Need

Off topic, but you should go see Top Gun. It was a really good movie!

Mike Jacoubowsky

Bringing it back OT, sorta, maybe it will be on my flight in November, SFO-MUC, heading to our cruise out of Rome?

FFMilesJunkie

Friends just got off a Regent cruise in Copenhagen yesterday. They survived the cruise without getting Covid, but now due to the SAS pilot strike they are stuck in Copenhagen until Tuesday. Regent was not able to find flights out any sooner for them. Regent also does not cover the hotel when this happens so they are on their own dime until the flight and hoping Chase Sapphire Reserve will come through with some reimbursements. The silver lining is it looks like they will get Qatar Q-Suites on an out of the way route back to the US.

sfvoyage

Well, let's hope that is the case. Some friends and relatives tested negative at the end of the cruise but then developed symptoms and tested positive after they got home.

747FC

We were "waitlisted" on an April Seabourn "circle Japan" cruise. No thanks to Seabourn, I got notified via Cruise Critic that Seabourn cancelled all their Far East Asian cruises. I suspect that they have come to grips with the uncertainties in China and Russia.

Next question for me is when Silversea will decide to cancel their October Japan cruise schedule.

Need

I don't think uncertainty with Russia will affect circle Japan cruise much. Maybe they realized that people are starting to pay more for travel and they were selling the cruises too cheap. Cancel all of them and bring them back later with new pricing!

freecia

Japan hasn't fully reopened for tourism and limits tourists visas to fully escorted tours booked via approved agencies. They just had a major election and PM Kishida kept his seat so there might be a few announcements in the coming months. They did recently remove the requirement for PCR tests for fully vaccinated travelers from "blue" countries with valid visas/residency but I believe a PVSA-like* stopover in Korea as a tourist would require a RAT/PCR test. I don't believe Taiwan is issuing tourist visas at this time and also requires PCR & short quarantine for non-residents. Jeju, S. Korea and Keelung, Taiwan seemed to be popular stopover destinations.

freecia

The CDC's ended the COVID-19 Program for Cruise Ships including stopping reporting status https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...vid19.html#faq


This blog tracked the color status https://www.cruzely.com/cruise-ship-...ossible-cases/ and notes 7/6 all ships were in orange.

A family friend & spouse recently cruised SF to Alaska and felt fine near the end of the cruise. They took PCR tests a few days after returning as a precaution and results were positive. They exhibited symptoms a bit after that. I know of at least one post-trip weekly outing they agreed to call off before the trip exactly because of this possible scenario. Thanks very much family friend! That was my senior aged family member's outing(s) with them which would probably have overlapped high viral load time.

mahasamatman

Everyone I know who's sailed to Alaska recently has come back with COVID. Princess added a mask "requirement" (often ignored) for Alaska, but other cruise lines buried their heads in the sand.

DJ_Iceman

Look, everyone's getting COVID again; it has nothing to do with cruises. We're all going to keep getting COVID forever--it's just another "bug", after all. Time to stop treating it like the bubonic plague.

I'm on a cruise right now. We all had to be vaxxed (check), get a negative test within three days (check), and then were supposed to be good to enjoy ourselves. Nope... surprise! They decided to reinstitute a mask mandate because some people caught COVID on the previous voyage. Some will say "no big deal", but it is to me because it's both a royal pain and nothing more than COVID theater. It's very disappointing that we haven't moved beyond this yet...

mahasamatman

If you haven't lost friends to COVID, you shouldn't talk about it. COVID is now the most transmissible disease on earth, having passed measles due to the BA.5 variant, and it will only get worse. If people had taken COVID seriously, we wouldn't be where we are, but selfish people who only care about their own petty comfort and don't give a damn about the people around them have put us here.

It does because it's a lot of people in close proximity, many of whom have no respect for personal space.

sfvoyage

Not to mention the prevalence of long covid. At the beginning, many of us thought it was like a flu, but now it's apparent that it is NOT just like a flu. There are long-term consequences, most of which are still unknown to medical experts as to the extent, severity, and persistency/longevity of symptoms down the road. And as long as covid keeps mutating, who knows, unfortunately, what the future brings? Perhaps a "universal" vaccine will be our savior, but for now, we should not be putting our guards down and pretend that everything is OK and that we can all go back to our "normal" life. We are clearly not there yet.

freecia

Cruises at large seem to be headed more towards whatever "normal" is with less masking, more socialization, and less pre-trip testing. I don't think anyone is trying to state that cruises have a higher prevalence of Covid right now than their neighborhoods. At least I wasn't with BA.5, plenty of mingling, and few precautions being taken. There can be a lack transparency, though, which could inform passengers who may want to choose their own risk mitigations to reduce the odds of quarantine.

If this were the same treatment as the beginning, the CDC wouldn't be stopping the program. Not sure if the rumor of Alaska cruise masking requirement was put forth by ports (small with limited medical resources) is true. I really doubt those managing such things in Alaskan tourist towns want grumpy travelers vs happy ones willing to spend a lot of money and doubt the residents/local businesses are pro-mask so such a request would probably have some reasoning. It would make more sense to me if "some people" was not a small amount of people. Cruise lines have their own stats from routinely testing the crew over a long duration and customer satisfaction surveys. Very few passengers want sick people serving them their food or economized staff being whittled down further.

mahasamatman

There's no political will in the U.S. for that, no matter what the health effects are. Half the country could be sick and certain governors would still push making mask wearing illegal.

freecia

Sigh. Just. Sigh....

Back on the cruise news front, Princess will be allowing some more unvaccinated guests onboard https://www.princess.com/plan/cruise...ns/us-cruises/ Initial FAQ update said 10% https://cruiseradio.net/first-u-s-cr...nated-to-sail/ but it looks like they removed the percentage.