Ships resuming operations in June, health & safety protocols released

[Honolulu Blue]

The National Geographic Quest and National Geographic Venture will be starting in Alaska June 5 and 6, respectively.  The National Geographic Endeavour II will be starting in the Galapagos Islands on June 4.

 

You can look at the protocols here:  https://www.expeditions.com/covid-protocol/ .  There's an additional FAQ at https://www.expeditions.com/covid-protocol/covid-19-protocol-faqs/ .  

 

A very quick TL,DR is that they are requiring vaccines of all passengers 16+ and crew (who also need a current flu jab), test prior to arrival (at your expense) AND test at the terminal (they pay) AND, for the Galapagos, test before disembarking (provided & paid for).  But there's lots of interesting things in there; I encourage reading both the summary and the FAQs.

[PAllinson]

Problems with their protocol: Crew does not have to be vaccinated if their country of origin does not have vaccine availability. Unclear if they will get vaccinated before they are exposed to other crew members and/or staff and guests.  Current Vaccine derived neutralizing antibodies are not as effective against the South african and Brazil strains, Covid-19 testing in Maryland where I live, results of pcr tests are not available for 5-7 days unless it is for medical procedures(my local CVS says it takes 7 days to get results), rapid tests have around 20% incidence of false positives and around 20% false negatives (they should have stuck with pcr testing).

 

In our case, we have to be in Seattle a day before our trip is scheduled to leave in order to catch the Charter flight to Ketchikan, so in order to comply with their pcr testing we would need to get the test done on Monday the 13th of September to comply with the get a pcr test before you leave home. Then when we get to Ketchikan we take a rapid test with a 20% false negative/positive result. If positive then what? quarantine? retest? if negative retest for best 2 out of 3 ? if positive then what?  Our trip goes to the spirit bear location in Canada, currently ships with less than 100 people on board are allowed through 2/2022. The Venture holds 100 passengers and 50 crew and expedition staff, when asked I was told that there will be less than 100 passengers on board so the venture will be allowed to enter Canada. But the rule states less than 100 people including passengers and crew. While we were really looking forward to this trip, it was cancelled last year and rescheduled for this year. it is starting to look like it will be another year at least before this will take place.

 

[pavementends]

On 4/1/2021 at 4:04 AM, PAllinson said:

Problems with their protocol: Crew does not have to be vaccinated if their country of origin does not have vaccine availability. Unclear if they will get vaccinated before they are exposed to other crew members and/or staff and guests. 

A good reason for me to take a pass on NatGeo for now.

[Tinyrn]

Pallinson,

 

I am going on the Great Bear Rainforest trip this September, I think the protocols have now changed, but I could be mistaken. The Expedition Guide is now up on Lindblad's site, so be sure to check there for the latest information. Hope to see you there!

Laura