How long will Celebrity require Pre-Cruise Testing?

[NMTraveller]

28 minutes ago, njhorseman said:

The Passenger Vessel Services Act requires foreign-flagged cruise ships to make a port call in a foreign country. Celebrity's ships are flagged in Malta so they fall under this restriction...hence the port call in Canada.

Last year, when Canada was totally closed to cruising the US enacted a short term law effective just for the 2021 cruise season permitting foreign-flagged ships to do Alaska itineraries with having to make a port call in Canada. The purpose of the law was to help towns in Alaska that depended heavily on money spent by cruise passengers to get some economic relief  .

They could do the same for next year and skip Canada and give Alaska some economic relief.

 

I am pretty sure that those cruises were not 100% full this year and they would have been much fuller.

 

The same could be said for the Carribean Islands that have the strict rules.  Why not skip them and go to others?

Edited August 14, 2022 by NMTraveller

[njhorseman]

52 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

They could do the same for next year and skip Canada and give Alaska some economic relief.

 

I am pretty sure that those cruises were not 100% full this year and they would have been much fuller.

 

The same could be said for the Carribean Islands that have the strict rules.  Why not skip them and go to others?

No... there won't be the same reaction from Congress because there's nothing preventing anyone from taking an Alaska cruise but their personal choices. Ships will get more passengers over the course of time as people get more comfortable with the safety of cruising. In any event I suspect there's a decent chance that Canada will change its rules before next year's cruise season.

 

 The vast majority of the most commonly visited Caribbean islands permit unvaccinated travelers, although some require unvaccinated travelers to be tested. https://www.travelweekly.com/Caribbean-Travel/Caribbean-readies-for-a-wave-of-reopenings

 

 

[jgmorgan]

It looks like Celebrity is modifying their policies as conditions allow.  For example, for cruises departing from Southampton after September 5, pre-cruise supervised or proctored tests will no longer be required.  They will require passengers to take a pre-cruise test (2 days in advance for vaccinated guests, and 1 day for unvaccinated guests) and present evidence of the results when checking in.  "Test results may be presented as a printout, screenshot or photo of the test result or the actual test."  A COR will be accepted as well.

 

It looks like similar changes are being made for other European sailings with the exception of Iceland and Greece.

 

When it makes sense in terms of local requirements and changes can be implemented smoothly, I would expect similar changes for sailings from U.S ports.  There is no incentive for Celebrity to continue unreasonable (in their view) restrictions.  So, they will change their policies when the time is right.  They get to decide when that is.

[wrk2cruise]

7 minutes ago, jgmorgan said:

They will require passengers to take a pre-cruise test (2 days in advance for vaccinated guests, and 1 day for unvaccinated guests) and present evidence of the results when checking in.  "Test results may be presented as a printout, screenshot or photo of the test result or the actual test." 

 

This is the biggest joke of all.  Why bother.   Wouldn't it have served the same purpose to just state that they highly recommend self testing both before and after cruising?

[jgmorgan]

Requiring a test and recommending a test are two different things.  The policy assumes that people won't show up if they test positive.  Most people are honest and wouldn't want to knowingly risk others by boarding if they know they are infected with a highly contagious disease that can be life-threatening.

 

Of course not everyone is honest and some don't care about the health of others.  You know who you are.

[Gracie115]

These are the new "testing" requirements for sailing out of Italy as of September 5th, and all I can say is "why bother at all" if they don't care how the test is done or whether it's proctored or not.....crazy.

 

Sailing Testing Requirements:

All guests ages 2 and older must present a negative COVID-19 test result to board their sailing. A negative test result from any commercially available test, including self-tests, will be accepted. Tests do not have to be monitored or proctored. Test results may be presented as a printout, screenshot or photo of the test result or the actual test.

[stevenr597]

12 hours ago, Ipeeinthepools said:

 

Nope.  It's the law.

I believe that they amended the law so that Cruise Lines could visit Alaska last year, to get around Canada's refusal to permit foreign flagged cruise ships in enter their ports in 2011.

[phoenix_dream]

11 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

They could do the same for next year and skip Canada and give Alaska some economic relief.

 

I am pretty sure that those cruises were not 100% full this year and they would have been much fuller.

 

The same could be said for the Carribean Islands that have the strict rules.  Why not skip them and go to others?

I recently sailed on Eclipse to Alaska.  I beg to differ on your assumption.  They announced that our cruise had the highest percentage capacity of any Celebrity sailing since restart.  The ports were the busiest I have seen in years (and I sail Alaska often).  So don't get your hopes up that Congress will do anything about revising the law again.  People love going to Alaska.  If they require testing and vaccination the ships will still fill up.

[Smmessineo]

11 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

for the Carribean Islands that have the strict rules.  Why not skip them and go to others?

I agree. I posted the other day that Dondra Ritzenthaler (VP of Sales) said that Celebrity is in talks with the various Caribbean islands, and announcements can come at any time.  I would guess, with so many islands already not needing testing for travelers, Celebrity has leverage over the few holdouts. 

It would be nice to hear something soon.

[Ipeeinthepools]

1 hour ago, stevenr597 said:

I believe that they amended the law so that Cruise Lines could visit Alaska last year, to get around Canada's refusal to permit foreign flagged cruise ships in enter their ports in 2011.

 

That was a one year exemption and only applied to a handful of ships.

Edited August 14, 2022 by Ipeeinthepools

[DCPIV]

Who's going to win the Super Bowl? 

 

When it happens, we'll know. 

 

Same applies here. 

[2chiefs]

On 8/13/2022 at 3:58 PM, wrk2cruise said:

<<<Snip>>> Testing will be required until it's not.

Thanks for that information. Now it's clear. 🙂 

[NorthStarStateCruiser]

Are people unaware of the latest protocols celebrity announced for Cqrribbean cruises departing after Aug 8?

Sailings 5 nights or less don't require a pre-departure test for vaccinated guests.

[cdn_tbird]

10 hours ago, phoenix_dream said:

I recently sailed on Eclipse to Alaska.  I beg to differ on your assumption.  They announced that our cruise had the highest percentage capacity of any Celebrity sailing since restart.  The ports were the busiest I have seen in years (and I sail Alaska often).  So don't get your hopes up that Congress will do anything about revising the law again.  People love going to Alaska.  If they require testing and vaccination the ships will still fill up.

Our Aug 28th sailing on the Eclipse seems to have been sold out for nearly a couple of months now. I'm just curious to know how many cabins are reserved for quarantine. Regardless, we're looking forward to it. DW has her parka options already picked out. 🤣

[prmssk]

23 hours ago, stevenr597 said:

But....NCL which has been probably the strictest in respect to vaccinations and testings, no longer requires it.  Carnival Corporation has stated that they will not require pre-cruise testing for cruises less than 16 days in length.  

 

Both Carnival and NCL still require tests today (at least for cruises 6 nights or longer).  None of the changes go into effect for either of those cruise lines until early September.  There is nothing stopping Celebrity and Royal from making the same type of announcement in the next few weeks.  We still have time.

[renroc13]

Are The Binex telehealth tests accepted in Canada. We used them for our Caribbean trips as a backup if our results did not get back in time. I see that Canada and the UK use different kits that are sold there. Will our collection of Binex tests be accepted there? The monitored tests online.

 

Thanks,

Karen

[whitshel]

31 minutes ago, prmssk said:

Both Carnival and NCL still require tests today (at least for cruises 6 nights or longer).  None of the changes go into effect for either of those cruise lines until early September.  There is nothing stopping Celebrity and Royal from making the same type of announcement in the next few weeks.  We still have time.

My guess if RCG wants to keep their passengers they will follow suit.  I know there are Loyal To Royal folks and Celebrity Die hards that wont switch.  But I think a lot of people who are going to choose a cruise and you have cruise lines saying "no testing over here" and RCG is saying "sorry no embarkation unless you've tested"  my guess is a lot of people will choose no test.

 

I've been on 4 cruises since December and the worst part was getting that test result.  What if.....

[stevenr597]

13 hours ago, whitshel said:

My guess if RCG wants to keep their passengers they will follow suit.  I know there are Loyal To Royal folks and Celebrity Die hards that wont switch.  But I think a lot of people who are going to choose a cruise and you have cruise lines saying "no testing over here" and RCG is saying "sorry no embarkation unless you've tested"  my guess is a lot of people will choose no test.

 

I've been on 4 cruises since December and the worst part was getting that test result.  What if.....

I agree.  

[phoenix_dream]

15 hours ago, cdn_tbird said:

Our Aug 28th sailing on the Eclipse seems to have been sold out for nearly a couple of months now. I'm just curious to know how many cabins are reserved for quarantine. Regardless, we're looking forward to it. DW has her parka options already picked out. 🤣

We had 2505 passengers onboard for our cruise.  Gives some idea of percentage saved, although not exact as we don't know how many passengers per cabin.

[C-Dragons]

On 8/14/2022 at 8:52 AM, Gracie115 said:

These are the new "testing" requirements for sailing out of Italy as of September 5th, and all I can say is "why bother at all" if they don't care how the test is done or whether it's proctored or not.....crazy.

 

Sailing Testing Requirements:

All guests ages 2 and older must present a negative COVID-19 test result to board their sailing. A negative test result from any commercially available test, including self-tests, will be accepted. Tests do not have to be monitored or proctored. Test results may be presented as a printout, screenshot or photo of the test result or the actual test.

Since Italy dropped testing requirements for entry on June 1st of this year, this is “interesting”.

[Gracie115]

2 minutes ago, C-Dragons said:

Since Italy dropped testing requirements for entry on June 1st of this year, this is “interesting”.

 

That's right I forgot about that.  Makes me wonder if the cruiseline is trying to help EMED and other labs that may have a large supply of tests available????   This testing protocol is just silly. One person could take a test and then photograph the results 6 times, or however many are in the group, and turn that in.  Wonder who thought this up?

[Purplsmurf]

I sure would hope that people would be honest. Unless I was asymptomatic (and not know it), I would have no desire to sail while having Covid. Even just having stuffiness and cough made me not want to do anything!

[C-Dragons]

1 hour ago, Purplsmurf said:

I sure would hope that people would be honest. Unless I was asymptomatic (and not know it), I would have no desire to sail while having Covid. Even just having stuffiness and cough made me not want to do anything!

Perhaps that is why X is requiring testing prior to the cruise. So those who are asymptomatic will discover they have Covid and hopefully would not board.

[mitz18]

On 8/14/2022 at 7:52 AM, Gracie115 said:

These are the new "testing" requirements for sailing out of Italy as of September 5th, and all I can say is "why bother at all" if they don't care how the test is done or whether it's proctored or not.....crazy.

 

Sailing Testing Requirements:

All guests ages 2 and older must present a negative COVID-19 test result to board their sailing. A negative test result from any commercially available test, including self-tests, will be accepted. Tests do not have to be monitored or proctored. Test results may be presented as a printout, screenshot or photo of the test result or the actual test.

 

I saw this and looked at the Barcelona embark page and it says the same.  However, just received an email from X for my mid-Sept Barc departure as follow stating it must be supervised, which is the opposite of what their website says effective Sept 5th.  I'm not sure even X knows what their policy is:

PRE-ARRIVAL/EMBARKATION COVID-19 TEST

All guests ages 2 and older must present a digital or physical copy of a supervised, negative COVID-19 test result at check-in to board their sailing, whether a pre-arrival test (for vaccinated) or test administered at the terminal (for unvaccinated).

• Up to Date* Guests: Must present a negative Antigen test taken within 2 days prior to sailing. Testing at the terminal will not be required.

•Fully-Vaccinated** Guests: Must present a negative Antigen test taken within 1 day of sailing. Testing at the terminal will not be required.

• Unvaccinated Guests: Must present either a negative Antigen test taken within 1 day of sailing or have the option to be tested at the Terminal prior to Embarkation.

 

 

[wrk2cruise]

 

The website country specific pages are the gospel.   Don't even bother to look at the stupid emails they are sending they have all been wrong, not updated with the updated requirements.  Don't call either as the reps are also giving out wrong info.

Edited August 15, 2022 by wrk2cruise