question, is RCLs port agent - the one always named in your cruise contract - a single POC for all port services? If so, is the Rivkes letter applicable to him/it as a means of relieving RCL from all the port services contracts 2A calls for?

Frustrating and a huge deal to people that have to arrange flights, transfers, excursions & tours, etc. We do this to and amongst ourselves here but the lines have been vague and to some degree less than transparent. Sure, they have cause but the uncertainty is really bad PR. I don't buy the excuse they can't plan because the don't know. There are clear indications they know a whole lot more than the cruising public does. I think we have a right and reasons for complaining to the lines .... not that it will do any good.

A rhetorical question to support a view that there's a lot of talk, a lot of it inconsistent and/or confusing and little action. I knew the answer before I asked it. BTW, I can't check in to my Apex cruise out of Athens where there's no CDC to deal with but rather a more reasonable Greek government and PH authority. It's 56d from today!

I'll add this Question? For cruises sailing from US ports in July you may have booked, has check in opened?