notscb

Right, but if you read their post again, they aren't claiming that testing would be the way to stop everyone from getting covid on a cruise. The way I'm reading it is they're saying "Ideally, we would live in a world where nobody would get covid from cruising (their words), and until that is truly possible, continue testing." See the difference in how we're interpreting this?

Genuinely curious- how does a major cruise line simply change their ports when the shore excursion and tourism infrastructure for 4,000 people doesn't exist at many ports?

I don't think that's what they said.

Since my post got deleted, I'll revise my statement. Covid has been shown to not be like every other virus. It's more transmissible and more challenging given the long-covid symptoms we've been seeing and people have had to live with (beyond just a prolonged loss of smell). I think that while it's normal for us to want to get back to cruising as normal, we would do better to recognize that we aren't the only ones that we are placing at risk when getting onboard a ship. The crew is the most obvious, as they have lives and families to get back to and live in much, much more cramped spaces than the passengers do. Look at the amount of folks on this and other threads who say their cruise was great until they got home with covid. How many people did they encounter on the way from the ship to home? Did they fly while contagious? My point is that Covid isn't like every other virus. If we want our vacation experiences to feel "normal," we could be doing better to make sure everyone's vacation experience getting onboard with us can also be normal. Now is not the time for individualism.

The CDC has always been involved in setting guidelines and standards for the cruising industry. Covid wasn't the first and won't be the last time that the CDC and federal government get involved in the travel and tourism industry. This thread is full of folks prematurely celebrating something they haven't read and don't really understand.

Hi All! I figured I'd start a new thread to see if anyone had options for LGBTQ+ specific cruises that were not Atlantis? I'm interested in taking a cruise where (as they say) I'm part of the majority on the ship and don't have to feel out of place, but I'm not sure that Atlantis cruises are exactly right for myself or my husband. Does anyone have any recommendations for cruise lines or specific cruises (could be large, small or private ships) that cater to LGBTQ+ cruisers?

I think the time matters for sure. I was on Freedom (RCL) and the meetup was every night at 10pm at the wine bar. Also at 10pm was the second seating of the nightly entertainment and right after that would be the nightly party (silent disco, etc.). I never got a chance to attend the meetup because there were always other things going on that I wanted to do, and they didn't have any alternate meetup times or locations.

Can you expand on this? I'm genuinely curious about your pro/con list as someone who is really interested in doing Alaska next!

You're conveniently moving the goalposts. The data cited is straight from the source.

And this is huge. The Cruise industry has always had a PR issue when it comes to any spread of disease, especially now. Cruise lines want to portray safety and trust to earn that $$ from their passengers and potential passengers, any covid headlines puts that in jeopardy. I'll add 3) (from the other thread), cruise lines need healthy staff to continue sailing. If that means that passengers coming onboard need vaccines, so be it.

I'm not going to even engage with this comment. It's clearly a joke.

Do you need data on that? It's in the value systems. Do you remember when SARS was a huge thing and even major cities like Toronto had a people wearing masks? But here's an article about it, And a study about mask usage And another about attitudes about mask usage in Germany

"Back to normal" wasn't good, do you not remember? Pre-Covid life didn't allow for people to be sick or stay home when sick without the consequence of loss (financial, social, vocational). We need to be better about preventing what we can, otherwise this weird value of American individualism is going to be the downfall of what we have left of a society.

I'm surprised this thread had to get up to 8 pages without considering the crew. The crew don't really have a choice but to fulfill their contracts. As cruisers, shouldn't we want to protect others onboard who also have families and live in even closer quarters than guests do?

Yikes. We've lost a million americans to covid. Did I say that? No. Pre-Covid, peolpe went to work sick, people got on airplanes sick, and our culture in the U.S. was way, way too accepting of sick people roaming around spreading things. In other countries, when you're sick you stay home or wear a mask. Do I think sick people should be spreading any of what they're carrying? Ideally, no. But we don't live in a world where people have that luxury.

The data indicates you're wrong about this.

...because it was a brand new disease that we had very little knowledge about that easily over-ran our healthcare system? I'm confused about what you're trying to say. Should sick people (with any sickness) be allowed to occupy confined spaces (like cruise ships) and spread it to others?

It means that a lot of grown adults are going to be throwing temper tantrums when some cruises still require pre-cruise testing depending on the regulations of the countries they are visiting.

Not a fan of Carnival "Classic," eh?

I think number of people ultimately determines the value of the key versus just getting S+S for X number of devices by itself. For solo or duo cruisers, they Key holds more value than for families or groups for sure.

Please for the love of all that is holy DO NOT DO THIS. Cruise ship plumbing is NOT like your household plumbing and will back up really easily with the wrong things going down it- including heavier toilet paper. Most cruise lines have warnings all over the bathroom now that you'll get fined if your room is found to have caused the backup by breaking these rules.

According to their FAQ it still is, but not for Singapore sailings. I think the value of the key lies in what kind of discount you can find on it and what your travel situation is.

I think when I got it on sale it was $23/day for the Key, which brings that discrepancy down and might make it worth it depending on how many folks are sailing with you and how much you value a Chops lunch at.

That's a great question. Ultimately it will be a financially motivated one. They seem to be going all in on this design and I've seen some really cool dining/bar/tender setup photos from it and it seems really neat. You could ask the same quesiton about the North Star on RCL as well.

From my experience, if I'm trying to go solo on RCL I always go through a third party or TA. For some reason, they have always had the better rates for my solo trips versus booking direct through RCL.