AMA confined to our room with covid

[anxiouscruiser]

Alot of positive cases here on serenade of the seas. Alot.

including us. 
our son has tested positive on thursday. We are all now confined to the room. My husband and i have no symptoms and have been testing negative. 
we got free wifi and the remainder of our cruise refunded, as well as room service for whatever whenever. 
it sucks but i knew the risk when i chose to cruise. I just wish it didnt happen to us. Also i think i under estimated what a covid hotbed this would be. 
Went through thursday, friday, saturday, and then debarkation sunday morning. 
fun times. 
 

ask me anything about the process and ill try to answer. 

[wordell1]

43 minutes ago, anxiouscruiser said:

Alot of positive cases here on serenade of the seas. Alot.

including us. 
our son has tested positive on thursday. We are all now confined to the room. My husband and i have no symptoms and have been testing negative. 
we got free wifi and the remainder of our cruise refunded, as well as room service for whatever whenever. 
it sucks but i knew the risk when i chose to cruise. I just wish it didnt happen to us. Also i think i under estimated what a covid hotbed this would be. 
Went through thursday, friday, saturday, and then debarkation sunday morning. 
fun times. 
 

ask me anything about the process and ill try to answer. 

That is unfortunate, sorry that it is happening.  Is your son OK?

[TheRick]

Are you in your original room or did they move you? 
 

does room service deliver cocktails?

[BigMac3001]

15 minutes ago, TheRick said:

 

does room service deliver cocktails?

This! 

[smokeybandit]

What caused your son to be tested?

[Pattycruise]

Was it by choice you are in your room?  I thought you could "test out" of isolation. 
Did they move you all out of your cabin?
What do you mean by a lot of positive cases? and how did you come by that statement (figures?)

Thank you for sharing with us.  I hope you are able to make it home ok. (which leads me to ask about the disembarkation process for those in quarantine)

[Pattycruise]

wow, just looked up where Serenade is, it's a roundtrip from Vancouver.....will the Canadian govt let you disembark?  I thought they were quite strict there.

[anxiouscruiser]

1 hour ago, wordell1 said:

That is unfortunate, sorry that it is happening.  Is your son OK?

Son is ok just had a small fever! Now totally fine but still testing positive. 

[anxiouscruiser]

1 hour ago, TheRick said:

Are you in your original room or did they move you? 
 

does room service deliver cocktails?

They tried to move us. From our deck 8 balcony room to a deck 2 interior. We begged and begged and crossed our hearts and hoped to die and swore we wouldnt leave the room. The "quarantine wing" is guarded to make sure people dont leave. 
 

all the free alcohol we want. Not sure if everyone gets this or they just feel bad that only our son is positive and we are stuck in the room with him. 

[anxiouscruiser]

41 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

What caused your son to be tested?

He had a high fever and started coughing. I brought tests from home. Tested him and self reported it to the cruise line. Wanted to do the right thing by reporting it and trying to make sure no one else got it from us. 

[anxiouscruiser]

37 minutes ago, Pattycruise said:

Was it by choice you are in your room?  I thought you could "test out" of isolation. 
Did they move you all out of your cabin?
What do you mean by a lot of positive cases? and how did you come by that statement (figures?)

Thank you for sharing with us.  I hope you are able to make it home ok. (which leads me to ask about the disembarkation process for those in quarantine)

Because our son is positive and we are in the same cabin the whole cabin has to isolate. 
cabin answered above

i dont want to answer the third one to protect the cruise employee who told us this. I dont know exact numbers only that they are "overwhelmed" with it. 
i looked on the cdc website yesterday and we are level orange. It may have increased today. 

[anxiouscruiser]

38 minutes ago, Pattycruise said:

wow, just looked up where Serenade is, it's a roundtrip from Vancouver.....will the Canadian govt let you disembark?  I thought they were quite strict there.

We live a 40 min drive from the cruise terminal so we are allowed to quarantine at home. According to the canadian government we have to quarantine for 14 days once we disembark even though we are negative and fully vaccinated. Quite ridiculous and literally going to put us into poverty as we are a young family that got a great deal on a cruise, havent ever gotten to travel before or do anything like this. We dont get paid unless we work no vacation or anything. So we were able to plan for one week off unpaid, which has now turned into three. The rules dont make sense and i dont agree with them but i still have to follow them. 

[Pattycruise]

1 hour ago, anxiouscruiser said:

We live a 40 min drive from the cruise terminal so we are allowed to quarantine at home. According to the canadian government we have to quarantine for 14 days once we disembark even though we are negative and fully vaccinated. Quite ridiculous and literally going to put us into poverty as we are a young family that got a great deal on a cruise, havent ever gotten to travel before or do anything like this. We dont get paid unless we work no vacation or anything. So we were able to plan for one week off unpaid, which has now turned into three. The rules dont make sense and i dont agree with them but i still have to follow them. 

i'm so sorry to hear this.  I know the difficulties of saving for a cruise and to have something like this happen is awful.  Thank you again for sharing your experience.  I hope your son recovers quickly and you stay Covid free.

 

[ChanaC]

How is the food service? I was following someone on a different forum (I think they are on the Ovation) and they had mixed things to say about the food - sometimes it came perfectly on time and was great, sometimes it took two hours for the food to arrive and it is cold. 

Also, did they mention you get any kind of refund or future cruise credit?

Hope your son is feeling better, and you don't catch it either!

[Kirsten]

I'm so sorry that happened to you!  Glad your son is feeling better. The new variant seems to be highly contagious, but relatively mild.

[Pooch]

2 hours ago, anxiouscruiser said:

We live a 40 min drive from the cruise terminal so we are allowed to quarantine at home. According to the canadian government we have to quarantine for 14 days once we disembark even though we are negative and fully vaccinated. Quite ridiculous and literally going to put us into poverty as we are a young family that got a great deal on a cruise, havent ever gotten to travel before or do anything like this. We dont get paid unless we work no vacation or anything. So we were able to plan for one week off unpaid, which has now turned into three. The rules dont make sense and i dont agree with them but i still have to follow them. 

Happened to my son (not on a cruise).  His son tested positive just before Xmas.  My son’s company required a 14 day quarantine (ridiculous especially because son never tested positive).  Gets 1 week covid pay, nothing for the second week.  Goes back to work for a week and his daughter comes down with it.  She is able to go back to school 5 days later but he’s out for another 2 weeks this time with no pay at all.  And he still never tested positive!!  Tried to apply for unemployment for the three missing weeks but was rejected.  Just a mess.

[anxiouscruiser]

16 hours ago, ChanaC said:

How is the food service? I was following someone on a different forum (I think they are on the Ovation) and they had mixed things to say about the food - sometimes it came perfectly on time and was great, sometimes it took two hours for the food to arrive and it is cold. 

Also, did they mention you get any kind of refund or future cruise credit?

Hope your son is feeling better, and you don't catch it either!

We get a pro rated refund of our cruise. 
our room service always came when it was supposed to. You have set meal times when you are in quarantine. They call you 2 hours before the meal time to collect your order. Then your food comes at 7, 12:30, and 6:15. Ours was always on time or early. Annoying part was for breakfast they didnt collect the orders the night before. So we would get an early wake up call each morning. The food was always fine. Not dining room quality as i suppose it sat for awhile. But still the same food just lack of presentation and freshness. 
you could also order outside of meal times and they would bring it to you about 30 mins later. You could order anything off any menu during times when they were open. 

[anxiouscruiser]

15 hours ago, Kirsten said:

I'm so sorry that happened to you!  Glad your son is feeling better. The new variant seems to be highly contagious, but relatively mild.

Ya he literally hasnt had symptoms for 2 days now. We are still on the boat waiting to disembark. We will be the last ones off with the other covid people. I will try to count and get an estimate of how many of us were in quarantine. 

[anxiouscruiser]

15 hours ago, Pooch said:

Happened to my son (not on a cruise).  His son tested positive just before Xmas.  My son’s company required a 14 day quarantine (ridiculous especially because son never tested positive).  Gets 1 week covid pay, nothing for the second week.  Goes back to work for a week and his daughter comes down with it.  She is able to go back to school 5 days later but he’s out for another 2 weeks this time with no pay at all.  And he still never tested positive!!  Tried to apply for unemployment for the three missing weeks but was rejected.  Just a mess.

Not scientifically backed nor does that make any sense. Im sick of these no science rules. 

[anxiouscruiser]

Editing this because i was wrong. 
75 people and 50 staterooms. 

[OrlandoDad]

1 hour ago, anxiouscruiser said:

Editing this because i was wrong. 
75 people and 50 staterooms. 

I'm sorry you had this experience. 

Do you mind sharing where the 75 people and 50 staterooms data came from? 

[smokeybandit]

Even 50 seems really high, though I'm not doubting what you were told.

 

It could be 50 including close contacts.

[anxiouscruiser]

Hey ya we were actually all crammed into a room when we were trying ti disembark, and also counted the cabins on the list. Could have been a bit more or less but around 50. 
if we had really known the risk we wouldnt have cruised. 
 

also found out the 14 day quarantine info they gave us was almost a year outdated. We do not have to quarantine. 

[Pattycruise]

3 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

Even 50 seems really high, though I'm not doubting what you were told.

 

It could be 50 including close contacts.

These are the  numbers I have seen post cruise positive in my facebook groups(since March)  and that's of those who belong to the group and bother to share their positive status.  Just takes one positive to take down so many, as we know on a ship, airplane, restaurant....

 

[OCSC Mike]

8 minutes ago, anxiouscruiser said:

also found out the 14 day quarantine info they gave us was almost a year outdated. We do not have to quarantine. 

Sorry for everything you went through onboard but this part is great news based on your earlier comment!

[anxiouscruiser]

7 minutes ago, Pattycruise said:

These are the  numbers I have seen post cruise positive in my facebook groups(since March)  and that's of those who belong to the group and bother to share their positive status.  Just takes one positive to take down so many, as we know on a ship, airplane, restaurant....

 

Ya to me and how full the boat was i was really surprised there wasnt more. Also my son was the only child in there so people with kids either arent testing and reporting or they arent getting it. Seems weird as we suspected he got it from adventure ocean. 

[anxiouscruiser]

8 minutes ago, OCSC Mike said:

Sorry for everything you went through onboard but this part is great news based on your earlier comment!

We literally were so well taken care of on board that we dont even mind now that we can still work tomorrow. That was the only part of the experience that made my stomach sink and regret cruising. We knew the risks on board but didnt know about the quarantining. Well of course not, because silly RC sent us a printout that expired last summer. 

[OCSC Mike]

14 minutes ago, anxiouscruiser said:

We literally were so well taken care of on board that we dont even mind now that we can still work tomorrow. That was the only part of the experience that made my stomach sink and regret cruising. We knew the risks on board but didnt know about the quarantining. Well of course not, because silly RC sent us a printout that expired last summer. 

Glad you handled it so well (and were so well taken care of, not everyone's quarantine experience was like yours).

Unfortunately, as you now know first hand, giving out accurate info about anything is not RC's strong suit.

 

[GatorCruiser]

Unfortunate but not surprising. Numbers are going up on land, so inevitably they will spill over to the ships. Hopefully it won’t be as bad as during the omicron wave in January. This is cruising during Covid era, there will be ups and downs with numbers on the ships. 

[smokeybandit]

34 minutes ago, anxiouscruiser said:

Ya to me and how full the boat was i was really surprised there wasnt more. Also my son was the only child in there so people with kids either arent testing and reporting or they arent getting it. Seems weird as we suspected he got it from adventure ocean. 

It's entirely possible he got it before he boarded the ship.

[anxiouscruiser]

3 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

It's entirely possible he got it before he boarded the ship.

Its totally not possible as We fully did not go anywhere for 10 days before and he had to get a pcr test 3 days before the cruise and an antigen test on embarkation. Also he started getting symptoms on wednesday night which would put the incubation period monday when he spent the entire day at adventure ocean. 

[MidwestIA]

17 hours ago, anxiouscruiser said:

Its totally not possible as We fully did not go anywhere for 10 days before and he had to get a pcr test 3 days before the cruise and an antigen test on embarkation. Also he started getting symptoms on wednesday night which would put the incubation period monday when he spent the entire day at adventure ocean. 

Sure, but all of the kids in adventure ocean had the exact same testing requirements in order to board 90%+ vaccinated ship...

[GatorCruiser]

Covid has been sneaking through the testing since the restart. It will continue to do so. 

[cruisellama]

If there's a high passenger count, the crew is also going to take hits.     Once they go into quarantine, it makes it harder to run a ship and keep up with the passengers.  Staffing is already an issue.

[DavidD]

We travelled on Harmony of the seas docking Sunday 1st of May and was tested on Tuesday 4th May to go to Alaska and tested positive. Had to cancel. Must have got off Harmony with covid. Sucks

 

[Cgifford]

Would you mind sharing where your cabin was? We were in 8572.. I totally believe it’s being spread through ventilation as well as in person. Just curious if  you were close to us. My husband tested positive Tuesday when we got home. 

[leesam82]

On 5/16/2022 at 6:46 PM, GatorCruiser said:

Covid has been sneaking through the testing since the restart. It will continue to do so. 

Unfortunately covid will always sneak in to any gathering of people. Having high vaccination rates help but they were never meant to prevent all disease. They were only developed to prevent severe illness and death. The best thing for cruisers to do when traveling is to minimize the risks as much as possible. I know masks are no longer required for vaccinated cruisers but I will still be wearing one especially when there are a lot of people around. Also wear a real mask not a cloth mask. Ideally a N95, KF95 or KN 94 mask. Also ensure to wear the mask properly. I do not think we will ever get to a point where COVID is non existent when cruising. But we can take steps to minimize its impact and spread. Its just like norovirus outbreaks on cruise ships; they will happen but if everyone takes steps they will not be common place. I hope your son recovers quickly. 

[GatorCruiser]

@leesam82 agreed which is why I find it odd with all the pearl clutching when it inevitably does happen. People should know by now what they are signing up for when they cruise now. 

[anxiouscruiser]

On 5/19/2022 at 4:03 PM, Cgifford said:

Would you mind sharing where your cabin was? We were in 8572.. I totally believe it’s being spread through ventilation as well as in person. Just curious if  you were close to us. My husband tested positive Tuesday when we got home. 

We were in the other wing 86--

i did see others from deck 8 in the covid disembarkment area after you all left the ship. We all had to leave last. 

[anxiouscruiser]

5 hours ago, GatorCruiser said:

@leesam82 agreed which is why I find it odd with all the pearl clutching when it inevitably does happen. People should know by now what they are signing up for when they cruise now. 

We totally knew what we were signing up for, and that covid was a poissibility. Were fine with getting it. The quarantining in the room part is hard though.