Hi All
I am a long time poster - I think I've been here for over 10 years and we've now done 11 cruises with Celebrity, Royal Caribbean, P&O and Princess. We love cruising. The time allowed for me to complete my Celebrity survey has expired and I want to share some thought son our experience on the ship - both as a warning to other passengers and as feedback to Celebrity - I'm sure you're reading this.
We were on the Celebrity Reflection out of Rome on 13th June, for 11 nights. Everyone had to provide proof of a negative test from within the last 48 hours and I'm sure you all know the rules about vaccinated/ up to date etc - so all of the right precautions were taken by everyone on board.
Before we sailed we were aware that if you tested positive while on board you had to isolate, but I think we didn't know the details. We knew that Covid rates on all ships according to the CDC's list of 94 ships under their watch were running on average at 1 to 2%. So with a passenger cohort of around 2000, just less on our sailing, the chances of catching it were very small and not at a high enough risk for us to consider cancelling - it was very unlikely to happen to us.
But although the chances are small, the consequences are HUGE.
Each day the captain makes an announcement at some point about health and safety on board. His typical comment would be ' we have 2 passengers tested positive today and they are fine and they are being looked after'. At no point does he say exactly how many in total have Covid and how many are in isolation. Latterly, we understood that 19 passengers from the previous cruise were positive and had to stay on for this cruise, and the most we heard about was 50 at one time in isolation (both passengers and crew). This came directly from one of the medical team who visit each 'isolatee' each day. At the change over of our cruise, we understood that there were 35 passengers in isolation needing to stay on - this comes from observation in the venue were all of the partners were gathered on disembarkation day to find out our new cabin assignments for the next cruise.
Our sequence of events was that on day 7 of the 11 night cruise, my husband had a sore throat and a headache and thought he might have Covid. The instructions given to passengers are very clear - if you have any Covid type symptoms phone the medical centre - it is the right thing to do and we still think that. We are certain that not everyone on board followed this - there were many coughers and sneezers around the ship. We went to the medical centre, my husband tested positive and was told, nicely and professionally, that he had to pack immediately and would be escorted to isolation. Within 10 minutes 2 crew from housekeeping arrived to take his luggage and he was taken down via the crew access corridors to deck 6, to a cabin with a balcony, where he did not leave the cabin for 10 whole days.
Under the balconies of deck 6 is the promenade deck so depending on the location of your partner along that deck you could be lucky and be able to have a chat. Not so for us - my husband's cabin was above some kind of big blue engineering structure which meant we could see each other at a distance but could not talk - we relied on speaking on the phone. So at least I saw him most days, at a distance of maybe 30 feet. I say most days as the access to that deck was on occasion, seemingly frequently, blocked for maintenance, disembarkation, the chance of winds....
For both the 'isolatee' and their partner, Celebrity immediately upgraded the Wi-Fi from basic to premium - this was much appreciated as it was then possible to keep in touch with family back home on video calls.
The quality of meals delivered to my husband was brilliant if sometimes entertaining - eg 4 boiled eggs for breakfast one day! - but the dining room menu was available to him.
The standard spiel from Celebrity is that all movies including pay for view movies would be available. Reflection had the worst TV and Movie options of any ship I've ever been on and there were no pay for view movies. And even the premium Wi-Fi is nowhere near good enough to stream on your Netflix account.
The CDC protocols changed during my husband's isolation - it was the case that you need TWO negative tests on consecutive days after day 5 to be 'released' but it changed to being ONE negative test after day 7. In any event, it didn't matter to us as my husband never did test negative - freedom came at day 10 no matter what the test result. As it did for most people.....
As a partner of someone in isolation you are also restricted. The requirement was for me to be tested for 5 consecutive days and I remained negative throughout. All of the partners were tested in the same place at the same time each day - so we got to know each other a bit - that is why I can say of the group of us on that cruise, most did not test negative before day 10. But for partners, restrictions were also in place - we were not allowed to use the dining rooms for 10 days and had to wear a mask anywhere out of the cabin. Wearing a mask was not hard, but 10 days of room service, alone, was no fun. I admit that I preferred to lunch up at the open air burger bar on deck where I thought I was no danger to anyone - especially after 5 days of consecutive negative tests. And a group of us did towards the end of the 10 days (all of our husbands were within 1 or 2 days of each other going into isolation) meet at the open air end of the buffet for an evening meal where we would again be no danger to anyone.
But partners can and did get off the ship at the ports - we were not that restricted. Personally, I choose to be as far away from others as possible whilst still going to the theatre and the game shows - that was allowed. So I could participate to a certain extent - but I would describe it for me as being 'lonely in a crowd'.
However, having been in a changing group of maybe 20 partners and talking among ourselves for a few days it was obvious that the rules were not enforced - some never had the letter saying they should have room service and so carried on as normal. So it is clear that those rules were never 'policed'.
For those actually in locked down isolation, 10 days is a long time to be in one small room - no walking up and down the corridor was allowed and even if you wanted to you could not get past the big bulk head door which locked off both side of deck 6 from the rest of the ship - that's a lot of cabins with people in isolation. My husband commented that even if he was in jail, there'd have been access to an exercise yard. It took 11 paces to walk from the door to the edge of the balcony - and there's only so many reps of that walk you can do each day. If you were minded you could of course do some strength and floor exercises but nothing aerobic.
It was particularly harsh for couples were the second partner tested positive a few days after the first partner - they would be placed in separate cabins - not necessarily near each other. I only found this out after someone who had been in isolation came 'out' and said his wife was still 'in' in a different cabin.
When it got to our scheduled disembarkation day, which was only day 5 for my husband so he was not yet free to leave isolation, we were given the choice to continue isolation together in an Italian hotel (were we would be escorted by guards) for a minimum of another 5 days. We would lose the chance of getting out on day 7 (which didn't happened anyway but it was still a chance at this stage). I don't know of anyone who took that option.
Celebrity did many, many things right on this trip. I imagine they have no choice but to follow the CDC rules. We stayed on the ship at no cost (except gratuities and drinks of course) until after the 10 days isolation and then onto the most sensible port for getting home (which was Naples for us, on our day 20, - flight timings from Dubrovnik and Kotor were impossible with the ships docking and tender times).
But the non financial cost for us was huge. Once my husband was in isolation my holiday was damaged too - OK I could see Athens, but not the way we hoped to do it together; I could go to the theatre but with no one to share it with. And I dined in my room alone. But for him, the physical impact was horrible too - he was a only bit poorly for just a few days (for which we are thankful of course) but with no way of getting any exercise and with very little mental stimulation or entertainment.
He was well supported by the medical team and the food and beverage service but there were quite a few things which went wrong which were not in themselves overly significant - and for those things which he reported, he'd like to thank Antoinette for her attention.
For those partners who found themselves unexpectedly alone - which left me tearful once or twice in public - it was a lonely time trying to navigate through a changed holiday alone. I would not have expected there to be any support in place for me in those circumstances so I am grateful to 3 people in particular who went out of their way to check in on me once they knew the circumstances - thank you Byron, Annadulce and Cranston - I really appreciated someone thinking to ask me how I was doing.
With all that in mind, under the same circumstance, knowing what the real consequences would be, would we have gone to the medical centre and self reported? And especially knowing that others were obviously sick around the ship. My answer is - we can't honestly say. We'd like to think we'd still do the right thing and get tested but we certainly wouldn't want to do that again. For sure though, we won't be cruising again until such time as the isolation requirement on board is removed or significantly reduced. Different countries are different and we know Italy is strict and the CDC rules are strict. I think our next trip will be here from the UK where there is no legal requirement to isolate, just a common sense duty to isolate if you're obviously poorly.
