On Wonder now!

[ladychater]

I'm on Wonder's maiden Mediterranean voyage. Ship is great, we're sailing with only 3300 passengers and the shows are terrific -awesome cruise so far.  However, people are coughing and sneezing like crazy.  There are lots of Brits and Spaniards, for whom catching COVID is no big deal, but as an American, I'm very nervous that I won't e able to fly home. My bus trip today was supposed to be masked, but many took their masks off and were coughing and sneezing away. Yikes. But, man, this ship is grand. 

[nyer]

Have a wonderful cruise.   I will be on this cruise later in June.

 

Would you please tell me what forms you had to fill out prior to travel?   I keep reading all kinds of conflicting information and I am confused.   

 

Thank you so much for any help you may be able to give me.

[CatLadyFemme]

Ooof. As someone going on a European cruise later this month, that is terrifying.

 

I made a back up hotel reservation that I can cancel until the day of in our home port, just in case we come back and test positive and have to quarantine a few days to head home. Sending you good wishes; hopefully masking and some good immunity vitamin C will help it be a non-issue.

 

Have a wonderful time!

[ladychater]

58 minutes ago, nyer said:

Have a wonderful cruise.   I will be on this cruise later in June.

 

Would you please tell me what forms you had to fill out prior to travel?   I keep reading all kinds of conflicting information and I am confused.   

 

Thank you so much for any help you may be able to give me.

If you're leaving from Barcelona, you need to fill in a form with the Spanish government in order to fly into Spain. Other than that, bring proof of vaccination and booster and proof that you tested negative for COVID in the past 2 days. Easy peasy. Boarding was a breeze.

[ladychater]

1 minute ago, ladychater said:

If you're leaving from Barcelona, you need to fill in a form with the Spanish government in order to fly into Spain. Other than that, bring proof of vaccination and booster and proof that you tested negative for COVID in the past 2 days. Easy peasy. Boarding was a breeze.

I forgot to mention that on Royal Caribbean's app you have to upload images of your vaccination records before you sail and answer some health questions the day before your trip.

[nyer]

31 minutes ago, ladychater said:

If you're leaving from Barcelona, you need to fill in a form with the Spanish government in order to fly into Spain. Other than that, bring proof of vaccination and booster and proof that you tested negative for COVID in the past 2 days. Easy peasy. Boarding was a breeze.

Thank you for taking the time out of your vacation to answer my question.   So, you did not have to fill out PLF's for all of the ports on the cruise?  I also had read that there is a form that has to be filled out to return to the USA, but it is unclear if that is for citizens or non-citizens.

[sowhat]

 170 reported cases of covid on the transatlantic  before  this sailing and alot of reported people  are still on board

[Billy Baltic]

Do staff approach people who are openly coughing and sneezing to request they get tested?

[Biker19]

7 minutes ago, sowhat said:

 170 reported cases of covid on the transatlantic  before  this sailing and alot of reported people  are still on board

Hard to believe RCI would let known COVID positive customers stay on board for  a B2B.

[Sunshine3601]

32 minutes ago, sowhat said:

 170 reported cases of covid on the transatlantic  before  this sailing and alot of reported people  are still on board


 

If someone is known to have covid they do not let you stay onboard for a b2b.   You will disembark along with all other passengers on disembarkment day.   

Curious where did you hear the total of 170 cases from the TA?

[sowhat]

From the captain 

[TheHawk1]

3 hours ago, ladychater said:

My bus trip today was supposed to be masked, but many took their masks off and were coughing and sneezing away.

I thought Europeans took their Covid health protocols more seriously than Americans?
 

I’ll be on Wonder in September. Hope the situation improves by then.

[SoFlaCruzer]

1 hour ago, sowhat said:

From the captain 

I was on the TA. I must have missed the announcement, but it seems like a reasonable number. Some of the shore excursions we did had cancellations - and they were due to COVID.

 

In Spain, masks were (and I assume still are) mandatory in all public transportation, of course including the tour busses.

[xxHadleyxx]

The captain announced "3 percent" on the last day of the the TA.  It wasn't a full sailing.  I missed the 170 number?  Seems a bit high to be 3 percent of that passenger base, but I do miss things.

I think unreported/untested cases were much higher.  I know several people who tested positive and could not fly back to the USA, or tested positive shortly after flying home (to the USA, Canada and Germany) so it seems to have been lots of places.  (we tested negative again to reboard 2 days later, and I tested negative again today before leading Girl Scouts, so hopefully I managed to escape it...we did shy away from crowds and wear our makss when we could not).

 

On the TA there were lots of people coughing or suffering from "allergies" or "colds" who were not testing and assuming not covid....many, many of them were Americans....I think it is unfair and just ont true to blame that only on the Spaniards and the Brits..seems to be ubiquitous regardless of culture (except the two groups from the Phillpines who did keep masks on nearly always)

 

I agree with excusrions bus experience.....on my excursion at least half the people never wore their masks on the bus and no one said anything to them about it.  That was quite frustrating.  All I could do was keep my FFP2 (N95) mask on and hope for the best.  I do wish RCI would enforce that rule on the busses.

 

Oh, and, someone asked, on the TA and the 2 day trade event, NO, no one ever approached coughing or sniffling people and asked them to reprot to the doctor, etc.  

Edited May 10, 2022 by xxHadleyxx

[Oceansaway17]

so glad I am not doing any cruising in or out of Europe this year for the various comments above.

 

I do trips from FLA (just did Symphony and Wonder) in last 6 weeks, and I wore masks at all the indoor venues.  Will do Allure in June and Quantum in August.

I had chills and cough on my Wonder but tested negative as it was truly allergies and slight chills from air conditoning.  Then tested negative before SOS.  

So glad I wore mask on both ships

I think things are moving too fast away from masking especially since one can test negative 48 hours before arrival on ship and then sit on planes with unvaxxed and unmasked folks.  where is the reasoning on this?

cases on ships will go up given the relaxed rules elsewhere in the travel loop. 

[Billy Baltic]

@ladychater this may seem like a strange question but have you tried any of the pools? I’m curious about their depth. We have learner swimmers and they are happier when they can stand up in the water. 

[Biker19]

2 hours ago, xxHadleyxx said:

The captain announced "3 percent" on the last day of the the TA.  It wasn't a full sailing.  I missed the 170 number?  Seems a bit high to be 3 percent of that passenger base, but I do miss things.

Most of the time the numbers RCI reports is for the overall ship number (to include crew) so one has to guess at how many of those are passengers.

[mchin]

How awesome!  We will be sailing on Wonder from Barcelona the middle of June.  Is there anyway to find out if RCCL will provide (for a cost) testing for passengers who are flying home the day of disembarkation?  I've seen conflicting information on this.  Royal told me they will test if for a fee but others have reported (on various ships) are claiming the opposite.

 

We plan to wear our masks inside and around crowds as a precaution to help avoid getting sick. Hope you stay safe. 

[steamboats]

We were reminded to wear our masks on the transfer bus to the port. But on the way back the bus was fully packed and there were only two people wearing a mask - me and my DH.

 

Onboard I waited an hour in a long line for disembarkation. Again, we were the only ones wearing a mask.

 

I heard some sneezing and coughing during those two nights. I wouldn´t wonder if there are some people testing positive after this event. 

 

I can´t imagine that those postive cases after TA were allowed to stay onboard. There were 2 trade cruise with 2 nights each. Even if all of those positive cases had booked the May 8th Med cruise too (which I doubt) it is pretty unlikely that they were allowed to stay onboard.

 

Spain does not have a mandatory isolation anymore. So actually you can roam around as you want (of course you should go into self isolation). So there are no government supervised hotel accomodations for positive tested folks anymore. So you can disembark and go into any hotel you want to.

 

On the first 2 night trade cruise it was said that 800 guests have booked the May 8th cruise too and stayed onboard for those 4 nights inbetween.

 

steamboats

[gumshoe958]

6 hours ago, Biker19 said:

Most of the time the numbers RCI reports is for the overall ship number (to include crew) so one has to guess at how many of those are passengers.

Yes, he said it was “nearly 3% of the ship’s community” which presumably includes crew.

 

So with 3,600 passengers and 2,200 crew for the TA, 3% would equal about 170 people.

[xxHadleyxx]

5 hours ago, mchin said:

How awesome!  We will be sailing on Wonder from Barcelona the middle of June.  Is there anyway to find out if RCCL will provide (for a cost) testing for passengers who are flying home the day of disembarkation?  I've seen conflicting information on this.  Royal told me they will test if for a fee but others have reported (on various ships) are claiming the opposite.

 

We plan to wear our masks inside and around crowds as a precaution to help avoid getting sick. Hope you stay safe. 

On the TA there was no disembarkation test provided by RCI nor any available at the pier.  RCI printed the qr code for the testing center at the airport in the compass so people could make themselves appointments.   

It's thirty euro at the airport if you prebook.

[xxHadleyxx]

1 hour ago, steamboats said:

We were reminded to wear our masks on the transfer bus to the port. But on the way back the bus was fully packed and there were only two people wearing a mask - me and my DH.

 

Onboard I waited an hour in a long line for disembarkation. Again, we were the only ones wearing a mask.

 

I heard some sneezing and coughing during those two nights. I wouldn´t wonder if there are some people testing positive after this event. 

 

I can´t imagine that those postive cases after TA were allowed to stay onboard. There were 2 trade cruise with 2 nights each. Even if all of those positive cases had booked the May 8th Med cruise too (which I doubt) it is pretty unlikely that they were allowed to stay onboard.

 

Spain does not have a mandatory isolation anymore. So actually you can roam around as you want (of course you should go into self isolation). So there are no government supervised hotel accomodations for positive tested folks anymore. So you can disembark and go into any hotel you want to.

 

On the first 2 night trade cruise it was said that 800 guests have booked the May 8th cruise too and stayed onboard for those 4 nights inbetween.

 

steamboats

I agree that I can't imagine RCI allowed known Covid positive to remain on board.

 

That said, I was surprised and dismayed that the 800 or do people with back to back bookings who therefore stayed on through the two trade events were not tested at the end of the TA/prior to the trade events.  I really think RCI dropped the ball on that.

[little britain]

Could you post the weekly entertainment schedule please? 

[terpshockey77]

12 hours ago, Oceansaway17 said:

so glad I am not doing any cruising in or out of Europe this year for the various comments above.

 

I do trips from FLA (just did Symphony and Wonder) in last 6 weeks, and I wore masks at all the indoor venues.  Will do Allure in June and Quantum in August.

I had chills and cough on my Wonder but tested negative as it was truly allergies and slight chills from air conditoning.  Then tested negative before SOS.  

So glad I wore mask on both ships

I think things are moving too fast away from masking especially since one can test negative 48 hours before arrival on ship and then sit on planes with unvaxxed and unmasked folks.  where is the reasoning on this?

cases on ships will go up given the relaxed rules elsewhere in the travel loop. 

How often did you test after your first symptom?  My husband and I both had Covid after our cruse in March.  For work he had to test a few times.  First two tests were negative and tested positive on the 4th day after symptoms started.  He only had allergy symptoms for a couple days and felt fine the day he tested positive.  My first test was negative and tested positive on the 5th day.  I was a little sicker as I had a sore throat.  Honestly, we won't have been testing if our firend on the cruise hadn't tested positive the day he returned.  He also felt like he had allergy problems.  

[Billy Baltic]

3 hours ago, little britain said:

Could you post the weekly entertainment schedule please? 

That would be good but for some reason people just want to talk Covid.