Pre cruise testing for non US passengers

[GafferJohn]

We arrive in the US from the UK a day before boarding the Joy in Miami. NCL's publication says this "

At time of check-in, all guests will be required to provide proof of a negative COVID-19 antigen or PCR test result administered by a verified third party or via medically supervised home test within two days prior to embarkation date for cruises originating in a U.S. port and within three days prior for voyages departing from a non-U.S. port.

In order to facilitate, Norwegian has partnered with Inspired Diagnostics lab"

 

We need to get a test in the UK within one day of entering the US for immigration and a test within two days of boarding the NCL ship, so we hope to have the one test, the day before we fly to satisfy both the authorities and NCL. My worry is that I can find no list of who the "verified" third parties are, so as to know who to get a test in the UK from. I have asked NCL, they tell me a verified third party is an authorized test provider, and that I should check with the provider, which all seems a bit circular to me. Seems like I have to go to each provider in the UK and ask if they are authorized, I assume by the US Government.

 

The Inspired Diagnostics lab offer does not seem to be any help to people outside the UK.

 

Any other Brits got any recent experience of testing requirements please?

[KeithJenner]

Most supervised tests are fine for the NCL boarding requirement. As far as I know, the one you do for US entry should also be fine.

 

There are quite a few options near the major airports, either in terminal or nearby. We are getting ours done at Heathrow prior to flying the Greece next month. A lateral flow is fine for NCL so you can get them done fairly quickly and relatively cheap.

 

I’m not sure of the US entry test requirement yet (I should look into it as I’m flying over there in July), so don’t know whether you will need a more expensive option for that.

 

Whatever, you should be able to get a test that covers both quite easily before you leave.

[GafferJohn]

Thank you Keith, that's very useful. We taken various tests for travel to different countries, I suppose I was trying to make sure that NCL wouldn't be harder to satisfy than individual countries. Countries tend to detail their requirements, NCL do not seem to. I think if a test is good enough to get us into the US then it must be good enough to get onboard and if all else fails we can take an NCL test at the port, I guess. Thanks again.

[steamboats]

@GafferJohn we also stumbled over that "authorized test provider". The only company in Germany listed on that website was Centogene which have stopped testing at all. There are no video supervised tests available in Germany and of course the US company does not ship to Germany. The US website has been simply translated into German not regarding the fact that those tests are not available over here. So we will do two tests (one for the flight a day before flying) and another one in the morning of the flight (which will be within the 2 day limit for the cruise) - both at our local pharmacy which provide the result in German and English. And I hope that will be o.k. for boarding. We didn´t even find a certified provider in the US (Honolulu) on their list which is able to guarantee the result within the time we have (they guarantee 72 hours for a simple antigen test!).

 

steamboats

[eileeshb]

I went to the US a couple of weeks ago and only needed an antigen test for the US entry requirement. Heck the clinic I used didn’t even issue an EU covid cert which I’ve gotten in the past when I got tested at a local pharmacy. It just needs to be a medical business, clinic/lab/pharmacy seems to suffice. It also sufficed for Puerto Rico’s entry requirements as well. They were still doing testing at embarkation then so I didn’t have to get a test for the cruise.

[mrshorsy]

Hi 

We are also travelling from the UK to the US ( we board the Gem on 30th March) 

I have booked a test through Randox as they are based at the airport, we have used them for all our post covid travel and have never had any trouble.

We will test on the Monday for a Tuesday lunchtime flight and the test will still be in date for boarding on the Wednesday 

Happy Cruising