What to do next!!

[zap99]

1 hour ago, howmuch! said:

Just tried now and thought it was going OK, asked for address etc, then said none available for posting!

I found you don't get a yes, or no until you get to the end. A bit like companies recorded messages. 5 minutes of dross, until they tell you ' your call is very,very important to us, but we can't be bothered at the moment. Call back when it is more convenient to US.

[howmuch!]

17 hours ago, zap99 said:

I found you don't get a yes, or no until you get to the end. A bit like companies recorded messages. 5 minutes of dross, until they tell you ' your call is very,very important to us, but we can't be bothered at the moment. Call back when it is more convenient to US.

Exactly! Tried again just now - same result.

[zap99]

1 hour ago, howmuch! said:

Exactly! Tried again just now - same result.

When it gets to the delivery stage, pat on the back for the post office. Ordered late Wednesday, delivered this morning. At least the postman isn't working from home.🤣

[SeaJane]

3 hours ago, zap99 said:

When it gets to the delivery stage, pat on the back for the post office. Ordered late Wednesday, delivered this morning. At least the postman isn't working from home.🤣

We also ordered some Wednesday and they arrived today. We must be lucky in Surrey at the moment 🤣

[zap99]

30 minutes ago, SeaJane said:

We also ordered some Wednesday and they arrived today. We must be lucky in Surrey at the moment 🤣

Unfortunately we haven't got a deck 8 conservatory suite. We flog them from the balcony.🤣.

Predictive wants to change flog to flig. Silly machine🤔

[Cathygh]

5 hours ago, howmuch! said:

Exactly! Tried again just now - same result.

I tried at just after 9 am today and got some, then my husband tried and he got some too. Just got lucky.

 

[Megabear2]

5 hours ago, zap99 said:

When it gets to the delivery stage, pat on the back for the post office. Ordered late Wednesday, delivered this morning. At least the postman isn't working from home.🤣

Well I'm still positive, tried at various times and rejected.  I'm now on ones I've paid for and very angry

[yorkshirephil]

5 hours ago, zap99 said:

When it gets to the delivery stage, pat on the back for the post office. Ordered late Wednesday, delivered this morning. At least the postman isn't working from home.🤣

Same here, we got 2 boxes delivered this morning, previously we only ever got 1 box delivered per order.

[Megabear2]

Well tomorrow whether I'm positive or not I'm at 10 days and I'm going out. If the nhs cant supply tests when I'm stating it's to see if I'm positive then they can go whistle. I've tried to do the right thing and I'm not going to pay money for tests that aren't reportable.   If I'm being told no one needs to test which is what the website keeps telling me then on their head be it. I've done my best.

[bbtablet]

Megabear2 - just successfully ordered on the Gov website - try again?

[Megabear2]

11 minutes ago, bbtablet said:

Megabear2 - just successfully ordered on the Gov website - try again?

You are my hero!!!  I finally managed to get in and order. Thank you. I'm not normally greedy but I've got my OH to order too.

[emam]

I ordered at 21:45 on Wednesday after Phil said and received the pack today before 11.00 am. It said you can order one every 3 days. So might be worth ordering some more.

 

Hope you feel better soon Megabear.

Edited March 25, 2022 by emam

[terrierjohn]

4 hours ago, SeaJane said:

We also ordered some Wednesday and they arrived today. We must be lucky in Surrey at the moment 🤣

Sorry no special attention for you, I also ordered Wednesday and received them today in W Yorkshire.

[lindyloo22]

I managed to order some tonight.

[zap99]

1 hour ago, terrierjohn said:

Sorry no special attention for you, I also ordered Wednesday and received them today in W Yorkshire.

The return address on my pack was Bradford. They must have crossed in the post.

[Issyalex]

Thankfully we can still get free test kits from pharmacy or on line in Scotland………for now.

 

You have to be negative for 14 days post covid before they’ll allow you to cruise. If you test negative on, say 28th March, then your 14 days are up by 11th April. 

 

We are on the 7th May cruise which is 6 weeks away so plenty of time for you 14 days post covid. 

[Megabear2]

With  "community testing" becoming non existent in England at least, boarding a cruise ship is going to become a lottery.  Already we see problems on board Aurora, Azura and apparently Queen Elizabeth with quite large outbreaks. There are posts appearing indicating some problem, hopefully minor, on Ventura as well.  I find it interesting that we are seeing these events at a time when the CDC show most ex US sailings as green which I understand means a very low incidence of covid amongst passengers and crew.  

 

It has been indicated to me last week that Celebrity will be maintaining their need for me to test at my own expense 48 hours before turning up to the port in Civitavechia in June and that they will then test again on the day of departure.  Apparently this is a continuation of the existing terms their passengers sail under. Although not perfect this extra test demand is perhaps intended to prevent as much as possible the risk of the virus getting onboard. My own recent experience showed that the bulk of those infected at our Saturday wedding by Tuesday were testing positive and started to show signs of illness by Monday afternoon/evening.  The 48 hour test proposed by Celebrity would assumedly have picked this up and definitely the on the day test would have identified the problem.

 

As the availability of tests for free winds down/disappear the number of passengers turning up to board P&O ships only to be denied boarding or worse go onboard unknowingly infected looks likely to increase with resultant problems for all involved.  We may find P&O having to extend its requirement for passengers to have to pay for a two or three day test when they sail ex Southampton in the same way they are doing for the fly cruises.

 

 

Edited March 27, 2022 by Megabear2

[Harry Peterson]

4 hours ago, Megabear2 said:

With  "community testing" becoming non existent in England at least, boarding a cruise ship is going to become a lottery.  Already we see problems on board Aurora, Azura and apparently Queen Elizabeth with quite large outbreaks. There are posts appearing indicating some problem, hopefully minor, on Ventura as well.  I find it interesting that we are seeing these events at a time when the CDC show most ex US sailings as green which I understand means a very low incidence of covid amongst passengers and crew.  

 

It has been indicated to me last week that Celebrity will be maintaining their need for me to test at my own expense 48 hours before turning up to the port in Civitavechia in June and that they will then test again on the day of departure.  Apparently this is a continuation of the existing terms their passengers sail under. Although not perfect this extra test demand is perhaps intended to prevent as much as possible the risk of the virus getting onboard. My own recent experience showed that the bulk of those infected at our Saturday wedding by Tuesday were testing positive and started to show signs of illness by Monday afternoon/evening.  The 48 hour test proposed by Celebrity would assumedly have picked this up and definitely the on the day test would have identified the problem.

 

As the availability of tests for free winds down/disappear the number of passengers turning up to board P&O ships only to be denied boarding or worse go onboard unknowingly infected looks likely to increase with resultant problems for all involved.  We may find P&O having to extend its requirement for passengers to have to pay for a two or three day test when they sail ex Southampton in the same way they are doing for the fly cruises.

 

 

 

Quite.  And there still seems to be a complete failure to appreciate the extent of the current infection rate across the UK.  And with free tests disappearing in four days time it's difficult to see how this is going to pan out for cruise ships.

 

The percentage of people testing positive for COVID-19 continued to increase in England, Wales and Scotland, but decreased in Northern Ireland, in the latest week. The estimated percentage of the community population that had COVID-19 up to 19 March 2022 for England, Wales and Northern Ireland and to 20 March 2022 for Scotland, was:

• 6.39% in England (1 in 16 people)

• 6.35% in Wales (1 in 16 people)

• 5.92% in Northern Ireland (1 in 17 people)

• 9.00% in Scotland (1 in 11 people)

 

 

[davecttr]

What we will be seeing is a bigger chance of our cruise being ruined so I am all for the increased testing before departure, at least until the infection rates are way down at last summers levels.

[amajaa]

I know this won’t help the current situation but I did read somewhere, so hope it’s true, that in April over 75s will still be entitled to free LFTs. 🤞

[terrierjohn]

57 minutes ago, davecttr said:

What we will be seeing is a bigger chance of our cruise being ruined so I am all for the increased testing before departure, at least until the infection rates are way down at last summers levels.

Am I missing something here? Surely anyone testing positive 48 hrs before cruising, would also test postive on the pre departure test at the port

 So where is the benefit?

[Megabear2]

Anyone testing positive 48 hours before wouldn't travel to Southampton in the first place.

 

P&O rules state if you test positive in the 14 days before sailing you are denied boarding. If there are no tests apart from purchased ones they won't be able to operate this rule without insisting that at some point prior to sailing passengers are tested. I can't imagine it's in anyone's interest cruise line or passenger to have 4,000 people turn up to board Iona in Southampton with many hundreds unknowingly infected.

[Cathygh]

Our test pack arrived yesterday with a pcr to take as well. They want to see how reliable the lfts are. 

[davecttr]

If there is no 48 hour before test requirement then people will travel to the terminal and could pass the LFT test there BUT would test positive if they had a PCR 48 hours before. As I understand it the latest sub variant takes longer to give a positive LFT test but would be picked up on a PCR test.

 

IMO with the new sub variant 48 hour PCR tests are a must.

 

Of course you still have 2 days before getting to the terminal to catch it.

Edited March 27, 2022 by davecttr

[zap99]

8 hours ago, Cathygh said:

Our test pack arrived yesterday with a pcr to take as well. They want to see how reliable the lfts are. 

Managed to get an order in just now. Probably for the last time.