Government Approved Excursion???

[mkam2821]

We will be cruising on Silhouette in January and currently the Health and Safety guidelines for many of the Southern Caribbean orts state that we can take independent excursions that are "Government Approved" . Does anyone have any clue how we can find out which providers are government approved?

Thanks in advance

 

[Arizona Wildcat]

For most ports there are no independent excursions as COVID-19 has gotten worse in many countries and Celebrity has few ship excursionsexcept city tours because of local rules.  I found things are changing too fast to really know what you can or cannot do.  On a recent trip we figured out what was allowed by going to Tours by Locals.  They know the current rules and have always been flexible for cancellations.  They operate in dozens of countries.

It is a guessing game.  Just be sure you pay with a credit card that guarantees a refund if tour is cancelled.  Many people lost their $$ when tour operators either refused to refund or went out of business.

[paulh84]

27 minutes ago, mkam2821 said:

We will be cruising on Silhouette in January and currently the Health and Safety guidelines for many of the Southern Caribbean orts state that we can take independent excursions that are "Government Approved" . Does anyone have any clue how we can find out which providers are government approved?

Thanks in advance

 

 

Read the guidelines again. 

 

Excursions provided by Celebrity Cruises are required in: 

• Bridgetown, Barbados**
• Colon, Panama
• Roseau, Dominica
• St. George's, Grenada
• Falmouth, Jamaica
• Basseterre, St. Kitts & Nevis**
• Castries, St. Lucia**

The double asterisk means this below

 

**Vaccinated guests only are approved to debark and tour the restricted port shopping area, as well as take a local government approved tour of the island.

 

The government approved tours would be the ones provided by Celebrity. You can't tour independently and find an approved tour on your own. None of the ports that allow independent touring have the double asterisk. 

[mkam2821]

17 minutes ago, Arizona Wildcat said:

For most ports there are no independent excursions as COVID-19 has gotten worse in many countries and Celebrity has few ship excursionsexcept city tours because of local rules.  I found things are changing too fast to really know what you can or cannot do.  On a recent trip we figured out what was allowed by going to Tours by Locals.  They know the current rules and have always been flexible for cancellations.  They operate in dozens of countries.

It is a guessing game.  Just be sure you pay with a credit card that guarantees a refund if tour is cancelled.  Many people lost their $$ when tour operators either refused to refund or went out of business.

I do not believe that your information is current. Celebrity website currently lists those islands where one may take an independent excursions, ones you may only take Celebrity excursions and ones that state you may take tours by "government approved operators". see below. My question is how do you find out what is government approved?

 

Excursions provided by Celebrity Cruises are required in: 

• Bridgetown, Barbados**
• Colon, Panama
• Roseau, Dominica
• St. George's, Grenada
• Falmouth, Jamaica
• Basseterre, St. Kitts & Nevis**
• Castries, St. Lucia**

Guests can explore the destination on their own in the ports below. However, we highly recommend you choose shore excursions with Celebrity Cruises that follow the same health protocols we have on board:

• St. John’s, Antigua
• Oranjestad, Aruba
• Belize City, Belize
• Bimini, Bahamas
• Kralendijk, Bonaire
• Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
• Cartagena, Colombia
• Catalina Island, California
• Costa Maya, Mexico
• Cozumel, Mexico
• Willemstad, Curacao
• Ensenada, México
• Nassau, Bahamas
• Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala
• Puerto Vallarta, México
• Punta Arenas, Costa Rica
• Roatan, Honduras
• St. Croix, USVI
• Philipsburg, St. Maarten*
• Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas
• San Juan, Puerto Rico
• Tortola, BVI

While in Aruba, the use of masks is required while indoors, except for while eating and drinking.

*The St. Maarten government requires all unvaccinated guests age 10 and older, be tested 2 days prior to disembarking and visiting St. Maarten. Test will be provided onboard.

**Vaccinated guests only are approved to debark and tour the restricted port shopping area, as well as take a local government approved tour of the island.

The local health authorities in St. Thomas and St. Croix have recommended that all guests, including fully vaccinated persons, wear a face mask while ashore and particularly while indoors.

 

[mkam2821]

Yet just a few minutes ago those currently on Silhouette stated on FB that they can't get off the ship without a Celebrity tour.......UGH such a lack of clear information and it seems to change from ship to ship, no consistency within the Celebrity fleet let alone between Celebrity and Royal

[paulh84]

56 minutes ago, mkam2821 said:

Celebrity website currently lists those islands where one

 

may take an independent excursions,

ones you may only take Celebrity excursions

and ones that state you may take tours by "government approved operators". 

 

The website does not list 3 scenarios. It lists 2. You can tour independently or you are required to take a ship tour. If the port has the " ** " next to it, vaccinated guests can walk around the shopping area within the port OR take a Celebrity excursion. You are not left on your own to determine what is and isn't an government approved tour. 

 

Silhouette is in St. Kitts today. St. Kitts requires Celebrity excursions so that is why guests cannot tour on their own. 

[Homosassa]

37 minutes ago, mkam2821 said:

.UGH such a lack of clear information and it seems to change from ship to ship, no consistency within the Celebrity fleet let alone between Celebrity and Royal

Why would you expect Royal and Celebrity to have the same procedures? 

 

While they are owned by the same parent company, they are independent from each other and have different targeted market demographics and differences in itineraries that allow for differences in procedures.

[mkam2821]

15 minutes ago, paulh84 said:

 

The website does not list 3 scenarios. It lists 2. You can tour independently or you are required to take a ship tour. If the port has the " ** " next to it, vaccinated guests can walk around the shopping area within the port OR take a Celebrity excursion. You are not left on your own to determine what is and isn't an government approved tour. 

 

Silhouette is in St. Kitts today. St. Kitts requires Celebrity excursions so that is why guests cannot tour on their own. 

One would think that with ** if it was intended to mean walk around and/or take a Celebrity excursion it would say "Celebrity" and not "government approved", just sayin'

[RichYak]

13 minutes ago, paulh84 said:

The website does not list 3 scenarios. It lists 2. You can tour independently or you are required to take a ship tour. If the port has the " ** " next to it, vaccinated guests can walk around the shopping area within the port OR take a Celebrity excursion. You are not left on your own to determine what is and isn't an government approved tour. 

I agree with @mkam2821 and see 3 scenarios. The local government controls access to the port, so anyone selling tours from within the port's confines must be approved to even be there. That's how I read it anyway.

[Catlover54]

And ironically, the three ship excursions I have been on this week crammed  people together in the lines after getting off, and shoulder to shoulder on the buses.  Despite  port signs everywhere that push 6 foot social distancing, the unhappy port employees pushed us close together, presumably so they could track us more easily. This is a great way to assure that if one of the passengers caught asymptomatic Covid before boarding and is in the negative testing window, or got exposed to an unvaccinated duty free workers or port shop worker, everyone else nearby will count as exposed and will land up getting quarantined. Loose masks with nostrils hanging out, or off while drinking, won't save anyone here if they sit next to an asymptomatic Delta Covid-infected for any length of time. 

 

The appropriate thing to do if the locals were serious about preventing Covid spread amongst cruisers would be to limit excursions to half the number of people per bus, if they want to be serious about the most important preventive measure - distancing -- and of course Celebrity would have to charge pax twice as much. 

 

[Guest]

I’ve been looking for this- perfect.

 

We are on P&O over Christmas and have been told the same for St Kitts and Barbados. The government approved tours are actually quite good. I have heard from people who have been to these islands and it’s all fine. 

 

For Barbados you can basically take a taxi to one of the 3 beaches designated for cruise pax- Boatyard, Harbour Lights and another one I can’t recall the name of. 
 

St Kitts will have a designated amount of taxis that will take you on set tours around the island. 

I’ll see if I can find the documents 
 

 

Edited November 19, 2021 by Guest

[canderson]

If you go to the official St Kitts site, they have a full list of government approved operators.  Was just there two days ago, and many are there and available.  Don't have the site at hand, but it is googleable.

[Jim_Iain]

I recently did the Silhouette.    In most of the ports the only Government Approved Tours are booked through Celebrity.     It also allows Private Journey booked by Celebrity.

 

Having said that at least one port had a desk setup on the fenced off port area and were selling government approved tours.     I asked the person for the name of the agency for others to book and she said she couldn't tell us because of requirements from Celebrity.    Ugh...

 

Almost all of the ports you have to show your Covid Vac card to get off the ship and unless on a curated tour you can not leave the fenced off dock area.    Some of the port areas have shops and vendors selling "junk".

 

[D C]

We were not required to show a vax card in any of the ports we visited last week on the Reflection (Nassau, Cozumel, Roatan).  We didn't disembark in Belize, so I can't say anything there.

[susiesan]

Here's the list of government approved tours for St. Kitts

 

https://www.stkittstourism.kn/activities/excursions

 

I will be there Dec. 5 from Millennium, and I am doing a tour through Celebrity. The price is only $10 more than if I booked it direct so I am sticking with the X tour in St. Kitts.

[Catlover54]

We did not have to show our vax card when we got off for X excursions in San Juan, Philipsburg, and Tortola, but I saw some independents getting off having to show their cards. But we were cautioned to take a picture of our vax card with us just in case ( due to u predictability).

 

BTW the "San Juan Old and New" excursion I did, done in early evening,  was abyssmal ( mostly sitting on a bus in the dark after an hour of time between meeting and actually getting going). Part of the problem was a terrible guide and a half-broken mike. Over half the people bailed halfway through, grumbling ( I remained silent, because I know you typically get what you pay for).  Port area street lighting is awful ( dim)  and my butler had cautioned me not to walk alone in the dark, so I didn't. 

[the penguins]

5 hours ago, Homosassa said:

Why would you expect Royal and Celebrity to have the same procedures? 

 

While they are owned by the same parent company, they are independent from each other and have different targeted market demographics and differences in itineraries that allow for differences in procedures.

All companies within the RCCI group has the same Sail Safe Panel responsible for issuing guidance/instructions on all things Covid related. Regrettably every line and ship seems to operate differently and from our experience on Silhouette in August and September they don't even operate the same way from 1 day to the next. An example masks were supposedly required in all indoor public spaces except when actively eating or drinking. This was enforced around the spa pool on just 3 days (not consecutively) and only twice in Sky Lounge. Use of hand gel was never enforced at the entrance of the MDR or the buffet.

[nocl]

7 hours ago, mkam2821 said:

We will be cruising on Silhouette in January and currently the Health and Safety guidelines for many of the Southern Caribbean orts state that we can take independent excursions that are "Government Approved" . Does anyone have any clue how we can find out which providers are government approved?

Thanks in advance

 

To answer your specific question.  Do a google search for the name of the country you are interested in, covid restrictions approved excursion companies  

 

for example doing that for Antigua yields

 

https://visitantiguabarbuda.com/antigua-and-barbuda-is-open/

 

That should find the appropriate web page that lists those excursion companies that have been approve by the government to offer excursions during the pandemic

 

A search for country name covid restrictions  should bring up the site with the official government restrictions including any restrictions related to government approval of excursions.

[mkam2821]

5 hours ago, nocl said:

To answer your specific question.  Do a google search for the name of the country you are interested in, covid restrictions approved excursion companies  

 

for example doing that for Antigua yields

 

https://visitantiguabarbuda.com/antigua-and-barbuda-is-open/

 

That should find the appropriate web page that lists those excursion companies that have been approve by the government to offer excursions during the pandemic

 

A search for country name covid restrictions  should bring up the site with the official government restrictions including any restrictions related to government approval of excursions.

Great, thanks