CruiserNic

Would not recommend the norovirus craps. 😄

Literally just danced around the house with my wife.

Also...the CDC just VOLUNTARILY gave up power? There's gotta be more to the story. But I will be in my mental Viking Crown Lounge celebrating!

Wow. That was unexpected.

If I'm king of the cruise world I would immediately:
 
1) eliminate pre-cruise testing. But give some perks or enticements to those who show up with a negative test in hand. 
2) eliminate special quarantine cabins. No reason for them, even if you still want people to quarantine in their booked cabin if they test positive on board. Those things need to be sold, not set aside just in case.
3) taper down to a date where you get rid of the need to quarantine at all. I'm not sure you could do that immediately
4) scrap the 90% rule. Again like #1, give enticement and perks to those who are vaccinated, but let the unvaccinated back on board.
 

and no vaccines!

Let's hope no pre cruise tests

The interesting thing about the risk of severity is that Royal's official policy has never required boosters or being "up to date" on shots, which means individuals can board even if their last shot was over a year ago now, which effectively means their risk of severity matches that of the unvaccinated. So even their current policy isn't great if the goal is to reduce risk of severe cases...so I do think moving forward with just negative testing without regard for vaccination status would probably be a good compromise, and still provide a good level of protection and mitigation. And I personally have no problem with self testing and reporting.

All that and we're still awaiting RC's response to the CDC

I mean if you have Newsies, can't you have crewsies?
 

Very good points. A happy crew definitely helps make for a happy passenger. 

Twangster, always level headed, and always have good advice. So glad you are a part of these boards to share your wisdom with us. 😊

I hope so. I would much rather see them address the working conditions of the crew. If your crew it’s not taken care of your business is not going to thrive.

As much as we all look towards testing as the big thing crew protocols loom pretty large in the picture.
This includes not only mask protocols but also crew quarantine and testing process.  There are also other crew policies in play right now that are making life on board much less pleasant compared to before.  Some crew are choosing not to renew contracts due to onerous protocols which isn't helping the staffing issues.  
There may be a lot of effort at HQ right now aimed at rewriting crew protocols which from a management perspective represent more effort compared to testing guests.  Testing of guests may be in the hands of the legal department to ensure the cruise contract mitigates legal exposure (I got Covid on a ship so now I sue because they didn't do enough) while other areas like quarantine cabins (used by crew when they board a ship initially) have to be reviewed.
They may be taking the time to address so much more than just testing. 

I hear ya but inevitably people would test when they got home and then bellyache on message boards about how they contracted rona aboard the thoughtless cruise ship. Wait, that’s already happening. 😜

If it were really about safety then I’d think the testing would stay and the vaccine requirement would go. You’re right, public perception is everything. If the testing goes then the cases also go. You can find what you don’t track. 😂

For the price you're paying in cruise fare, internet better be included

I've been watching videos of The Scarlet Lady, I must be missing something. It looks like a pretty modern ship (maybe a bit too sparsely decorated), but otherwise normal? I'm not seeing anything weird or hearing anything odd from the people making the videos. Some of that stuff sounds incredibly cool, like Vegas at sea. I wouldn't want to see a burlesque show, but I don't have to go to it, so that's good. The wandering pop up entertainment sounds hilarious. And how nice that internet is included. I would be sad to cruise without my kids, but I think if one of the family lines doesn't drop the mandates then I'll have to take my mom in August or September on Virgin. 🙂

I completely disagree with you on the issue of testing for one simple reason according to the CDC as a result of the vaccines the incubation period for covid can now be up to 14 days.  And during that incubation period an individual can test negative for the virus and have no symptoms.  This is also a reason why I'm against post-cruise mandatory testing or reporting and why I say people who say they got covid on a cruise should be very careful making that statement.  An individual could have covid before they board the cruise, test negative, feel fine for the entire 7 night cruise then feel like crap right after the cruise ends.  Naturally they would think they got covid onboard the ship but the truth is they could have had covid before the cruise ever set sail but were in the incubation period which has changed from what it was in 2020 and 2021.
I think the vaccine requirement for adults will remain at least through the end of the year but pre-cruise testing needs to go away because it is not preventing covid onboard ships thanks to the longer incubation period.  Vaccines prevent serious illness and will keep a ships medical facilities from being overrun which is what the vaccine is supposed to do.
In my opinion anyone who is concerned about covid on cruise ships should not cruise at this time.

Okay now I have to go look this up. 😂

I would feel the same way I feel when I don’t test myself before going to a concert, sporting event, school play, the mall, going out to eat, flying to a destination vacation.
I feel healthy and fine to go on vacation no need to test.
 Royal Caribbean’s average client is aged 40. Outside of 65 and older, age 40 is the highest risk of dying at a 0.04% chance.  That is not even 1 percent! 🤣 Your chance of getting struck by lightening ⚡️is the same at 0.04% So in the highest risk group on average with traveling with Royal your chance of dying is the same as getting struck by lightening. (If we take out all the people who are hospitalized and fighting life threatening illnesses (I’m pretty sure they are not cruising ) those numbers go down even more. Not sure how much lower you can go when you are basically at 0% 
So yaaaa I would not feel bad if I caught covid and gave it to someone. They will  fare just fine 👍. 
 
Going to the pharmacy knowing I was going to be around elderly or immune compromised people who are sick that is where I would test first. Does anyone do that??? Nope.  What about before visiting the elderly in nursing Homes or visiting the sick in a hospital?  Do we test before that or make people test before that? Nope. Maybe we should have thought that one out a little better. The places where people were catching covid and dying is where we should have started with the forced tests.  
Bullying the cruising industry has been the biggest hypocrisy through this entire time covid has been around. I for one am glad to see the abrupt end to the CDC’s reign of terror on an industry that did not deserve to be bullied. the biggest waste of time and money that could have been spent on finding cures to those disease that put older people at risk or went to finding a cure for covid or went to protecting the long term facilities etc etc. But no we wasted it on testing healthy people who were not at risk and going away from the people that were at risk. 🤣 Good riddance! 

Prior to boarding please add testing for:  Influenza, Norovirus, common cold, STDs, High Blood Pressure, Strep Throat, Whooping Cough, Pink Eye, Monkey Pox, Shingles, the list goes on and on and on.......people, please stop.
We went through A LOT together.  Some was bad, really bad.  Some...an enormous amount was completely self inflicted.  We are and will pay for it....literally for years.  Walk through this logically and you will recognize the math is overwhelmingly in your favor.

As a person who works in the in vitro diagnostics industry, I'm a little bit worried about how RCCL will proceed. Although I do understand the angst and the headache for passengers that need to do pre-cruise testing. I can also understand the argument that pre-cruise testing is still letting covid onboard. But I can also see the other side of the picture which was eloquently put by Tony for La Lido Loca pre-cruise testing will catch people who can are infectious. The testing allows the cruise line to mitigate some of the population that are infected. Are there passengers that will get through because the test was done too early to catch it? Yes. But by getting rid of pre-cruise testing completely I think you then allow even more infection onboard. Pre-cruise testing was one of the tools used to prevent covid from spreading on board.  From a healthcare perspective I am also worried that by inviting more infected onboard ships could face a situation where their facilities are overrun. This can definitely be the case with the new variants. I would say that if the cruise line gets rid of covid testing then they should increase safety using other tools such as mandating vaccinations for children now that the emergency use authorization for that age group is available.          

Yeah, and though Virgin won't take a ton of customers from the big lines, they are certainly more likely to take business in the coming months since summer is ending and most people aren't traveling with kids until next year. Especially if you can call first to check unvaccinated availability, so much easier than booking and hoping. And I've had this conversation with about a billion people today, so if I already said that on here, sorry!

Someone has to go first and I think Virgin Voyages is small enough that their decision will not make headline news on major networks.  The fall season starts in middle of September I think by then at the latest most cruise lines will have dropped their pre-covid testing requirement.

YIPPEE !!!

I see that Virgin even has a phone number you can call to check unvaccinated available space. That’s very cool, get an answer before you book.