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My friend said that Carnival also just released protocols into March too.  She is going on a cruise in March with her family and the cousin is not vaccinated and so the cousin is going to get vaccinated to be able to go on the cruise now that it was announced thru March.  So I wonder if this is more industry wide that they are going out to March?  I am thinking the cruise ships will follow in packs for a lot of this stuff.

5 hours ago, wordell1 said:

Making the change would mean that Royal cruises meet tbe "vaccinated" standard that allows for looser CDC control. Since the CSO is supposed to end in January, it may not matter but I'm not sure they will trust the CDC to actually end it.

I'm not a fan of mandates and although I'm vaccinated and my 15 year old is vaccinated, I'm not convinced that vaccinating 5 year olds is necessary. 

My understanding is the ports they are going to like Bahamas will be changing their rules to 5+ soon and that is probably more of the driver of this policy.

1 hour ago, peytonhead said:

Is that a RC thing or Binax?  Binax website states the following:

Test authorized for use by persons age 4+.

Test takers 14 or younger must be accompanied by an adult during specimen collection.

It isn't actually a child thing.  My 5 and 10 can do the at home because they will be fully vaccinated by the cruise.  Because my 4 year old son is not vaccinated he can't do at home test.

Walgreens and CVS are not open?  I just assumed they would be open and I could test there.  Guess I should look into that too since we cruise the day after Christmas.

This is really good information.  I have 3 kids (4,6,&10) and only two of them for obvious reasons will be fully vaxed by the time we cruise in December.  We did book excursions and I was aware about the extra testing and not being allowed in the one pool area.  I was planning on trying to see what shows to expect based on uploaded Compass once Harmony gets back into the US and starts to sail here.  That way I know exactly what I want to reserve as soon as we get on the ship I plan to do that.  We have a 12pm check in time, should we show up earlier to start the testing process?  Do they test then check in?  Hoping with only 1 kid things will go faster.

The end of the cruise test our last day is CocoCay so that is the one I am most concerned about, but I can send my husband and other two kids to go ahead and snorkle since my son won't be snorkling.  I am hoping to use the kid center for a couple adult comedy shows and maybe a relaxing hour or two by the pool.  I imagine most of the time they will want to be with us doing activities on the ship.

Did your kids enjoy the Adventure Club?  It will be interesting when we go since kids 5+ can be vaccinated so I wonder if they will allow vaccinated to no longer social distance in the adventure club.  It will be several weeks into when kids 5+ can be fully vaxed.  I can't imagine I am the only one who got my kids vaxed in preparation for the cruise.

I am not concerned about how people look at me or my kids.  My son is 4 I doubt they will bother him and honestly I just don't care.  I have had a handicapped son before and my daughter had to wear a midsection cast for 16 months.  Like people look and my family knows to ignore and knows it is those people's issue not us.  And I mean even prior to Covid most people thought 4 year olds were germ factories lol

On 11/3/2021 at 6:54 PM, smokeybandit said:

Kind of a strange statement to release. On a day that their passenger pool just grew, they aren't saying "welcome back families!" but are saying "we aren't changing anything so live with it"

Honestly if my son was 5 not 4, we would be doing a NCL over RC.  But he is 9 months shy of 5 and so we are doing RC so he can join the 4 of us (2 adults and 2 kids who will be fully vaxed by December cruise) on our cruise.  The ability to be on a fully vaxed cruise with no masks sounds very appealing to many of us.  I know of friends who are now able to get their last child vaxed as they are 5+ looking into NCL and Carnival.

On 11/11/2021 at 2:39 PM, 0_0 said:

I'm really hoping they don't create any new pediatric vaccine requirements. My kids pediatrician has already recommended against vaccinating my kids 7, 8yo so mine won't be unless his recommendation changes. I'm going to assume he's not the only one recommending against kids in that age range being vaccinated.

I imagine at some point RC lowers the age since the AAP recommends the shot.  My Ped said it was up to us and that is what most of my friends got too from their Ped. 

I am trying to figure out with a 5:30 dinner time vs a later time when the shows are?  If the show starts at 5:30 then it doesn't seem to matter, but if the early show has a later start time then I may go with the later meal time and do the show first.  It doesn't seem like I can find anything out about onboard schedule.

We are on Harmony of the Seas Dec 26th sailing date.