Explorer of the Seas - Positive Cases

[Bfsroyal]

54 minutes ago, gulashk said:

I am in utter amazement at how graceful you and your partner have been throughout this entire ordeal. You have remained calm, considerate and deliberate at every unexpected turn. Thank you for such a thorough walk through of your experiences with us. I really hope that you both get home safely and also wish you a happy new year.

 

I am scheduled to cruise out of PR on EOTS on January 16, and believe my best bet is to cancel. My mind is 75% made to do so. 

Many thanks for your well wishes. 
 

It may be as it’s the holidays and we luckily are on holiday to 4th January anyway. In many cases I think if it happens it happens. We are lucky that we don’t have too many issues to worry about.
 

We may hopefully be able to go outside today!

 

I think in January numbers on board will reduce again. There should be less people, less kids and less large groups.

I read a press release from Royal that says first half year bookings are below historical booking numbers (that’s obviously an average though) and that only 1725 of 1.1m have tested positive (on board) since the restart.

 

We still enjoyed our cruise despite the outcome and it won’t deter us from cruising - although our next booked one is May.
 

Perhaps if some people are on explorer in the coming weeks they might be able to dig into how many are on board or expected to be in the following weeks.

 

We had done two other cruises post covid pandemic, prior to this one and they were uneventful.

[Ocean Boy]

1 hour ago, gulashk said:

 

I am scheduled to cruise out of PR on EOTS on January 16, and believe my best bet is to cancel. My mind is 75% made to do so. 

I might be a bit less squeamish about cruising from the mainland U.S. Puerto Rico seems to be having a bit of a rough time right now. I know it can be a struggle to make the decision to pull the plug on a cruise. Good luck making your decision. Hopefully, you will get some feedback over the next week or two to help you.

[beshears]

I have read just a few postings here.  We are to leave on the Explorer next Sunday. I just received an email that they have taken St. Lucia off of the itinerary, which was the ONLY one I wanted the other 7 people who are with me, to see/visit. The other ports we have been to, so we'll see what/how this upcoming cruise turns out. Living here in KC,MO we have 15 degrees, with snow/sleet on the ground, so hopefully at least, the temperature in the ports we are to visit will be much warmer!

[Bfsroyal]

So just to let everyone know how things are progressing. We still are unable to leave our room.

 

Whilst we technically can physically walk out, if we leave our room, the hotel will not allow us to return to it. This seems to be part of the agreement when they were booked. This might be a reflection of how difficult it is to find hotels willing to accept those isolating - even though we are now no longer technically required to isolate. Royal have even emailed the hotel to confirm that we have completed isolation.

 

Royal have struggled to find someone able to come to the property to do the covid tests on site. We can’t leave to go test at a test site directly as we will have no room to return to. The hotel has a doctor who can do testing (not sure if they can provide the flight certificate) but their doctor isn’t responding to the requests.

 

We have determined we can fly to Orlando without a test so will be heading there on Monday. Spending a night there whilst getting tested before booking our flight back to the UK assuming all things go to plan.
 

We haven’t yet fully approved the plan with Royal but the care line has forwarded it for approval. They think it shouldn't be too much of an issue as if worse comes to worse, testing and hotels are much cheaper in Orlando than in San Juan.

 

 

[Jingerwoppy]

8 hours ago, beshears said:

I have read just a few postings here.  We are to leave on the Explorer next Sunday. I just received an email that they have taken St. Lucia off of the itinerary, which was the ONLY one I wanted the other 7 people who are with me, to see/visit. The other ports we have been to, so we'll see what/how this upcoming cruise turns out. Living here in KC,MO we have 15 degrees, with snow/sleet on the ground, so hopefully at least, the temperature in the ports we are to visit will be much warmer!

 

I live in central Texas and today I mowed my yard because it is still growing due to the warm weather we've been having. It will get down to about 32 tonight and possibly 25 tomorrow night and then warm up a little for a few days. We're cruising LOTS out of Galveston on 1/23 and looking forward to it.

[zpdw484]

13 hours ago, gulashk said:

I am in utter amazement at how graceful you and your partner have been throughout this entire ordeal. You have remained calm, considerate and deliberate at every unexpected turn. Thank you for such a thorough walk through of your experiences with us. I really hope that you both get home safely and also wish you a happy new year.

 

I am scheduled to cruise out of PR on EOTS on January 16, and believe my best bet is to cancel. My mind is 75% made to do so. 

Onboard now and my advice is to cancel and wait for a better time. We had our 2nd rendezvous with Rhapsody this evening to dump off positive crew members... Cruising is just an absolute mess right now.. and dealing with Puerto Rico flights, ever-changing protocols in and out of San juan, etc just makes it that much more stressful..

[sgmn]

Sorry to hear you're still stuck in your hotel room. Royal Caribbean need to arrange testing for you so you can prove you're negative now .

Good luck with your flight to the mainland States tomorrow 👍

Edited January 2, 2022 by sgmn

[tampadee]

Looking forward to hearing you get to leave your hotel room!

[EllieinNJ]

We are all cheering you on 

[Maitaivegas]

On 12/25/2021 at 3:38 PM, Bfsroyal said:

Hopefully. Another reason we moved our flights to 26th December from the 29th December was as San Juan hotels are somewhat a unique prospect. Even average 3* hotels were $550 for three nights.

 

We had managed to book an amazing 4* hotel in Madrid for $210 for the three nights before heading back to the UK which of course won’t be happening now.

 

I have been informed that we will wait in our cabin until 10:00-10:30am tomorrow and then we will leave the ship to go straight to a quarantine hotel for 14 nights. As long as it is clean and has decent wifi - I think I should be ok.

 

I also had security contact earlier to do contact tracing and asked about my movements on the ship for the past two days down to exact locations on the ship and times.

 

The doctor visited to take my vitals and another came a bit later to take some blood samples. She had quite a few samples with her and was heading on to her next call. 

What are they doing with the blood samples? I wouldn’t trust them with my blood.

when you have Covid they say to rest, you don’t go to the Dr to give blood samples.

I would fight them on this.

Edited January 2, 2022 by Maitaivegas

[Maitaivegas]

On 12/26/2021 at 7:31 PM, Bfsroyal said:

This would be the letter received on departing the ship. This hasn’t posted in the order uploaded and inserted but order is 1, 4, 2, 3

 

 

So now they are not delivering room service? What is this ready to eat meals?

I am not in the military not in space, paid 1000’s of $$$ for this cruise 

[beshears]

Someone in Texas mentioned that they were STILL mowing their grass as it was still growing.  Here in KC, MO (home of the KC Chiefs), it was 75 degrees the day "before" Christmas, and here the day after New Years, we have snow/sleet on the ground, and 4 degrees. 😞

[Babr]

Contactless delivery simply means it will be left outside your door, just as it is for quarantine onboard.

 

You are getting reimbursed for the days of the cruise you missed because of COVID. Now you are having expenses paid for your quarantine.

 

No use to complain about your treatment now. You knew this could happen.

 

Thanks for posting the letter. It answers a lot of questions.

[Bfsroyal]

1 hour ago, Maitaivegas said:

So now they are not delivering room service? What is this ready to eat meals?

I am not in the military not in space, paid 1000’s of $$$ for this cruise 

I believe you can still get room service in the quarantine rooms. I think they stock the rooms with ready to eat food, snacks and drinks so that there is less contact through delivery required and also took up to 1-1.5hrs for room service.
 

I also don’t know if certain items are available on room service. So snacks would be nice for something different.

[Bfsroyal]

I found some info on costs covered post cruise if you test positive within 48hrs after departing from your cruise. Which may be helpful to some of those now testing isn’t provided on board;

 

“In the event a guest tests positive for COVID-19 within 48 hours of debarking the ship, we will offer the following complimentary COVID-19 assistance for associated expenses.
• 10 days of hotel accommodation
• Airfare change fees
• Meals for the duration of 10 days”

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ocean Boy]

On 12/25/2021 at 4:38 PM, Bfsroyal said:

 

 

The doctor visited to take my vitals and another came a bit later to take some blood samples. She had quite a few samples with her and was heading on to her next call. 

Blood samples for what?

[Sunshine3601]

59 minutes ago, Bfsroyal said:

I found some info on costs covered post cruise if you test positive within 48hrs after departing from your cruise. Which may be helpful to some of those now testing isn’t provided on board;

 

“In the event a guest tests positive for COVID-19 within 48 hours of debarking the ship, we will offer the following complimentary COVID-19 assistance for associated expenses.
• 10 days of hotel accommodation
• Airfare change fees
• Meals for the duration of 10 days”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is this for sailing out of PR or all sailings?

[Jimbo]

7 minutes ago, Sunshine3601 said:

Is this for sailing out of PR or all sailings?

Probably would apply to you anyway, you would just get in your car and drive home and quarantine.

[Bfsroyal]

9 minutes ago, Sunshine3601 said:

Is this for sailing out of PR or all sailings?

It says for cruises departing U.S. Homeports, Puerto Rico & Barbados

 

https://creative.rccl.com/Sales/Royal/Deployment/2021_2022/RTS_FAQs.pdf

 

It seems to be commencing on 5th January after the change to on board testing. At the top of page 15.

Edited January 3, 2022 by Bfsroyal

[Bfsroyal]

31 minutes ago, Ocean Boy said:

Blood samples for what?

Im not quite sure, they never came back to me with any info or results. I didn’t question it. The doctor visited and he checked all vitals and listened to my chest.
 

I presumed at the time it was just standard practice perhaps a mini health check to see if I could survive covid. I am 37. They definitely were taking samples from others too. I wonder if anyone else who has tested positive had the same and questioned it.

 

I have to say the doctor onboard  (Dr Junker) was actually very nice and cracked a few jokes.

[Sunshine3601]

28 minutes ago, Jimbo said:

Probably would apply to you anyway, you would just get in your car and drive home and quarantine.

Curious to know.

Hopefully a limo since our Son is driving us to port. 🤩

We dont want to pay parking for 22 nights and decided we didnt want to stay in hotel pre cruise.  Will only do that if we have bad weather/snow or ice.

[Bfsroyal]

Also just an update on the covering of costs.

 

Royal would generally provide a nurse to come to the property to take the test from a specific company. They were unable to get one in PR. In general private tests are quite expensive in PR anyway. RC will reimburse for the tests we obtain in Orlando, which are less than half the price of the administered ones in PR.

 

The care line apologised about the hotel situation. They explained that the agreement with the hotel around exiting the room was there as RC struggled to find any hotels willing to accept covid positive guests. As part of a call the previous day it was commented that it was “350 a night” so essentially market rate. Even if we have problems in Orlando at least hotels will be less than $100 a night.
 

We are booking home travel ourselves and Royal Caribbean will reimburse this to us after submitting a claim with receipts. The care line said RC don’t really have a limit on the cost, they care about getting people home. We aren’t going to go crazy though - cheapest economy ticket we can find all the way!

[Coralc]

33 minutes ago, Bfsroyal said:

We aren’t going to go crazy though - cheapest economy ticket we can find all the way!

That's really nice of you! I would probably at least try to book business class or at least premium economy. That is a long flight, and those economy seats are really small and uncomfortable. 

[watcher_62]

1 hour ago, Bfsroyal said:

Also just an update on the covering of costs.

 

Royal would generally provide a nurse to come to the property to take the test from a specific company. They were unable to get one in PR. In general private tests are quite expensive in PR anyway. RC will reimburse for the tests we obtain in Orlando, which are less than half the price of the administered ones in PR.

 

The care line apologised about the hotel situation. They explained that the agreement with the hotel around exiting the room was there as RC struggled to find any hotels willing to accept covid positive guests. As part of a call the previous day it was commented that it was “350 a night” so essentially market rate. Even if we have problems in Orlando at least hotels will be less than $100 a night.
 

We are booking home travel ourselves and Royal Caribbean will reimburse this to us after submitting a claim with receipts. The care line said RC don’t really have a limit on the cost, they care about getting people home. We aren’t going to go crazy though - cheapest economy ticket we can find all the way!

Do you have a confirmed departure from the hotel in PR yet - are you still in the Dorado Hilton?

[D4]

4 hours ago, Bfsroyal said:

I found some info on costs covered post cruise if you test positive within 48hrs after departing from your cruise. Which may be helpful to some of those now testing isn’t provided on board;

 

“In the event a guest tests positive for COVID-19 within 48 hours of debarking the ship, we will offer the following complimentary COVID-19 assistance for associated expenses.
• 10 days of hotel accommodation
• Airfare change fees
• Meals for the duration of 10 days”

 

 

 

 

 

 

They changed this policy a few days after they published this.  The changes included not charging for the test after people get off the ship during January (for international flights) and they removed the 48 hours text you posted above.