Karaboudjan

I really question the impact of testing alone. Humans are very adaptable. I don't think there is anything about pre-testing that most people cannot and will not easily take in stride, so I don't believe that is the major hold up for most people. As has been pointed out there is the fear of being quarantined which I would agree is far more impactful than taking a test or even the inconvenience of a failed test, and of course there is also the basic concern about catching COVID. I believe those are the big ones, but I just can't see very many people who are willing to take the risk of being quarantined and/or catch COVID but unwilling to take a test.

Isn't the standard procedure to confirm a positive antigen test with a PCR? I would think that a doctor would want a PCR result before certifying that someone in fact had COVID.

I suspect that a vaccination requirement is hurting Viking less than mainstream lines.

I wonder. Viking is different than the mainstream lines in some significant ways, for example still being (at least nominally) 100% vaccinated. We can argue about the effectiveness of vaccines, but I believe it's still a selling point for many people and could offset hesitation to board an 'untested' ship, and arguably could help mitigate the seriousness of any outbreaks that might arise from abolishing testing. All that to say that Viking might feel they are better placed to do away with the testing.

More to the point this does not apply to NCL...

You may find some recent reports here:

The price of a club balcony for a cruise in December 2022 is at least 50% higher than when booking was opened in May.

All I know is that NCL identifies the Sky as being of the Sun class, so it seemed like if the OP was thinking of a 'same' ship it would have to be the Sky.

Are you thinking of the Sky? The Dawn is its own class; not the same as the Sun/Sky.

I am as interested as anyone in real numbers, but how does this inform someone's decision about a future cruise? COVID clearly comes in waves, so knowing that there were XXX cases in May doesn't tell me much about what I can expect in December. I suppose you could try to correlate anecdotal evidence to actual numbers and then apply that to what is being reported at the time of your cruise, but that seems like a shaky proposition.

14302 will be fairly close to one of the slides. Don't know if there will be much noise coming from there?...

They do now. It was a recent update to the Sail Safe FAQ's.

I have to wonder about the future of this business model.

When did any major cruise line ever test passengers when they did not have to? All testing that I am aware of has been done either directly or indirectly at the requirement of the CDC or other authorities.

There is open air seating for the Garden Cafe.

Ships do not report a status color; the CDC assigns them based on reported cases and their (CDC's) evaluation of the situation on the ship. See https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/cruise/cruise-ship-color-status.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fcoronavirus%2F2019-ncov%2Ftravelers%2Fcrew-disembarkations-commercial-travel.html I expect that mandatory masking would be the first sign that Red status was being considered.