BrennerM

Thanks for all the responses, sounds like we are good to go despite following our government’s (questionable?) advice at the time and getting AZ as our first dose.

My wife and I have 3 different doses: AstraZeneca, Moderna, and then a Pfizer booster, because we got whatever we could get as quickly as possible (we’re Canadian BTW).  When I read the Princess FAQ it is a tad vague:

In a two-dose series, we accept mixed vaccine types only if at least two doses of an authorized vaccine were administered at least 28 days apart, with the last dose given at least 14 days before sailing. See question "Which COVID-19 vaccines will be accepted on board?" for a list of currently approved or authorized vaccines.

Does this mean we need two doses of the same vaccine?  It is confusing because they say they accept mixed doses but then say you need two doses of an authorized vaccine. I feel it should say “Two doses with any combination of authorized vaccines”.   The CruiseCritic guide to vaccine policies says this for Princess:

Acceptable Vaccines: Passengers can have two doses of Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Sinopharm or Sinovac; one dose of Johnson & Johnson; or mixed doses of AstraZeneca with Moderna or Pfizer; and mixed doses of Pfizer and Moderna.
 

Can someone please confirm that we will be fine to get on a Princess ship (for an Alaska cruise) with our mixed vaccine dosages?

Not trying to start a long discussion, just want to know if we meet the policy as it stands. Don’t want to go all that way and be denied boarding.  Thanks in advance!

Does anyone know the protocol if you have a balcony stateroom and test positive during the voyage?  Would we be moved to a negative-pressure non-balcony stateroom near medical?  Because if so, we would prefer to save a lot of money and book an inside cabin which was our pre-Covid norm.  If we would be able to quarantine in our balcony cabin, we might pay the extra (which is over $1000 more per person, pricing is nuts).  Being stuck in an inside room for many days would be hell for us and might lead to a death or divorce…kidding (maybe?)

This may be old news on here but I tried to search and didn’t find anything.  

I just checked my Princess account and my credit (due to a cancelled March 2020 cruise) now says it is good until Dec 2022 when previously it was May 2022.  Happy that they are extending it given the continued delays.  I was likely not going to be able to use it by May but now there is hope again...

1 hour ago, Yehootu said:

Where have you seen that this is a permanent choice? Just like the airlines, cruise companies make ALOT of money on up sell. Drink package=67.50 a day

                  Gratuities       =$15.50  "   "

                 Wifi                  =$9.97                   total if ala carte=$92.97

Princess now charging $40 a day. Don't see this being permanent, but hoping your source is correct.

 

I’ve not seen anything about the Princess Plus fare type ending anytime soon.  Basically it is charging you more than the basic fare but less than you’d pay for each of the add-ons separately.

19 hours ago, Linsifer said:

We’ve had a cruise on the Ruby to Alaska out of SF booked for August 9, 2021 since last December.  Today we decided that we’re going to cancel and rebook the same cruise for 2022 when sailings open for Alaska.  It’s just not worth the uncertainty.  And now I’m reading there’s a possibility we won’t even be able to get off the ship just to stroll around the ports, and in and out of gift ships.  I realize it’s several months away, but we don’t want to make the final payment 60 days before only to find out our free time in port will be restricted. 
So, instead we’ll celebrate our 30th anniversary in 2022 with the hopes that we have a viable vaccine and some herd immunity by then.  I do hope Princess will have a sale like the one we had:  Best. Sale. Ever.  Free WiFi, gratuities and drink package.   That was a big appeal for our current booking.   I feel relieved that we won’t need to deal with the pandemic on a ship next year.  I just hope the protocol will be much looser in 2022 providing we’ve got the virus under control. 

Princess has made the “best sale ever” perks a permanent option when booking a cruise.  You can choose the cheaper base (no frills) price or the price with the perks included.

We were booked on the March 14 Sky Princess cruise:

• Feb 28 we cancelled (thinking we would only get 25% back plus money back for some incidentals, flights, etc)
• Approx. March 13 we got the initial cancellation money back on our credit card (worked out to about 50% of our total spend on cruise+flights)
• May 5 we got an email to fill out a form to choose: 100% cash + 100% FCC, or 225% FCC - we chose 100+100
• Mid-May the FCC showed up on our Princess accounts
• Last week the remainder of our money was refunded to our credit card (roughly 50% of our total spend)

We are happy campers, especially that we didn't need to hound anyone on the phone in order to get our refund.  It just required patience while Princess worked out all of their processes.

Hello from Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. It was sunny but cold today, hovering around 0C and below, especially when considering the wind chill.  We are watching movies, playing lots of co-operative board games (ironically “Pandemic” is our favourite, but also Forbidden Island and others) and my wife got the recipe for the Toasted Almond Martini which she loves on Princess ships and she’s made herself a couple this past week.  We were supposed to be on Sky Princess March 14-21 but we cancelled that on Feb 28.  Hang in there everybody!!

While I’m impressed with Princess’s policies around this situation (we cancelled before all of the offers to cancel for free and they still retroactively gave us FCC - without us even asking - which they didn’t have to do) we will be waiting a while to see how this Covid-19 situation shakes out in the world before we set foot on a cruise ship again.  If we do cruise again, Princess will be our likely choice because of the FCC they gave us, and we’ve enjoyed all of our Princess cruises up until now.

According to this: http://crew-center.com/caribbean-princess-itinerary there are no more sailings until May.  Are you sure it wasn’t just crew on the ship?

We canceled Feb 28 and only got money back on our card on this past Wednesday, so it took about a week and a half.  It could get even worse with the volumes they are dealing with now (literally everyone who had a cruise in the next 60 days).

Just now, Reader0108598 said:

That is silly,you may not know you  are sick until later! Even then they are saying not everyone feels or appears sick!

To be clear, they are still flying them all on a charter to an army base in Canada where they will be quarantined for at least 14 days, regardless of symptoms or not.

Just now, kathy49 said:

Hum...this is new...foreign passengers (some of whom no doubt will test positive given results already) will be sent back to country of origin which could be very long flights.  This whole deal sounds awful.

I believe Canada said they won't fly any people who are exhibiting any symptoms of Covid-19 (if any are in that state).  Not sure what will happen to those folks.

19 minutes ago, thermal said:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/coronavirus-cruise-grand-princess-1.5489320

 

My mom is scheduled to go on a Princess cruise to the Caribbean in two weeks.  She's 73 years old with significant health issues.  My dad and her are really struggling to decide what to do.  Two weeks ago, they were pretty certain they wanted to go.  Now everything seems much more high-risk. 

Princess is giving them a pretty easy out now that they can get future cruise credit even if they didn’t have insurance.

5 hours ago, subaru94 said:

In Australia they interviewed 2 people who were evacuated from Diamond Princess and sent to Darwin Quarantine, where they were tested positive for the Covor-19 virus, they didn't even know they had it the woman had a slightly sore throat the man said he did not feel well at all.  At the end of the day it is another flu and I just don't understand the hysteria behind this one, there is a different kind of flu every year, some worse than others this has been the norm for years, we were on a ship a few years ago where a whole family were sent off the ship as they boarded with Influenza A, left on port and told to make their own way home, no quarantining, no ship being refused to dock.  80,000 people in China out of 1.8 billion, have got the coro-19 virus.

This disease could possibly mutate into a very deadly form of the virus and because so little is known about it, there is an abundance of caution happening right now.  The flu is very well known, 100+ years of medical study.

China contained the outbreak relatively well because they shut down travel between cities, shut down movie theaters, stores, etc to contain it. Not seeing any of that in the U.S. yet.  Also there could have been a lot more cases that were mild and therefore never tested in China.  We’ll never know for sure.  And it could very well make a comeback in China yet once people start moving around and congregating again.

32 minutes ago, B-52 said:

Also, as a side note...looked at my Container of Lysol wipes, which are maybe 1-1/2 old, and Corona is listed. So this is not a new thing.

Coronavirus is a whole class of viruses.  SARS was also a coronavirus.  They just used that name at the beginning for this because it didn't have a formal name.  Now it is officially called Covid-19 instead of the generic coronavirus name.

15 hours ago, Nn2036 said:

Caribbean Princess had noro outbreak during her last trip and had to cut the trip short. After cleaning, this current voyage also has another outbreak.

 

It is strange that after thorough cleaning, the bug was still there. Is it unprecedented or It can happen often?

 

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/florida/os-ne-princess-cruises-stomach-bug-outbreak-second-time-20200227-fpecmvcrcjd4bbtvk5hezynz5y-story.html

If some crew members had it late in the first sailing then that would be an easy way for it to go from one sailing to the next.  Or if any passengers were doing back-to-backs.   Cleaning the ship only does so much, unless they replace all of the crew and passengers there's a non-zero chance that it could carry over to the next sailing via a person.

I’m very surprised (and disappointed) that Princess hasn’t yet updated their screening to include travel from Korea, Iran, and the affected Northern Italy regions.

Hopefully (like BSE) this will allow you to always choose between two fare levels: a basic fare (which could be reduced by other sales/specials) and a "Princess Plus" fare which will include these 3 perks.  That will be a win-win for everyone, and will allow Princess to better compete with other lines.

30 minutes ago, Farts said:

Cruise ship MSC Meraviglia turned away from two Caribbean ports amid coronavirus concerns
 

Even though the infected person just had the flu.  Could be a sign of bad things to come for cruisers and cruise lines.  If anyone has a fever on board it's pretty easy for port authorities to just say "sorry!" rather than do any due diligence about the situation.

I'm not overly concerned about catching/surviving the virus as my wife and I are healthy younger people (compared to cruise average ages).  But getting quarantined in our inside cabin for weeks just because one person got on the ship with the virus would be really bad.  That is a lot of time to spend in a tiny windowless box with one person, even someone you love.

We've paid our full fare for a mid-March cruise and we're still planning to go at this point but we are keeping a very close watch on the situation.  If the outbreaks in Italy/Korea/Iran continue to spread and more pop up around the world we might think twice about going.  We still have 3 weeks to decide.

We're on the March 14 Western Caribbean sailing.   Our first Royal Class ship after 8 cruises on Grand Class ships. Happy to hear the positive reviews!

Was the fitness center open early and could you use the treadmills before 8am?  My wife would like to know as she loves to exercise but on the Grand Class ships the treadmills usually weren't available until 8am because there were staterooms right below them.  On the Sky it looks like there are no staterooms below the fitness center...

Regarding specialty restaurants: if you like a good steak, the Crown Grill is great IMO.  Their Filet Mignon (or Tenderloin, can’t recall what they call it) has never let me down, I get it Medium Rare.  And they have great starters (Lobster Cake or French Onion Soup amongst others) and some great desserts too.  Also, you can order from the Crown Grill menu in the MDR as well (at least you could last summer on the Emerald!) for $19 per person and they’ll bring you the steak and the sides (garlic fries, green beans, spinach, a bunch of stuff) but not any starters or dessert (you can order MDR items/dessert to complement the steak).

Enjoy!  I love Alaska too, so beautiful!

A couple of people in Tokyo are now confirmed to have the disease, including a taxi driver.  So Japan may soon have other worries than quarantining one cruise ship.