Emerald River Cruise PCR testing

[familytravellers]

Has anyone taken a river cruise with Emerald recently? We have booked an Emerald cruise next Spring from Regensburg to Budapest. We are currently trying to arrange our flights with the thought that a PCR test will still be required by our Canadian government "within 72 hours of the scheduled departure time." I understand that Emerald offers complimentary PCR tests two days prior to disembarkation day (Saturday disembarkation for us). If we wanted to stay an extra day and fly out on the Sunday afternoon (1 pm flight) our test might not fall within that 72 hour window depending on when Emerald does the testing on the Thursday. Do you know if the ship offers passengers some flexibility with regards to when we can have that test performed on the Thursday? If it's a set time during the morning, for example, then we would not qualify for the 72 hour window required by our Government.

[hihandycap]

Our experience was on an Emerald cruise from Budapest to Bucharest in early October, 2021.  The samples were collected the morning of the day before the day of disembarkation.  The next day we disembarked in Giurgiu, Romania and were bused to Bucharest.  After a tour of the city, Emerald put the passengers up for a night in the Radisson Blu in the city center.  The test results from the samples taken the previous morning were available when we checked into the hotel late in the afternoon.   The cruise ended the following morning with transfers to OTP.

 

(We did another three days & nights in Romania on our own, so we got rapid antigen tests at the airport (USD 46.47 total for both of us) the evening before flying back to USA. 

[familytravellers]

Thanks for the information! Given how the Covid situation keeps changing, we're probably just going to book flights for the day of disembarkation. It's definitely a challenge to plan a trip in these times!