CarolinaMamma

1 minute ago, Karaboudjan said:

 

I seem to recall in the first account I read of someone in isolation or quarantine (RCL I think) they said that they would have had to pay for alcohol.  Maybe things have changed or maybe it depends on the overall situation.  It seems like things got a bit out of hand on some ships so maybe they didn't have staff to keep bringing people drinks or didn't want staff spending any more time around the quarantine cabins than necessary.  That could encompass 'safety.'

That makes sense. Some people would probably order a drink every hour. I hope they are giving people prorated refunds on beverage packages they paid for. (I realize on NCL it’s an included perk for most people.) I’d settle for a bottle of wine and make it last for two days to minimize deliveries!  

5 minutes ago, TNcruising02 said:

We haven't received any notification either.  However, I learned a long time ago that I need to be actively involved in researching when it comes to cruising.  I learned it after going on a couple of cruises and then cruising NCL, assuming there would be conditioner in the bathroom and that I didn't have to make reservations for shows.  LOL.  Even though it's not the same thing, research pays off and keeps me informed.  Surely, if someone is concerned about covid they would call and ask about their options.

I agree with you, and that’s why I spend so much time on CC, but most cruisers don’t. A lot of people may cruise even though they are uncomfortable with ut, because they assume they’ll lose all their money if they cancel, or they may call NCL 24 hours before their cruise, when it’s too late to get the FCC. This is a major enough change that I think telling people about it would be the right thing for NCL to do. 

Just now, BermudaBound2014 said:

 

Based on the person responding in this thread that maybe true on NCL; but there are several people reporting from Carnival and RCL that there is no alcohol available during quarantine for 'safety' reasons :). 

Wow. If I were stuck in my cabin with my teenagers, but not sick, then not having alcohol would just make it extra-sucky.

I think maybe the issue with alcohol is that you CAN order it, but you can’t use your beverage package, so you’d be paying for every drink. 

I found out about the reinstatement of the Peace of Mind policy here on CC. I have a cruise scheduled for January 16th and have received no notification from NCL or my TA. Has anyone else?

Of course if NCL sends an email to all customers letting them know that POM has been reinstated, they will get a slew of cancellations, which is probably why they’re not doing it. 

Yes, NCL quietly updated their website, but the average person isn’t going to go digging through it to find this information.

I was on another social media site where a person said, “I called NCL and they said I can cancel without penalty.” I asked if they meant FCC and they said yes. I hate to break it to them, but 100% FCC IS a penalty, because you can’t book the same cruise for the same price any time this year.  I find the language “cancel without penalty” a little deceptive. Still, from that post, it was clear that most people had no idea they could cancel for FCC.
 

I sympathize with the cruise lines and the money they are losing, but this seems pretty sneaky of NCL. If I do decide to cancel, it makes me more inclined to use CFAR insurance than to have any money tied up in FCC with this company. 

We are also undecided about our Jan 16th cruise, and I agree that it’s hard to get data. NCL customer service reps are nice people, but I often get more accurate info here on CC than I do from them. 
 

if any of us are going to cruise, we need to be okay with the risk of having to quarantine. We need to be flexible about entertainment, amenities or ports not being available. I’m still thinking it through, but leaning towards cancelling. 
 

If a member of our traveling party were immunocompromised due to chemo, that would be a no-go for me, and I wouldn’t need any more data to make the decision. Omicron is blowing up. I’ve heard experts say we won’t have data on cases for several weeks, due to a shortage of tests, false negatives on antigen tests, and a lot of cases being caught via at-home tests and not reported. Anecdotally, I know more people who have had Covid in the last two weeks than I have throughout the entire pandemic. My relatives in other states say the same. All of the people I know who have had Covid recently are vaccinated and many of them are boosted. Most cases are pretty mild, some like a flu. If you’re around people indoors without a well-fitted N95 or KN95 or KF94 mask, you’re probably going to get Covid. For most healthy people, it will be mild, but if I were immunocompromised I would not have any indoor unmasked contact with people right now. 
 

ONE PIECE OF ADVICE that I got here before my April 2020 cruise was cancelled: if you are going to cancel and get FCC, make a separate phone call first and strip out all of the “optional” things on your cruise. This would include prepaid gratuities, shore excursions, extra specialty dining and upgraded beverage packages. This way, you will have less money tied up in FCC. If you’re at all concerned about the future financial viability of NCL or whether you’ll be able to use your FCC by the end of 2022, having less money tied up in FCC is better. 

5 minutes ago, Lou33 said:

 

Cruiselines are not counting many passengers who test positive days after the cruise, test positive at the pier, or test positive right before they leave home.  So it's really hard to know the true number of people who are affected.  

AND from the RCL thread, it sounds like they’re not testing everyone, even those quarantining with known positive cases. One lady was quarantined with her Covid-positive daughter, was showing symptoms, and RC didn’t test her. I’m surprised that there isn’t a requirement that when a certain threshold is reached, everyone on board gets tested before disembarking. That didn’t happen on Harminy. 
 

in contrast; when there were a lot of cases on Breakaway, I believe everyone was tested before disembarking. That may have been a requirement of New Orleans. 

18 hours ago, wally4ever said:

3) My significant other tested positive on board on Christmas Day.  They briefly moved her to an inside room while waiting for a second test, then moved her to a balcony.  This did reflect a downgrade (club balcony to balcony).  For food, she had free reign of room service, but could not utilize the drink package... only non-alcoholic drinks available.  They would not send cans or bottles of anything, so there was a lot of begging for as many glasses of Diet Pepsi as they'd send up.  The max appeared to be four.

 

4) Me and my daughter were considered close contacts, and were quarantined, even though we both tested negative.  We were given the option of staying or moving to the room next door to my SO, but we were strongly pressured to agree to move, so we did.  We got the same treatment that she did.  Not sure if anybody else was considered a close contact.

This is very helpful information, and exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. Were the isolated-but-not-Covid-positive people also not allowed to drink? I would not want to drink if I had Covid, but if healthy and stuck in a room with my teenagers, I might like a cocktail now and then. 

19 hours ago, marktwothousand said:

@CarolinaMammayou know you’re one of my favourites and I would only give it to you straight… so this is my opinion…

 

the fact that you HAVE all these concerns and questions, is enough reason not to go. Luckily you have a couple weeks, so you can stand to wait and watch a little longer… but it seems to me, if you have all these questions, that is not the way to spend 10 grand on a vacation… think about it, if you can’t go now, maybe mid-February or early March would be doable? A few weeks postponement for peace of mind isn’t going to hurt.

 

that is why I cancelled my January 5 and am hoping to sail in late February.

 

the only upside to your situation is that you’re in the haven. If you’re planning on staying with ONLY the people you travel with and not take part in any activities or entertainment on the ship…and sticking around the haven areas where are there less people and NO socializing (and that goes for your kids too) then you will be fine…but if your idea of cruising is mixing, mingling and being ‘out there’, I would leave it for now.

I hear you. I am not quite ready to give up this cruise yet. I am pretty resilient and can roll with whatever happens, but am an extreme planner. Honestly if I don’t have to cook or clean for a week, that is a great vacation for me, even if entertainment and ports are cancelled, but I want the rest of my family to enjoy the cruise, too, so am thinking through and preparing for all the worst-case scenarios. Little tidbits of information I’ve gotten here, like ordering proctored tests in advance in case we are unable to schedule testing appointments, not dropping your luggage off until you’ve been tested, and bringing laptops, will help if we do decide to go.  
 

We were supposed to cruise in April, 2020 and that got cancelled. My kids are in high school, and the week of our cruise, they are off of school for three days, so would only have to miss two days. Their spring break may coincide with college admitted students weekends, so I’m not sure we’d be able to cruise again soon. My kids love cruising, and had to give up so much during lockdown (I was on an immune suppressing medication in spring of 2020 so they were locked down right and had no social life) I really wanted to reward them with something fun. I was hoping to get one more cruise in before my son turns 18 and enters the cruise “dead zone” of too old for the teen club and too young to drink. His birthday is in late January. 
 

So not ready to give up yet, but will keep reading this board over the next week or so as we think through this. 

1 hour ago, TNcruising02 said:

What helped me decide is accepting that I may need backup plans.

Flight to Florida:  We are flying in a day early and can make the long drive if our flight is cancelled.  If we lived farther away from the port, I would probably fly in two days early.

 

Covid:  We are taking covid tests two days before we leave.  That will reduce the risk of arriving at the port and testing positive.  If we test positive at the pier, we will find a hotel and isolate.

 

Ports:  We cancelled our excursions and will see where we go and what the options are at the time.  This is the first time we will be going on a cruise without the majority of it pre-planned.  We may not even do group tours so we can reduce the risk of being near someone who later tests positive.

 

Shows:  We will be cruising with relatives that we rarely see, so we will find ways to have fun with whatever is offered.

Quarantine:  If we end up being quarantined, I will have my laptop and my husband will have his iPad.  The odds of this happening are slim, but it's a risk we have accepted.  It won't be the end of the world and the insurance should give us a prorated refund.  

If the cruise line cancels, we will get a refund.  If not, then really the only things that will stop us from cruising are getting covid before the cruise or a family member having serious health issues.  Choosing to go ahead with the cruise, to me, means accepting the possibility that things can happen beyond anyone's control and being ok with it.  Normally, I would tell myself to hold off and things will be better later this year, but that's what I told myself last year.
 

Sounds like a well thought out plan. Thank you for sharing. We usually don’t bring laptops because we cruise to get away from work and the internet, but it might be a good idea to have them with us if we get stuck.

3 minutes ago, Karaboudjan said:

 

I don't think you mentioned this so maybe it's not a consideration for you, but for me right now the biggest unknown is air travel and transfers.  I don't want to get into a situation where I can't get to the port and it's too late to cancel the cruise.

That’s a good point. In our case, we are flying nonstop to Miami mid-morning the day before our cruise. American has several direct flights to Miami from our city, so I feel like we have a little bit of padding if our flight gets cancelled. If we had connecting flights or were flying in the day of the cruise, I’d be extremely nervous. I will be paying attention to flight cancellations though! 

18 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

Happy New Year CarolinaMomma :).

 

I think you have a great plan in waiting this out a bit more. Things will likely start to calm down after the holiday cruises. I am not currently making the decision and you asked for responses from people in the same situation, so I won't bore you with my thoughts;  but I will offer something that you may have not considered.

 

This is an extremely unpopular topic on the forum, and know that I am clearly in the minority so feel free to ignore me completely. I believe that FCC's are a financial risk. I believed they were a risk at the beginning of Covid and, unfortunately, I believe the risk is increasing over time. On paper, it appears NCL is in a very real possibility of chapter 11. In which case, it is possible FCC's will have zero value. If I had FCC's tied up in NCL I may very well be choosing to cruise right now instead of sticking to land vacations. IMO a very logical case can be made for using all your FCC's sooner rather than later.

 

Not sure if that helps at all in your decision, but I do believe it's something worthy of consideration.

I totally agree with you about FCC. That’s why we did not take the bait of 125%  and got a cash refund on our April 2020 cruise. Even if NCL remains solvent, they have shown a history of jacking up prices when they have people’s money tied up in FCCs. 
 

We paid for this cruise with cash, so we currently do not have any money tied up in FCCs, and I’d like to keep it that way. I think at this point if I had a choice of taking FCC or using my CFAR insurance and getting a 75% refund, I’d take the cash. 

We are supposed to sail on Encore January 16th, and I’m so torn. I’ve been thinking about what information we need to make a decision. We all have our individual situations and risk tolerances, and I’m curious about others’ thoughts as they make their decisions for upcoming cruises. 

Things I may be able to find answers to:

1. Does my travel insurance cover us, given the new CDC advisory? (I plan to read the policy and call the third party insurer on Monday.) 

2. How is NCL and my travel insurance company treating pax who test positive at the pier, provided they have proof of a negative test within 96 hours? (Have heard some not great stories on this board and will continue to check here.) Would I be able to quarantine at a “nice” hotel with room service and access to fresh air, or would I be stuck in a dark little box? 

3. How is NCL treating people who test positive while on board? Moving from the Haven to an inside cabin and getting crappy food that I don’t get to choose is a fear.) 

4. How is MCL treating people who are deemed “close contacts” of someone who tests positive, and how do they determine who is a close contact? How many possibly exposed people are having to isolate on ships? I’m not expecting NCL to share this information, but hoping some people on ships will share what they know here. 
 

Things I probably won’t be able to find answers to:

1. How much Covid on my ship and other ships sailing out of Miami? This would help me assess our odds of being exposed and needing to quarantine.

2. Which ports may be cancelled?

3. Which entertainment, restaurants or other onboard experiences will be closed/cancelled? (This can change week to week, so no way to know, but I can pay attention to what is happening on other ships.) 

I’m not thrilled about cancelling and getting FCC because I don’t think we’d be able to get the same cruise for the same price, and I’m not sure there’s a date in 2022 that is going to work for our family. We have CFAR insurance, but I don’t love the idea of losing 25% of the $10k we have in this cruise. 

in any case, we will probably wait until three or four days before the cruise to make a decision, because if NCL has to cancel the cruise, we would get a full refund. 
 

What am I not thinking of that I may need to factor into this decision?  (Please, let’s not let this devolve into a Covid debate and get the thread deleted. Just looking for practical information to help me and my husband think through this decision.) 

I think outdoor seating will be in high demand because of Covid. 
 

I’d say wind is more of a risk than rain. I’ve seen outdoor areas closed because of wind while sailing on several cruises. Less common in the Caribbean, but still a possibility. 

10 hours ago, altarr said:

No offense but you are not a cold blooded animal. Unless you were hypothermic or hyperthermic, the outside air temperature has no bearing on your body temperature. 

I don’t know. When our schools were checking students’ temps with those guns, they warned people not to blast the heat in the car because it could make kids’ temperatures read higher. Usually when they waited for 15 minutes to be re-tested, their temps went down. Kids who rode their bikes to school during the cold months often got artificially low temperature readings. I just don’t think the temperature guns are that accurate. 

Thank you for sharing! Was there a fee and/or reservations required for the pool area with loungers, or could anyone just walk up and use this area? 

Can you buy it in Europe? Is there a powder version that can be mixed with water? 

4 hours ago, BennyBrun said:

Credit card companies are great for somethings but when it comes to cruising it’s like the cruise line have gotten a iron clad hold on the CC.  They might temporarily give you a conditional credit but in the end they always reverse it when the cruise company send over the contract of carriage that you agreed to when you paid.  It never works out in your favor going through the dispute route. 

It worked great for me in the summer of 2020. NCL cancelled my April 2020 cruise. I asked for a refund through NCL’s official process on March 21, the first day they opened refund requests. When I still didn’t have my money back in late June, well after the cruise would have sailed, I called Amex and they had the money back in my account within an hour. I understand that it takes NCL time to process refunds, and I was willing to give them some grace, but in this case, it felt like I was giving them an interest-free $10,000 loan to help with their cash flow situation, and I didn’t consent to that. I will always book with Amex because they take great care of us when things go wrong. 

4 minutes ago, dgreeney said:

What is the expiration date for your tests? The Emed test I used last month expired in early February

The expiration date for the proctored Abbott BinaxNow tests that I linked to in the original post and received this week (last week in December, 2021)  is November of 2022. Plenty of time to use them. 

We are on Encore January 16th and still undecided. Like many others, I’m more concerned about possible quarantine and disruption than about dying from Covid. 
 

I’m not thrilled about the idea of FCC because prices are about 50% higher than when we booked, and I’m not certain we would be able to find a sailing date that works for w wry one in our family before December, 2022.

We have CFAR insurance, but we’d take a 25% hit on the $10k we have in this cruise.  I’m glad we have the insurance, but losing $2,500 and getting no ca action stings. 
 

So for now, I’m waiting. If the cruise line cancels, we will get a full refund, which would be better than getting FCC or only getting 75% back. 

Look for the restaurants that have outdoor seating on the waterfront and ask the Haven concierge on the first day to book those for you. As Haven  guests, you will have priority. Less exposure when eating outside. 
 

With all that is happening right now, I really hope you get to go on your cruise and have a great time. Thank you for all you do! 

2 hours ago, BarnCat1 said:

If you take the FCC now and have paid out extra expenses like upgraded WIFI, shore excursions, DSF, etc., do you get any of that refunded if you cancel?  

Last time this happened (March 2020) someone here on CC gave the GREAT advice to call NCL or your TA and remove all of the “optional” things (prepaid gratuities, extra specialty dining, etc.) because NCL will refund the original form of payment for those within a few days. That way, if you paid cash for your cruise, then cancel and get FCC, you won’t have as much money tied up in FCC. In the event you decide to cruise, you can always add these things back in. 

3 hours ago, Steve and Sharon said:

I as triple vaxxed also, would be fine isolating, as long as I could stay in my balcony cabin. I would go crazy in an inside cabin all alone with claustrophobia.

Me, too. I’m claustrophobic, and an inside cabin is my idea of Hell. No offense to those who like to sail in them. I’d love to take advantage of the good deals. I just can’t. Would love more clarity from NCL about what quarantining looks like, because the possibility of moving from Haven to inside would be a dealbreaker for me. 

We are scheduled to sail 1/16 in the Haven on Encore and I am also on the fence. I’m also afraid of having to quarantine, or of so many ports and entertainment options not being available, that it’s not an enjoyable cruise. 
 

I’m hesitant to take the FCC because the Haven 2BR is costing about 50% more than we paid for it on just about every cruise I’ve priced. Our schedule is also sort of unpredictable for the next year. We do have CFAR insurance, so could cancel up to 48 hours before and get a 75% refund.  

When our April 2020 cruise was cancelled by NCL, we got a full refund, but the people who had cancelled on their own a few days earlier got screwed. I’m keeping that in mind and holding off as long as I can. 

1 hour ago, n4w said:

 

your worry is true in the former and latter, if you test positive, you will also be isolated, just in a different room which could be an upgrade or downgrade.

If I tested positive, I would have no problem isolating.

if I, as a triple-vaxxed person, just happened to be near someone who tested positive, and I wasn’t sick or testing positive myself, being stuck in my cabin would be a much tougher pill to swallow.