WhiteSoxFan

Pretty much expected and unsurprising. The only difference is X will, and has too, comply with the 95% vaxxed requirement (in the US) because they are all conditional sailings. I am sailing on the Summit in Sept and the Apex in January so we'll see how much things change by then.

Except they plan on, and must, adhere to the 95% vaccinated guideline. Not sure how they are going to handle that yet if greater than 5% of the pax are unvaxxed or choose not to provide proof. I will be watching as I am sailing X in early September.

And by December the landscape will have changed again. I expect changes every month or two as more ships sail and we see the results.

There 's no point to getting upset right now unless you happen to be booked on one of these first cruises. Things are going to change. I'm happy my next two cruises are on Celebrity.

Personally I think we just need to take a deep breath and let thing play out a bit. Royal is trying its best to comply with the regulations and laws as they currently exist. We've all seen how fast things are changing in the last few months. That said I do think that by putting these rules in place they may be trying to incentivize people that may be on the fence about getting vaxxed. I

I believe "this might change" is the mantra of everything at this point.

On our last cruise my daughter left something rather important in the hotel room. She was able to get off, go back and get it and get back on. Also when we sailed out of San Juan, with a late departure time, you were able to get off and explore. In fact we had many B2Bers that got off between sailings. Of course who knows in these COVIS times. ?

Two, both on X. The Apex in January that we did an L & S on and we just booked a 4 nighter on Summit over labor day to replace the Brilliance one we just cancelled.

I do not think that the CDC has protocols for that. What they do say is that if you sale with 95% vaxxed then you do not have to do test sailings.

I can attest to the deck 7 and deck 10 corner afts on the Voyager and Freedom class ships as I have stayed in both. Deck 7 is a standard cabin with a HUGE balcony. Deck 10 has the aforementioned and shown huge room with the pole in it. The balcony isn't overly large but you are above and clear of the rear superstructure.

We may get an indication what protocols RC will use when the Edge sails this weekend. It will be interesting to see how Celebrity attempts to weave its way around the 95% vaccine requirement and the Florida law. I fully expect to see fairly quick evolution of protocols as more sailings occur. Cruising in three months may be very different than it is now.

@jeffb well said. Here in IL we have over 50% of adults full vaccinated and just under 70% with their first shot and the case numbers are showing it. They haven't been this low since the start of the pandemic.

That 80% aligns pretty well with the Celebrity demographic.

To be fair, Quatum sailings are available to residents only in a country that had an aggressive lockdown and a total of confirmed cases that is just over 1% of the total population.

Reports say there is an exception for entities under the jurisdiction of another federal agency

Is there anything about this in which a simple yes works. My answer is yes, but unvaccinated will be subject to testing and additional protocols TBD.

I think crewing up may be a big factor. COVID sill raging around the globe makes it more difficult to get contracts signed and people onboard and vaccinated. Plus I have no idea what kind of agreements and possible capacity limits may be in place with ports of call.

Everytime someone tells me they are going on an RC cruise and I ask what ship the response is "Something of the Seas". One reason why I cancelled my Brilliance labor day cruise before final payment. I know there is no way is is going to happen.

The slow re-start is why I just cancelled my Brilliance sailing over labor day. My next cruise is in January on the Celebrity Apex which starts sailing in Greece in less than 2 weeks. So at least I know that ship is crewed and sailing.

Not only are there the ever evolving rules and guidelines that the cruise lines are attempting to navigate, but the logistics of restarting is another hurdle. Getting contracts signed, transporting crew, quarantining them & getting them all vaccinated is going to take time. Managing that for 24 ships is going slow the quick restart that people are hoping for. I have my backup vacation already planned if my early September Brilliance sailing doesn't go. I'm pretty confident that I'll be needing it.

With the cruise lines cancelled through April, at this point it seems like July might be a best case, not worst case, scenario. Currently the CDC seems to have little interest in helping out the cruise lines and there seems to be little movement by the cruise lines to attempt to satisfy the current CDC requirements. It seems like the cruise lines have decided to run out the clock and hope that things can return to "normal" now that the vaccinations are picking up some steam. I'm not sure how it is elsewhere but in Illinois they have stated that at the current vaccination rate it will take 10 month to vaccinate all those over the age of 18. Certainly the rate of vaccinations should increase but how much remains to be seen. Also keep in mind that it will take 5-6 weeks to become fully protected once you have your first vaccination. All I know is that everyday that passes makes it feel less likely that I will be on my September cruise,

All our 13 cruises have been on Royal and the only one I won't sail again is the Majesty and only because its not in the fleet anymore.

A big win pricing wise since there seems to be plenty of pent up demand driving up pricing. I was supposed to be currently sailing on the Celebrity Edge instead I'm isolating with COVID-19. Back in September we decided that things weren't looking good so I contacted my TA and she very easily shifted our res to 2022. Current pricing is 60% higher than the price I got.

We did a L & S on Celebrity back in September as it was apparent to me that there was almost no chance that the whole pandemic situation would be substantially different in January of 2021. MEI had it done in s flash. We went from the Edge to the Apex. I'm glad we did it because I just did a price check on the new date and it is almost 75% higher than the rate we have.

We've had a similar situation where we, as Diamond members, have access to the complimentary drinks every evening. As my wife is not a big drinker we've never gotten the drink package and honestly have never come close to spending ala carte what would would have spent on the package. However, when the cost of the drink package on our recently booked Brilliance cruise next September dropped to $43 I felt it was definitely worth a go. Between the alcohol, beer, soda and specialty coffees I think we will be able to take good advantage of it and I've been really wanting to try it out to see how we would enjoy it.