UNCFanatik

In 2009-2010, there was 60 million reported cases of H1N1 in the US. About 27k deaths attributed to H1N1. Imagine, if we tested for H1N1 in 2009-2010 like we do for Covid today. How many cases and deaths would have been attributed to H1N1? There is no way to stop Covid from being on cruise ships, vaccinated passengers or not. Just like everywhere else. Zero Covid should not be the goal. There is still debate about asymptomatic spread. If someone had the vaccine and a breakthrough case happens with no symptoms, does that person even have enough viral load to spread it to others? Covid is on its way to being endemic and our society needs to come to terms with that. Stop testing vaccinated people with no symptoms.

I agree. Said they were asymptomatic as well.

I will not debate this issue anymore on here but I would like to see antibody test results being accepted because that would serve the same purpose of requiring passengers to be vaccinated. It will be interesting to see how this plays out and how well the CDC can accurately enforce these vaccinated thresholds. I remember flying to Rochester NY in February this year and the State of NY requiring airline passengers to fill out health declarations that we were instructed to just place them in a box at a table in the airline terminal. No verifying identifies or anything. And you cant tell me that some government employee was pouring through 1000s of forms and entering info it some contact tracing system I think a level of the enforcement by the CDC will be a matter of theater.

Thanks for the response! Interesting that there will be no CDC enforcement of vaccine thresholds prior to sailing only post cruise penalties Yes, I agree its in Celebrity's best interest to comply fully with the vaccine conditions that the CDC has granted them.

I have many thoughts about the comment section on Matt’s blog post but I will keep them to myself…lol But this has raised a few questions for me that may have been answered before: 1. When someone books with Celebrity on a 95% vaccinated sailing, are they asked about their vaccination status? 2. Will there be a CDC or health official in the terminal on embarkation day verifying that the sailing is indeed 95% vaccinated? 3. If so, what is the criteria to authorize a sailing to commence to verify 95% of passengers are vaccinated? 4. How will CDC/health officials verify at the terminal if the cruise passengers are truly vaccinated? Do they take the word of Celebrity? Will they require guest to show vaccination record at the terminal when checking in? Without verifying vaccination status of guest, can the CDC actually confirm that Celebrity is meeting the vaccine threshold? 5. what happens if the sailing is 90-94% vaccinated for instance, game over? In summary, regardless of what Celebrity does, how does the CDC enforce and verify the condition of the CSO is being met? How does the CDC enforce this in the terminal prior to sailing without running afoul of FL vaccine passport law?

The Oasis sailing on Nov 21,2021 is no longer on sale on Royal’s website. what could that mean?

Even without FL law, they know that they might not be able to meet CDC 98% crew & 95% passenger threshold instead of test cruise option and if Royal set their own vaccine threshold of 95% passenger, could that even be possible with summer sailings with amount of children under 12 and 12-16 year old whose parents don’t want to vaccinate children. It would be a challenge even without FL law. They know the amount of children on board. What would Royal do, cancel those without vaccinations? Rebook cruises in a short turnaround in an all ready shortened summer season? And when guest were surveyed, that survey is only good as who was sampled and who replied. But even at 80% guests saying the prefer vaccinated cruises that still leaves 20% unvaccinated if those numbers play out in a real cruise but we know they won’t I did find it interesting he didn’t mention the start of Odyssey on July 3rd

Thats awesome! But now I hate you as I had a July Symphony cruise that was cancelled but not moved to the Odyssey. I kid, I kid. In all seriousness, I will give credit where credit is due, this was a VERY smart move by Royal to move sailings from a ship with cancelled sailing to the Odyssey.

I read a story in The Morning from New York Times and in this snippet, it summarizes how we should view cases of Covid to keep in proper perspective and context moving forward: "Three, caseloads are no longer as important a measure as they used to be. Before the vaccines were available, more cases inevitably meant more hospitalizations and deaths. Now, the connection is more uncertain. As a recent Times story put it, paraphrasing British scientists, “upticks in new infections are tolerable so long as the vast majority do not lead to serious illness or death.” And keep in mind, we keep hearing about variants and they have yet to live up to their breathless panic porn advertising. But I agree with Jeff's advice above

I understand the complexity and fluidity of the situation but I do not believe that Royal should have waited less than 30 days from the earliest July sailing to announce. I never thought Royal should have cancelled July sailings 2 months ago. I thought that they should have cancelled mid-May. Canceling people’s sailings under a 30 day mark and then announcing test cruises sending TAs in chaos while people still believed that they would sail somehow on a ship before test cruise is not acceptable and I’m sorry shows a disregard for the peripheral plans that needed to be cancelled and changed in a summer with higher demand for travel. Prices rose for alternate options while Royal delayed announcements and had customer service reps lie to their customers especially on last Thursday when Bayley announced tear sailings. I appreciate you pointing out other side and I agree with you to the extent of the timing of the July testing and cancellation announcements. It could/should have been handled much better.

Lol.. you are a funny one. You dismiss Smokey’s studies as not being peer reviewed yet you post some link that is not peer reviewed. I’m sorry… I can’t take you seriously. And the link you posted says nothing about the virus being airborne https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/jvchamary/2020/10/23/covid19-coronavirus-aerosols/amp/ it’s ok… I used to believe in magic as well…

Lol… no side effects. I guess we will just forget that the J&J vaccine had to be paused and they are currently investigating heart inflammation for ages 12-16 that have had vaccine You are funny for someone to talk about science and yet ignore it.

Plexiglass is not science. Plexiglass does not stop virus that spreads through air.

I don’t disagree with you at all. when it happens, and it will, it will be a test for all. If only we had a responsible, fact driven media that cared more about actual reporting than pushing a given narrative. what would be good when the first Covid case appears on a US based ship is for media to report it, put it in context and having an expert on explaining why it’s not the end of the world and cruising shouldn’t be shut down again. I dare to dream….but alas it’s just a dream

But…it’s not a matter of “if” but “when” there will be Covid on a ship. Panic porn and click bait are good for metrics and ratings and unfortunately the general population fails to put cases of Covid into context because the media never provides details as to the case of Covid And sadly, it’s ignorant public pressure because of the conditioning done by the media. People need to be told that Covid is here to stay and is on the way to being endemic and is treatable in 99.90% of cases

I am not happy with Royal either with their communication more specifically lack thereof. I get they are in a fluid situation and they have been shutdown for over a year now but to wait so long to announce their plans for July/August sailings is unacceptable. Especially, when the president/CEO of company gets on FB and announces test sailings on cruises BEFORE cancelling said sailings was truly a PR blunder and bad business move. AND, I see that no test sailing for Odyssey has officially been announced but selling July 3rd sailing. Less than 30 days out and they are very presumptuous that test sailing will happen and approved all within 30 days. No much room for error if the CDC identifies issues

I’m sorry but if you were not sick and wearing a mask, you were never protecting others especially if you previously had Covid or vaccinated

Unvaccinated does not necessarily mean one does not have same level of immunity as one who is vaccinated. People are conflating this issue. People who have had Covid have some form of immunity. There is still a debate on how long it lasts. Also, there is a % of people who have natural immunity lastly, there are small children who have not been shown to be vectors of virus spread And it’s ridiculous to think the unvaccinated are a threat to vaccinated crew like the ones who “drive” the ship. As if they were to get a breakthrough case of Covid, they would drop dead in an instance. the biggest issue I see as others have said is disruption of the cruise, being confined to my cabin, having the cruise being cut short, etc BUT, an 100% vaccinated cruise is unrealistic. Even if FL didn’t have its vaccine law, the cruise lines are faced with a hard business decision. As a business that caters to families, how long do you want to limit your customer base? How much are you willing to anger your loyal customer base who are families with small children? Especially if a major competitor is allowing what you disallow? Mixed vaccinated cruises are going to be the way things will happen with the restart from FL. The cruise lines have weighed the business risks and have decided. The biggest test will be when the first case of Covid on a cruise ship happens. It’s going to happen regardless of how many ppl are vaccinated on a given cruise

Definitely a no win situation for Royal with no easy answers for sure which DeSantis made it even more difficult in the short run. Government ruins everything from the CDC to the state of FL You are right… limit your business to a portion of potential customers vs losing customers by making same decision. Hard to know which is more risky for business long term

People also need to keep in mind that royal has seen the amount of children under 12 on their booked summer sailings and realized that 95% vaccinated passengers was not going to happen and if they wanted to obtain that % they would have had to cancel even more cruises and then rebooked with vaccine requirement. Just one more logistical nightmare to deal with in an already challenging summer AND there is still a game of chicken with the FL law which may take awhile to be resolved. So as a business, do you really want to roll the dice that DeSantis “blinks” and carves out an exception for cruise lines. Celebrity is already taking that gamble when DeSantis is still digging his heels in and posturing. lastly, royal wouldn’t be spending the amount of cash they are for test cruises if they had confidence in a. That the could meet the CDC thresholds for summer sailings from FL. Alaska cruises are easier to meet because of less children b. That the FL law issue could be resolved in time for early July cruises This is a matter of business now and of course, Royal wants to get cruising as fast as possible and can’t afford lose the month of July when they can take alternate measures. but as mentioned, the biggest risk now with unvaccinated is an outbreak that would be an end to all cruises this summer

Just curious, what were the itineraries on the Independence? 7 night sailings? Ports?

I wonder how they picked the independence for moving people to Odyssey vs other ships you know like moving a certain July 17 sailing of the symphony to a July sailing in odyssey… lil

I would think that you couldnt automatically switch over because of lift and shift pertains to sailings in 2022 What i think you would have to do, and I will yield to other posters who have more experience, is to book the Odyssey sailing. I dont think you could get refunds or FCCs in time to apply to new Odyssey sailing. And i heard a rumor that admittedly I havent seen confirmed that Royal is already switching certain sailings over to Odyssey. Dont take that as Gospel.

I booked my Symphony cruise for a party of four Me, Wife, Step Daughter #1, 13 years old, Step Daughter # 2, 20 years old Of course the wife and I paid for all passengers on this cruise. Reading Royal's FCC rules, my understanding is that each person of my party will be issued individual FCC if I chose 125% FCC However, step daughter #2 will be studying abroad starting in the Fall. From what I read, each person in cabin must chose same option, either refund or 125% FCC. Is this true, can i not chose refund for step daughter #2 and FCC for the rest of us? Lastly, is it still the case that FCCs are not transferrable unless over 70 or under 12? I dont understand that if I paid for whole party then why are refunds/FCC treated separately?

I saw it in the app previously but I never saw it announced. Looking online now. Interesting