Celebrity website inaccuracies about St. Maarten

[Covepointcruiser]

Wow, those are great prices for the test in St. Martin.   The one at Dulles, is $190, and you receive the results in 30 minutes.   It is a PCR Test and is acceptable by Greece and the cruise line.   Our cruise, different line, requires a test within 5 days of boarding the ship.   We are getting the test the morning of 7/7 and our cruise departs on 7/10.    We will meet the three day and five day rules.   Will still be watching the airline, Greek and cruise line web sites for any changes.

[sofietucker]

8 minutes ago, Covepointcruiser said:

Wow, those are great prices for the test in St. Martin.   The one at Dulles, is $190, and you receive the results in 30 minutes.   It is a PCR Test and is acceptable by Greece and the cruise line.   Our cruise, different line, requires a test within 5 days of boarding the ship.   We are getting the test the morning of 7/7 and our cruise departs on 7/10.    We will meet the three day and five day rules.   Will still be watching the airline, Greek and cruise line web sites for any changes.

Excellent! And Greece probably doesn't have a required "covid insurance" entry fee like SXM does... Ours will amount to near that when we're all done: $25 test, $30 entry fee, $70 re-test (so $125 each), plus $60 round trip taxi. Maybe by the time we go to Greece in Oct they won't even be requiring tests, lol...

[Fouremco]

2 hours ago, sofietucker said:

And Celebrity still doesn't seem to know what it's doing: for some time now, St Maarten ITSELF doesn't require the rt-PCR-test-or-nothing: they allow the antigen test if done no later than 48 hours before entry to the country.

I've said from the outset that Celebrity should publish its own (ever changing) requirements and direct passengers to the Sint Maarten website to get full, accurate information on the island's entry requirements. I've yet to see the Celebrity website post Sint Maarten's requirements without errors and/or omissions.

 

[AstoriaPreppy]

I know Celebrity loves a silent disco, but with everything getting shoved up it in the days leading up to this cruise, my nose is going to think it’s traveled back in time to Studio 54. 

[abbydancer2003]

We're on the 7/31 cruise.  If it's still this way, I'll do one test on Monday for St. Martin, and then one late afternoon on Wednesday for X.  I fly to NY on Thursday AM and then to St. Martin on Friday.  I'm hoping that's not necessary.

[Ken the cruiser]

Looks like the Millennium is heading to Miami to possibly get more of their crew vaccinated.

 

CELEBRITY MILLENNIUM Current Location (cruisemapper.com)

[Jeremiah1212]

28 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Looks like the Millennium is heading to Miami to possibly get more of their crew vaccinated.

 

CELEBRITY MILLENNIUM Current Location (cruisemapper.com)

 

One of the IG accounts said Millennium was heading to Galveston but that seems odd to me. Marine Traffic hasn't updated in almost a day. Seems like a long way to go for vaccines if that's the case?

Edited May 14, 2021 by Jeremiah1212

[lhsail]

5 minutes ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

 

One of the IG accounts said Millennium was heading to Galveston but that seems odd to me. Marine Traffic hasn't updated in almost a day. Seems like a long day to go for vaccines if that's the case?

We were in Galveston earlier this week. One of the healthcare providers is very proactive in wanting to get crew vaccinated. Maybe a matter of supply. 

[AstoriaPreppy]

29 minutes ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

 

One of the IG accounts said Millennium was heading to Galveston but that seems odd to me. Marine Traffic hasn't updated in almost a day. Seems like a long way to go for vaccines if that's the case?

It seems pretty unlikely (epidemiologically) that Celebrity would allow fully vaxed staff and crew to mingle with unvaxed staff and crew, especially considering the tight quarters crew share.

The covid vaccines are great if everyone is fully protected, but commingling in that sort of environment is... not great.

[rsail203]

My TA sent me the latest protocols from Celebrity. They still stated 3 days for the pcr test and no mention of the St. Maarten 48 hour antigen test.

[jwlane]

23 minutes ago, AstoriaPreppy said:

It seems pretty unlikely (epidemiologically) that Celebrity would allow fully vaxed staff and crew to mingle with unvaxed staff and crew, especially considering the tight quarters crew share.

The covid vaccines are great if everyone is fully protected, but commingling in that sort of environment is... not great.

On-boarding crew members quarantine 14 days before mixing with existing crew.

 

[Oldsweets]

Celebrity lack of communication made us decide to pay the higher airline fee to change our booking and cancel our 2 pre-nights hotel in St marten.  Simply not worth the effort and clearly not worth Celebrity’s effort to communicate with its booked customers.  Any least what we saved on the hotel and not paying St Marten Insurance paid for the airfare increase and we have the peace of mind of testing requirements.  What iS strange to me is that I think that Celebrity would want to be creating as much confidence as possible that they have things together and sadly they are doing the opposite.  Hopefully the actual safety protocols are better organized then the communications model I have seen so far. 

[jwlane]

18 hours ago, sofietucker said:

Excellent! And Greece probably doesn't have a required "covid insurance" entry fee like SXM does... Ours will amount to near that when we're all done: $25 test, $30 entry fee, $70 re-test (so $125 each), plus $60 round trip taxi. Maybe by the time we go to Greece in Oct they won't even be requiring tests, lol...

If vaccinated, Greece doesn't require any tests starting today.  https://travel.gov.gr/

[Oldsweets]

We were looking at booking Greece through Celebrity and this reaffirmed our decision to book it through Windstar.  We are doing a St Marten Windstar in early July before Greece so we will get a trial run at there communications process.

[rsail203]

My TA just got this back from her Celebrity rep:

 

Our protocols are  a work in progress as we have stated since beginning our return to service.

 

Please advise your client to stay connected with our consumer FAQs provided on the website.

 

Protocols will continue to be updated as we continue to work with the CDC to return to service.

 

Healthy at Sea  - St. Maarten – consumer site.

 

Since our cruise has nothing to do with the USA. I wonder why they're mentioning the CDC.

[neilrr]

Better to be on the leading edge than the bleeding edge... No rush to cruise until they figure this mess out.. We will wait until 2022... Let the games begin...😁

[AstoriaPreppy]

1 hour ago, rsail203 said:

My TA just got this back from her Celebrity rep:

 

Our protocols are  a work in progress as we have stated since beginning our return to service.

 

Please advise your client to stay connected with our consumer FAQs provided on the website.

 

Protocols will continue to be updated as we continue to work with the CDC to return to service.

 

Healthy at Sea  - St. Maarten – consumer site.

 

Since our cruise has nothing to do with the USA. I wonder why they're mentioning the CDC.

So far this week the line has posted two different versions of the testing requirement, and told TAs a third. I don't call that a work in progress, I call that mixed messaging and a signal that no one really knows which end is up.  

 

[FlyerTalker]

1 hour ago, AstoriaPreppy said:

So far this week the line has posted two different versions of the testing requirement, and told TAs a third. I don't call that a work in progress, I call that mixed messaging and a signal that no one really knows which end is up. 

 

Given this degree of confusion about a simple matter of communicating information, I wonder if the Millenium will actually be in St Maarten to pick up passengers.  They might be at a completely different island.  😂

[Fouremco]

3 hours ago, rsail203 said:

 

Since our cruise has nothing to do with the USA. I wonder why they're mentioning the CDC.

It would be far better for Celebrity and for its passengers to have a single set of health and safety protocols. While that might not be achievable in the short term, it makes sense that adjustments arising from changes from the CDC be incorporated in the protocols for Sint Maarten. IMO, there's no problem with rationale for the changes, but Celebrity has achieved a failing grade in communication. 

[Arzeena]

45 minutes ago, Fouremco said:

It would be far better for Celebrity and for its passengers to have a single set of health and safety protocols. While that might not be achievable in the short term, it makes sense that adjustments arising from changes from the CDC be incorporated in the protocols for Sint Maarten. IMO, there's no problem with rationale for the changes, but Celebrity has achieved a failing grade in communication. 

100% agree.

They should have figured all this out before offering cruises.

We have changed our flights, resrvations and itineraries so many times now. And it adds to the cost. Cruise planning has never been this kind of a headache before.

[LGW59]

3 minutes ago, Arzeena said:

100% agree.

They should have figured all this out before offering cruises.

We have changed our flights, resrvations and itineraries so many times now. And it adds to the cost. Cruise planning has never been this kind of a headache before.

and we have not had this kind of a pandemic in over 100 years, sorry for the cruising inconvenience

[AstoriaPreppy]

5 hours ago, Arzeena said:

They should have figured all this out before offering cruises

I actually strongly disagree. I don’t need them to have it all figured out, and I understand the situation and science is fluid. That is fine!

 

What I don’t like is getting guidelines posted on May 7th, then surreptitiously changed on May 11th, while an entirely different set of guidelines are communicated to travel agents (in a Celebrity guidelines webinar!!) the same day. 
 

If they don’t know what the guidelines will be, also okay. Just stop with messaging three differing sets of guidelines in a week-long period!

[Arzeena]

14 hours ago, LGW59 said:

and we have not had this kind of a pandemic in over 100 years, sorry for the cruising inconvenience

Yes we haven't seen anything like this pandemic.
However,  this forum is for people to talk about their experiences with Celebrity cruisng and the Millenium's new cruises. We have learnt so many things from other people's posts of experiences, vents, thoughts, ideas etc.

Edited May 15, 2021 by Arzeena

[Arzeena]

8 hours ago, AstoriaPreppy said:

What I don’t like is getting guidelines posted on May 7th, then surreptitiously changed on May 11th, while an entirely different set of guidelines are communicated to travel agents (in a Celebrity guidelines webinar!!) the same day. 
 

If they don’t know what the guidelines will be, also okay. Just stop with messaging three differing sets of guidelines in a week-long period!

Sorry for confusing and if it was percieved different, but that is what I meant when I used "figured it out". I understand what you are saying and I agree.

[paulh84]

8 hours ago, AstoriaPreppy said:

I actually strongly disagree. I don’t need them to have it all figured out, and I understand the situation and science is fluid. That is fine!

 

What I don’t like is getting guidelines posted on May 7th, then surreptitiously changed on May 11th, while an entirely different set of guidelines are communicated to travel agents (in a Celebrity guidelines webinar!!) the same day. 
 

If they don’t know what the guidelines will be, also okay. Just stop with messaging three differing sets of guidelines in a week-long period!

 

FWIW - the info relayed to TA's has never been publicized and very well may change again. Or may change between cruises. Who knows. When you choose to travel internationally and cruise during a pandemic and on some of the very first cruises after a 15+ month shutdown...these things are going to happen and should be expected.