lexmiller

Our cruise tour starts one week from today, yikes, so we feel pressed about this. We have also used the eMed tests, but we don't want to use them for the cruise tour if we don't have to. Before June 1, NO covid testing was required at all for the pre-cruise land tour. For the cruise itself, yes, but not for the pre-cruise land tour. Very vague wording......

I was going to post this on the Alaska boards, but it is very specific to Celebrity, so here I am, at your mercy. As of June 1, Celebrity changed the covid test requirement for Celebrity Alaska cruise tours that are offered pre-cruise. Now, as of June 1, a negative covid test is required two days before the cruise tour begins (again, as long as the cruise tour is pre-cruise). However, the wording of the requirement is cryptic and confusing at best. I will copy/paste below, but basically, it says that we must “present a digital or physical copy" of a negative test but it is “not required to be monitored testing”. So I ask you, if it is “not required to be monitored testing”, then how are we to present a “digital or physical copy” of a negative result? I am considering bringing our plastic/cardboard actual tests that only show the control line?! Someone on the FBook roll call (I have posted on the CruiseCritic roll call but it is a very inactive group) said they called Celebrity and the rep said that the wording is wrong, that we must go to a CVS or Walgreens (no mention of Binax but I am sure that's fine, of course). Well, we all know that the last person’s word you take is one of the phone reps as you can and usually do get different advice from each individual - the website is usually considered the "best source" of information. I just wanted to see if anyone had any insights. If we are confused, I imagine that the local guides with whom Celebrity contracts, are even more so! Again, requirement says - present a digital or physical copy of negative results, yet the test is not required to be monitored......??? Pre-Arrival for Land Tours Covid-19 Testing Pre-Cruise All Celebrity Cruises requires all guests ages 2 and older to present a digital or physical copy of a negative COVID-19 test result taken within 2 days of the land tour start date. This test may be taken as either an Antigen or PCR test and is not required to be monitored testing. https://www.celebritycruises.com/healthy-at-sea/alaska-travel-requirements#cruisetours

All understood, trust me, I read - a LOT. But we cannot continue like this any longer. The economic impact is crippling the world. The mental health effects have been DEVASTATING. By and large, the world has moved on. The virus today is not the virus of two years ago. Mutations have made it much weaker, herd immunity is probably already here. Self responsibility is huge, people must take responsibility to take care of themselves - wear a mask if you feel you should, if you are immunocompromised, then take appropriate precautions. It is time to take responsibility for yourselves - vaccinate, boost, and keep up vaccinations and boosters as the virus evolves over the years. AND LET LIFE CONTINUE.

AGREE! This is not 2 years ago!! We now have vaccines and boosters that protect from severe disease - many people who get covid now don't even realize that they have it - no symptoms whatsoever or cold symptoms! It is time to treat covid as an endemic disease - it is here and it is here to stay. Everyone must get vaxxed and boosted - this is not the bubonic plague. This is not March 2020. We must all take responsibility for our own health and the health of others by getting vaxxed and boosted and that's it - time to move one with our lives.

Peter Baker is your Cruise Director, taking over for vacationing Eddy Jenkins!! OH you will have fun!! Be sure to play the "Yes or No" game - Pete is a master of that, beware!!😆

We just got off the Apex in Amsterdam on May 26. Back to back passengers WERE tested. We were not back to backers ourselves, but I saw that testing was occurring in Normandie restaurant on May 25, so, having an inquiring mind haha, I stopped and asked passengers what was going on. Though the policy had changed fleet wide to stop testing back to backers, if there is a certain threshold of covid positive passengers onboard, the CDC recommends to the cruise lines, that those particular ships with this "threshold", test their back to back passengers - this is what was explained to those passengers, and they passed this on to me.

The main point is not cruising at all - it is the test that the USA still requires you to take to fly back into the country. The US is the ONLY country that still requires this test. So it is not about cruising at all - if you want to go to any foreign country and fly back home, you must take a covid test. So too must any visitors to the US - a foreign visitor cannot fly into the US without a negative test. There is a great uproar in DC about getting the CDC to stop requiring the test. Lobbyists from over two hundred travel companies, airlines, cruise lines, etc, are working hard to end this ridiculous test. People can fly domestically without masks, no vaccines required, no tests needed - and yet, if you want to visit a foreign country and fly home, you are penalized - covid is now criminalized if you want to fly home, yet within the borders, there are no rules. This is not two years ago - we have the vaccine, we have the boosters. A very recent interview of Fauci was extremely interesting as even he said that there is no medical reason to still require the fly in test. That is HUGE that he said that, and yet, here we are, still testing and no one not even Fauci, can tell us why!!?? American citizens that live along the Canadian border are finding it much easier to fly into Toronto or Montreal or Vancouver and then rent a car and drive home - all perfectly legal to do. So this is not a "cruise fixation" at all. It's about traveling abroad NOW, broadening our minds and expanding our experiences - while we are still young enough and healthy enough to do so. Time marches on and this stupid test is ruining things for a lot of us, causing unnecessary angst and anguish.

Until the testing requirement to fly into the US ends, things are going to remain dismal IMHO. Even Fauci in a recent interview, could site no reason as to why it should continue! No other western country requires this test. It is absolutely discouraging travel and thus cruising. https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6386763 This is a great article written a few months ago about the reasoning behind Canada lifting the test required to fly into Canada. We need this to happen in the US as well.

Agree-covid must be decriminalized.