jtwind

Yes. So, for example. if you went on a cruise that stopped in Cuba, the rules in existence right before cruises were shut down said that you were to avoid spending $ in such a way that it ended up in the hands of the Cuban government. The government owns big travel agencies, most restaurants, big hotels, cabs, etc. But there are also privately owned versions of such establishments. If you weren't taking a ship excursion, it was pretty tricky to figure out how to do your shore excursion in a compliant way. (I believe that is why some cruise lines were trying to guarantee that th

We got to go to Cuba because the policy at the time allowed self guided travel as long as you tried to maximize use of individually owned restaurants, "hotels", and tour guides. The idea of trying to get $ in the hands of the people while minimizing the amount of $ going to the government seemed like a decent plan. But in the end, tourists from the US were frequently and openly breaking these rules, and this type of travel and cruises were done. I know. Folks are going to say that the president at the time had it on his agenda to stop it even if US travelers complied with the rules. But I

OK. So even though we hear that you currently cannot fly to the US unless you have a recent negative COVID tests, an expensive medical evacuation may be an exception?

But if the unthinkable happens, and you contract the virus even though you are fully vaccinated...are there ways to safely and legally get to a country with better medical facilities if things get really bad? Medical repatriation insurance probably wouldn't provide a way to get back to the US, I would guess. Are there any countries that would accept a medical evacuation jet with a covid patient in really bad condition?

If you travel (either cruise or land based), and get the virus while traveling, as it stands now, you won't be able to come back to the US. In fact, due to either rules or just concern for your fellow man, you may not be able to leave the country where you are diagnosed. So, I'm guessing that most are going to take into consideration the medical facilities available at the places being visited, right? If you decide to visit a small island in the Caribbean, for example, with almost no medical facilities, and become infected, what can you do? If you think that you are in a life or

Is there another thread which asks 'Will You Cruise if Vaccination is NOT Required'? I would think that is more important.

Again, the CDC does not control cruises in the Med, for example. Why are people on this thread saying that the CDC is preventing folks from cruising?

I'm not getting it. The CDC only has influence on cruises leaving, arriving, visiting the US. If they're so out of line, how do you explain the fact that , with a few exceptions, cruise lines aren't operating anywhere in the world?

Can you cancel a cruise with no penalty if you don't like their covid policy. For example, if you've decided that you will not cruise unless all passengers are vaccinated, but the cruise does not require it.

Will only cruise on ships requiring that all passengers are vaccinated. If cruise lines have the option, and some require it and some don't, I don't see the one's who don't require vaccinations doing much business.

Up thread, I wrote that cruises without vaccine requirements would be as popular as flights that don't require people to go through security. If some cruise lines require vaccinations and others don't, do y'all actually think that those that didn't require vaccinations would actually sail anywhere close to full?

Even though we now specify in large letters "NO SHOPPING OR FACTORY VISITS" when we book private tours, it is still hit or miss.

I'd imagine that cruises that don't require vaccinations or masks would be as popular as flights that don't require people to go through security.

No, I understood. We first started booking private tour guides because we wanted to avoid this stuff. So as an example, on one of our first private guide experiences, the guide asked if we needed a bathroom. Here's a place with a nice clean bathroom in this gift shop. Come out of the bathroom. Guide gone. Clerk says he'll be right back. What is the right thing to do? We didn't want to have a confrontation with the person who we're counting on to have a pleasant experience the rest of the day.

Unfortunately, we've found that booking non cruise ship excursions doesn't guarantee that the same thing won't happen, even when giving advance notice that we're not interested in this type of thing.