Likelihood of Cunard updating vaccination requirements?

[watsonbeau]

As someone already has said, coughs and sniffs don’t have to be Covid. I have mild asthma and I know that sometimes I will cough because I probably haven’t had enough inhaler.
 

Also plenty of people, certainly my husband, and probably myself as well, will almost certainly get the Cunard cough within a day or two of boarding - again not Covid, but we’ve had it everytime we’ve been onboard, more so on QE and QV as for some reason the cabin air-con seems harsher than on QM2 so affects us more.

 

I am going to feel very guilty if I give as much as a slight cough while onboard from either of these two issues. I will follow the rules re masks etc and have some test kits, but I am really not looking forward to all the ‘looks’ I might get from what is not Covid.

 

Just hope our trip on QE to Panama this May doesn’t turn into the Voyage of the Damned 🙏

Might book for Queen Anne if it’s out hopefully but if all the existing Covid rules on ships were still to be continuing in 2024  I’d cancel and give up on cruising altogether. A holiday is meant to be enjoyed and what with all the rules to board, to fly and then while onboard it just adds to the stress levels and removes from the pleasure. 
 

At present I can understand it all, up to a point, but looking to 2023 / 2024 I’d hope all is back to pre Covid normality. If it isn’t then many cruisers will likely abandon cruising and many cruise lines just won’t survive. 
 

 

[mcloaked]

It would seem that slowly people are easing into the endemic phase of Covid.  Most people will become infected at some point in time, and for the most part those who do who are triple jabbed, or more, will likely not be seriously ill. Of course it remains highly infectious, and the main advantage of being fully vaccinated is to stave off the chance that when you do get infected it will lead to the need for hospital treatment.  Those of us who have had all the available vaccine jabs, as well as then becoming infected with any of the variants, will likely not get infected again within at least a period of several months.  So it is certainly no guarantee to be able to avoid becoming infected if you have had all the jabs, whether on board or on land at home, but if you have had Covid as well as the jabs then you are a lot less likely still to be infected on board. 

 

There will always be a risk that someone will have been infected within a few days of embarkation, and then become both infectious and/or symptomatic a few days into a cruise, and then potentially infect others.  The mask wearing policy does limit the spread but experience shows that masks or not, some fraction of passengers will still get infected during their cruise as Rakkor and others on this forum have testified.  Of course having to isolate whilst on a well earned holiday at sea is no fun, but actually being in your stateroom on a Cunard ship, with room service for all meals, and not having to lift a finger, is better than being at home having to make your own meals, and looking out on the same view from your bedroom window as you will have been seeing for a long time usually!

 

It certainly looks like Cunard is managing the response to limiting the transmission of embarking passengers very well, and also managing the experience of passengers on board extremely well in the circumstances too.  Certainly from reading the experience of passengers on other cruise lines it would appear that Cunard is doing a lot better than most, and also allowing the majority of passengers on board to continue to enjoy a lovely holiday even when a small percentage of passengers are on the same ship but having to isolate.  Certainly when we were on board the same cruise as Rakkor, we were continuing to have a fabulous time, without being bombarded by constant new information about others being infected and isolated even though the captain did make appropriate occasional announcements that a few protocols did need to change due to the increase in case numbers at the time. I feel confident that Cunard management will continue to adapt policy to optimise the overall cruise experience of passengers, and by all accounts those currently on QE in the Canaries are having a lovely voyage. Long may that be the case.  We are in the new post-Covid world where we live with Covid in the community now, whether on board or at home. New variants will certainly emerge in the future, just like new flu strains each year, and in a few years people will largely not be discussing Covid, just as we don't worry about annual flu on a day to day basis either, nor do we discuss norovirus on a day to day basis either, despite knowing it is a risk on any cruise we take.

[mcloaked]

2 hours ago, watsonbeau said:

As someone already has said, coughs and sniffs don’t have to be Covid. I have mild asthma and I know that sometimes I will cough because I probably haven’t had enough inhaler.
 

Also plenty of people, certainly my husband, and probably myself as well, will almost certainly get the Cunard cough within a day or two of boarding - again not Covid, but we’ve had it everytime we’ve been onboard, more so on QE and QV as for some reason the cabin air-con seems harsher than on QM2 so affects us more.

 

 

I have a quick comment about the Cunard cough - which we also used to get regularly on almost every cruise we took (not just on Cunard!).  A few years ago we had what in the UK is an easily available 'pneumococcal vaccination'  - a single jab that protects against between 13 and 23 of the most common respiratory bugs that go around most years. That jab is a once off and no boosters are needed, and if you have had the one that protects against 13 strains, then when eligible for the over-65's one that protects against a total of 23 strains it is safe to have that as a second pneumococcal jab too.  Ever since we had those jabs we have not had a single instance of Cunard cough on board! It might be just chance that we have remained free of the Cunard cough, but it would be surprising to us if it wasn't the jab that protected us, and continues to do so - and indeed we have rarely had any typical winter respiratory illnesses during the winter season at home either since having that jab.  Anyway just thought I would mention it as for us it has made our lives more free of respiratory illnesses that would have been expected each year like before we had those vaccinations.

[thumbun]

Can you get a PCR test valid for international travel on board QM2?  Arriving in SOU and flying back to the US on the same day.  Negative test required to fly back to the US.  I think a PCR test is available for $35.  Can someone confirm?  Wait time on the Cunard toll free number are very longggggggggggg!!!!

[sogne]

speaking to my TA just now over a non related matter they have had notification that update will  probably come  by end of this week

[Host Hattie]

P&O have updated their policy today so I would expect Cunard's update to be published soon.

[neeuqdrazil]

1 hour ago, sogne said:

speaking to my TA just now over a non related matter they have had notification that update will  probably come  by end of this week

 

Cunard told someone else in this thread that the policy would be updated 'in the next week' back in February, I was told the same thing weekly through the first half of March... 

 

In short, I'll believe it when I see it. 

[2BACRUISER]

4 hours ago, Host Hattie said:

P&O have updated their policy today so I would expect Cunard's update to be published soon.

And on the P&O boards there is absolute confusion and uproar over them so don't hold your breath peeps. #justsayin 🙄

[mcloaked]

For the cruise lines it makes a great deal of sense to have passengers and crew fully vaccinated, including boosters - so it would be really surprising if Cunard did not extend the vaccine requirements through this summer. 

[watsonbeau]

Some of the confusion on p&o board looks to be related  to everyone having to provide their own proof of antigen test 24 hrs prior to boarding as they look to be stopping or reducing the testing facilities from 29 April according to the thread.

 

watching with interest as due 2 May boarding QE.

Edited April 12, 2022 by watsonbeau

[3rdGenCunarder]

Interesting that this came regarding my September Canada/New England cruise and not the June Alaska cruise.

 

Edited to add that the June notification arrived a few minutes later.

Edited April 13, 2022 by 3rdGenCunarder