On the Joy, as soon as you call guest services to inquire about testing they tell you that testing is free if you have symptoms or feel ill, but if you want a "medical consultation" (whatever that is) it will be a minimum $200 charge. I'm guessing a lot of people with symptoms decline any testing or anything if it's mild as soon as they hear there's a potential charge involved, which leads to the problem of folks quickly spreading it around to everyone else.
From talking to folks and seeing comments in the FB sailing for that cruise as well, on the official record there were 10 passengers that tested positive. However, within the first few days of folks getting home and getting tested at home, that number was easily triple if not higher.
The biggest issue I have with how NCL handles things is that no one knows the rules and no one is transparent in all the rules. I'm 100% convinced I picked it up from the passenger sitting behind me on an excursion who was hacking up a lung and sneezing the whole time maskless on the bus. Within 2 days I had a bad cold with a nonstop runny nose. Asked for a test just to make sure so I could continue on my way guilt free and it came up positive. No one else in my travel party was required to be tested, and as long as they relocated to a separate room they could go about their trip without any testing or quarantine at all.
In talking to the medical staff, they admitted 10 people "that we know of" who were positive, but suspected a much higher count but couldn't force people to be tested. Even if they're sneezing, coughing, runny nose, visibly showing symptoms of something.... they couldn't even ask them to be tested.
This was our 5th trip since Covid, no flights involved in this one despite flights for the others, 3 vaccines each, and blamm-o. Hubby tested positive with a self kit when we got home that day. Was it horrible, no, but 3+ weeks later I still can't shake it. I test negative, but there are days when I'm still symptomatic.
We'll certainly handle our next cruises differently. But it sucks when folks don't do the right thing and then get tons of other people sick as a result. Just because it was a mild cold for you doesn't mean it's going to be short or mild for the rest of us. Stay the 'eff in your room and wear a god darn mask if you're sick.