Cruising with Exchange Students

[stp_mmh5]

My wife and I decided to host a pair of foreign exchange students for this school year.  A pretty wild departure from our normal lives as we have no kids of our own, and my wife is a teacher at the secondary level.  We had at the time before committing to this idea a cruise booked on Symphony over Christmas as the result of a lift and shift from Empress this last year. However, we couldn't add our students to the reservation due to it updating to current booking rates.  So lots of changes later, plus a military curve ball or two, we settled on booking Symphony again, but now for 09 October sailing.

 

We have worked with placement company to make sure all of our ducks are in the proper rows, their student visas updated to reflecting departing and returning to the US, and successfully uploaded their very different vaccination documents.  Which is where our sudden issue is arising.  Turns out Royal actually reviews the vaccination documentation prior to your arrival. They immediately flagged both students documents, and contacted us about last night for one of them, and today for the other.  After some back and forth and a re-upload of their documents, Royal has come back and is stating that our student from Spain would likely be denied boarding due to not being fully vaccinated.  He was given Cromirnaty, which is off shoot of the Pfizer/BioNTech.  His documentation states he received the complete series, in which case was 1 of 1 for him.  

 

The host program specifically required all students participating to be fully vaccinated before arrival, so he should be good to go. SO we are at a loss of what to do, whether we should contunue to press the case against Royal and see if they'll let him on, or should we pull the plug now while we can.  The last thing we want is to arrive Saturday and have him denied boarding, as that would put a massive damper on the vacation. 

 

Both of the boys are beyond excited as this would be their first cruise, they treated themselves to the Royal Refresh and we got a Royal Up to a JS, so there's a lot tied into it. Pulling the plug would give us the cruise planner refunds and FCCs, but all of our vacation funds would then be tied up leaving us no alternative options.

 

Has anyone else experienced something like this and what would you do given the circumstances?

 

 

-Shane and Macon

[smplybcause]

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine

 

According to this that's not an offshoot it's the brand name of their covid vaccine. I think the problem is that the Pfizer vaccine is two shots. I'm not sure how he was considered fully vaccinated with only one shot of it. 

[Maryscooking]

I guess my first thought is took try to find out - from somewhere on these boards or a google search - if Royal Caribbean is denying boarding to all Spanish residents who have received that vaccine. And that will probably give you your answer on how to proceed.

 

And I'm so sorry you have to deal with this. We took an exchange student on a cruise in 2018, and that was a process even without dealing with covid. I hope you get a good outcome!

[Maryscooking]

5 minutes ago, smplybcause said:

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine

 

According to this that's not an offshoot it's the brand name of their covid vaccine. I think the problem is that the Pfizer vaccine is two shots. I'm not sure how he was considered fully vaccinated with only one shot of it. 

 

That's a good catch. And a real bummer.

 

Here's what I found specific to Europe/Spain's approval. Under "How Is Cormirnaty Used" it specifies two shots.

 

https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/comirnaty

Edited October 8, 2021 by Maryscooking
wording

[stp_mmh5]

The two shot thing is exactly what Royal is sticking to, as that's what the CDC requires.  So we can either send half of our party as were under the 48 hours for cruise with confidence to cancel for half it, or we can move the entire cruise to another date. However with an upcoming all expense trip paid for by Uncle Sam, we can't presume when we would all be able to take a trip together again.

 

Incredibly they gave us an option of removing the student who's vaccination isn't up to snuff and sending the rest of us.  Then said it would not count under Cruise With Confidence. But that I would get double points.....

 

This really sucks as it's putting us in a no win situation.  Again I'm glad it's now over at the pier, but this should have been caught sooner, either on their end or ours, so we could have corrected it in time.

 

 

[smplybcause]

48 minutes ago, stp_mmh5 said:

This really sucks as it's putting us in a no win situation.  Again I'm glad it's now over at the pier, but this should have been caught sooner, either on their end or ours, so we could have corrected it in time.

 

Not disagreeing that it sucks - but only a week or two ago there was no way to upload your cards early so you wouldn't have found out until at the pier if your cruise was earlier. So this is an improvement. 

 

Unfortunately we're still in a "cruise lines are just figuring things out" time frame. Especially with not-US being a bit more up in the air. 

[FionaMG]

Here in Portugal, if you have already had Covid, you are given just one dose of the vaccine and are considered fully vaccinated even if it is a vaccine that normally requires 2 doses.

 

I wonder if Spain has a similar rule. That might explain why your Spanish student is considered fully vaccinated with just a single dose.

 

ETA: it looks like this is the case. I have found a number of reports suggesting it. E.g. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-spain-vaccines-idUSKBN2AQ29S

Edited October 8, 2021 by FionaMG
Added extra information

[FionaMG]

@stp_mmh5, further to my previous post, this is from the Spanish government: https://www.vacunacovid.gob.es/preguntas-y-respuestas/debo-vacunarme-si-ya-he-pasado-el-covid-19

 

So, it is definitely official Spanish policy to vaccinate U65s who have had Covid with just one dose of the vaccine. Find out if your Spanish student is in this situation. If he is, he should be able to obtain a European covid certificate attesting to recovery in addition to the one showing the vaccination. 

 

Perhaps if you explain this policy to Royal they will allow him to sail. 

 

I hope it works out for you.

[stp_mmh5]

FionaMG,

 

That is exactly the case for our student. That is why by Spanish guidance, he is considered fully vaccinated and was admitted to the exchange program.

 

However, the CDC and Royal Caribbean do not see it that way. They are clear cut that anyone who receives the Pfizer/BioNTech/Comirnaty and other mRNA vaccines must have two shots, 21 days between shots, and 14 days afterwards to be considered fully vaccinated.  

 

So eventually we came to the decision that we would split the vacation, with my wife taking our Spanish student and I would carry on with our other student. Not ideal, but least we wouldn't be out any hard cash. Just another interest free loan to Royal in the form of an FCC.  Except by the time we called back, their office was closed.  Despite being told in the phone call that they would be open until midnight EST and their website stating that the standard reservation line would be open until 2am EST.  When we called back this morning on the standard reservation line, was told that because it's owned by a travel agent (My wife, who was making the call) that we would have to wait until that office opens at 9am.

 

For those wondering about "Well then why  don't you just cancel with travel insurance?" 1. Somehow we failed to book it. We get it every time on every other trip, but overlooked it on this one, but.... 2. Even if we did have it, the policy we get has a cancel before 48 hours statement. We got the kick rocks notification under the 48 hour mark so we would have been stuck in the same situation regardless.

 

At this point, I'll be working to see if they'll honor the options they gave us late last night, which is move the other student to my room, the Spanish student to my wife's room, cancel hers under CWC, and we take our split vacations.  Not ideal, but sure beats the alternative of loosing all the money, or having our other student suddenly spend fall break with his local friends here while the rest of us cruise on. (Obviously the absolute worse case option, but hey, since my booking would be considered a single room, least I would get double points, because that makes everything better.)

 

So for any other host parents who may read this either now or in the near future, my advice is to make sure their vaccination cards are up to snuff with our programs, that nothing will get lost in the translation so to speak, that you communicate early with the host program your intentions for travel, get the student visas updated as soon as you can, and include them in the decision processes, but don't overwhelm them with too much info.

[FionaMG]

@stp_mmh5, I'm so sorry you weren't able to make it work. What a huge disappointment. 😞

 

But I'm glad you have a plan B that hopefully will let you make the best of a bad job.

Fingers, legs and eyes crossed for you.