coryo_cincinnati Posted December 31, 2021 Report Share Posted December 31, 2021 We are sailing on Harmony of the Seas on January 23rd. The 4 adults traveling are all vaccinated however our 2 year old child is currently ineligible for vaccination. Understanding cruising during Covid requires flexibility, we have being doing all our due diligence and research. We found the Abbott at home testing videos online and decided that was the best option for us to avoid going to a doctors office so we ordered them. However, I looked at the healthy sail center today and noticed they changed from accepting unvaccinated children Antigen and PCR test to just PCR only. I was reading online and it looks like the Abbott test is an Antigen test. I’m wondering if anyone else is seeing this and if anyone is going to be surprised by it at terminals or in the app prior to sailing? I just know a lot of places are turning people away unless they have symptoms so thinking it might be harder to get my daughter tested now. Attached you will find two screenshots I took from Royal Caribbean today and one I sent my wife back when we booked. You can see the change in the photos. Hope this helps anyone else in the same situation and any tips would be appreciated. Happy Travels! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpeedNoodles Posted December 31, 2021 Report Share Posted December 31, 2021 I don't believe that unvaccinated kids could ever use a home antigen test. Neesa, Heymarco and WAAAYTOOO 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coryo_cincinnati Posted December 31, 2021 Author Report Share Posted December 31, 2021 4 minutes ago, SpeedNoodles said: I don't believe that unvaccinated kids could ever use a home antigen test. The research we did said it was two years of age or older with adult supervision. Although we were thinking the same thing originally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twangster Posted December 31, 2021 Report Share Posted December 31, 2021 No home based proctored tests for unvax kids has been a policy for months, like August I think? Maybe September. Neesa 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heymarco Posted December 31, 2021 Report Share Posted December 31, 2021 Children were not allowed to do at home tests for a long time. The change from either test to PCR only happened a couple of weeks ago. Royal is now doing an antigen test rather than PCR at port to allow for faster boarding. However the PCR test is still required per CDC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WAAAYTOOO Posted December 31, 2021 Report Share Posted December 31, 2021 I wonder how the fact that the PCR test is losing its EUA as of today, will affect the policy of requiring PCR tests for - well, anyone, really. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smokeybandit Posted December 31, 2021 Report Share Posted December 31, 2021 1 hour ago, WAAAYTOOO said: I wonder how the fact that the PCR test is losing its EUA as of today, will affect the policy of requiring PCR tests for - well, anyone, really. The only PCR test losing its EUA is the original one. That one only tested for covid. Since this summer the CDC has encouraged providers to switch to other PCR tests which tested for multiple viruses at once. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WAAAYTOOO Posted December 31, 2021 Report Share Posted December 31, 2021 4 minutes ago, smokeybandit said: The only PCR test losing its EUA is the original one. That one only tested for covid. Since this summer the CDC has encouraged providers to switch to other PCR tests which tested for multiple viruses at once. Yes, of course...I wasn't thinking about other PCR tests. It's just the COVID one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaryCS62 Posted December 31, 2021 Report Share Posted December 31, 2021 13 hours ago, coryo_cincinnati said: We are sailing on Harmony of the Seas on January 23rd. The 4 adults traveling are all vaccinated however our 2 year old child is currently ineligible for vaccination. Understanding cruising during Covid requires flexibility, we have being doing all our due diligence and research. We found the Abbott at home testing videos online and decided that was the best option for us to avoid going to a doctors office so we ordered them. However, I looked at the healthy sail center today and noticed they changed from accepting unvaccinated children Antigen and PCR test to just PCR only. I was reading online and it looks like the Abbott test is an Antigen test. I’m wondering if anyone else is seeing this and if anyone is going to be surprised by it at terminals or in the app prior to sailing? I just know a lot of places are turning people away unless they have symptoms so thinking it might be harder to get my daughter tested now. Attached you will find two screenshots I took from Royal Caribbean today and one I sent my wife back when we booked. You can see the change in the photos. Hope this helps anyone else in the same situation and any tips would be appreciated. Happy Travels! I saw PCR for unvaxxed children a while ago. I would recommend that 13-14 days prior to your cruise, at midnight, you look at the CVS website (hope you have some near you), filter for PCR tests only & click on the date that is 2-3 days prior to your cruise (3 is better, so that you have a good shot at getting the results in time), and schedule it as soon as possible. My CVS is doing 13 days out, so very early Christmas morning DH & DD were on the site trying to get our tests for 1/7. DH got for himself & older DD antigen tests for 1/7 am, other DD & I had to wait to get Saturday, since my CVS only had appointments til 130pm on the Friday, and we would both be working. ChessE4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BowTieBrigade Posted January 3, 2022 Report Share Posted January 3, 2022 Definitely try to find rapid PCR for the kids. We don’t have it as an option where we live and went the standard 24-72 hour PCR tests at the pharmacy. We did not receive those results until early morning the day of sailing. Not having the results in hand, we had to find a rapid PCR testing facility in our departure city the night before we sailed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisK2793 Posted January 3, 2022 Report Share Posted January 3, 2022 On 12/30/2021 at 8:51 PM, coryo_cincinnati said: We are sailing on Harmony of the Seas on January 23rd. The 4 adults traveling are all vaccinated however our 2 year old child is currently ineligible for vaccination. Understanding cruising during Covid requires flexibility, we have being doing all our due diligence and research. We found the Abbott at home testing videos online and decided that was the best option for us to avoid going to a doctors office so we ordered them. However, I looked at the healthy sail center today and noticed they changed from accepting unvaccinated children Antigen and PCR test to just PCR only. I was reading online and it looks like the Abbott test is an Antigen test. I’m wondering if anyone else is seeing this and if anyone is going to be surprised by it at terminals or in the app prior to sailing? I just know a lot of places are turning people away unless they have symptoms so thinking it might be harder to get my daughter tested now. Attached you will find two screenshots I took from Royal Caribbean today and one I sent my wife back when we booked. You can see the change in the photos. Hope this helps anyone else in the same situation and any tips would be appreciated. Happy Travels! Royal accepts this NAAT test at Walgreens as a PCR …….. the “RAPID DIAGNOSTIC TEST (ID NOW)” AspiringCruisePlanner and ChessE4 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liz007 Posted January 5, 2022 Report Share Posted January 5, 2022 I also recommend the NAAT test at Walgreens. We got our results back in a little over an hour and it was free. I sailed with my unvaccinated 8 year old a few weeks ago and they accepted the NAAT test. If you look at RCL website they say that they accept two tests Moleculer (also called PCR or NAAT) or Antigen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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