Hi @cangelmd: sounds like you were on Jonathan’s Giants Causeway tour with us. We were among the maskers. Wish we had met you.
I cannot say that I was really surprised by this morning’s announcement by the captain. I think it was about day 11 of the transatlantic cruise when we got the same announcement.
I think maybe the cruise lines are coming to different conclusions about how to move forward. Unless it has changed recently, I understand that Viking (at least for river cruises) is testing people every day. Next week we will be on a Uniworld river cruise, and to the best of my understanding, they are requiring proof of vaccination, but not any testing, presumably on the theory that the countries they will be traveling in do not require it, so why should they?
Celebrity‘s approach, I am beginning to think, is somewhat akin to “don’t ask, don’t tell.“ They require you to show a negative test to get on board, (maybe they are required to do so because they are selling large ships, I don’t know). But after that, they are not requiring B2B testing. They are not saying much, if anything, about Covid case count, until a threshold is reached. If you buy or get a voucher for a test kit from Celebrity, they will not deliver it to you until after you are in the terminal getting your baggage. So they really don’t seem anxious to find out about cases on board. This is one way to move toward normalization of the necessity of living with the virus. There is lots of room for argument as to whether this is the best approach.
Tom & Judy