Disembarked Sky Princess and tested positive hours later

[Jo and Rob]

We had a fabulous cruise onboard Sky Princess but on the last day I woke up with what I thought was a heavy cold. I drove as far as my parents and my sister suggested I take a lateral flow test and yes I tested positive for Coronavirus. 
 

I tried contacting Princess to let them know but no response. I’m still testing positive more than a week later. 
 

Deck 9 Dolphin deck was the covid deck and sealed off to passengers. 

[LoriPhil]

So very sorry you have this unwelcome end to your cruise!  Hopefully you won’t have too difficult a time, and recover quickly.

[jimbo1683]

2 hours ago, Jo and Rob said:

 

I tried contacting Princess to let them know but no response. I’m still testing positive more than a week later.

Is there a reason you need to let them know?

[Babr]

3 hours ago, Jo and Rob said:

We had a fabulous cruise onboard Sky Princess but on the last day I woke up with what I thought was a heavy cold. I drove as far as my parents and my sister suggested I take a lateral flow test and yes I tested positive for Coronavirus. 
 

I tried contacting Princess to let them know but no response. I’m still testing positive more than a week later. 
 

Deck 9 Dolphin deck was the covid deck and sealed off to passengers. 

Sorry you are sick. The upside is that you are not in a foreign port being tested before you get on a plane.

 

Get well soon.

[FlaMariner]

Best time to get Covid is when you get back to the USA.....and not on the ship or, horrors, in a foreign port.  

 

So much better than pre-cruise or during the cruise and you have to go to the "special" area.  

 

Here's to a quick recovery so you can cruise again!

[delondin]

11 hours ago, Jo and Rob said:

We had a fabulous cruise onboard Sky Princess but on the last day I woke up with what I thought was a heavy cold. I drove as far as my parents and my sister suggested I take a lateral flow test and yes I tested positive for Coronavirus. 
 

I tried contacting Princess to let them know but no response. I’m still testing positive more than a week later. 
 

Deck 9 Dolphin deck was the covid deck and sealed off to passengers. 

Where did they put the passengers originally booked on deck 9?

[Honolulu Blue]

15 hours ago, Jo and Rob said:

We had a fabulous cruise onboard Sky Princess but on the last day I woke up with what I thought was a heavy cold. I drove as far as my parents and my sister suggested I take a lateral flow test and yes I tested positive for Coronavirus. 
 

I tried contacting Princess to let them know but no response. I’m still testing positive more than a week later. 
 

Deck 9 Dolphin deck was the covid deck and sealed off to passengers. 

 

Thanks for sharing.  I'm sorry you caught the bug.  Get well soon.  Curious - is the "I" in your story Jo or Rob?  And is the other staying COVID-free?

[emmak8]

Best wishes for a very speedy recovery.  Were protocols in place on the Sky?

[Coral]

I hope you start feeling better soon!

[CruisinFinsUp]

8 hours ago, delondin said:

Where did they put the passengers originally booked on deck 9?

Since the restart, ships have sailed with cabins empty to use for quarantine purposes. 
The cabins are all on one deck together.  

[Eglesbrech]

2 minutes ago, CruisinFinsUp said:

Since the restart, ships have sailed with cabins empty to use for quarantine purposes. 
The cabins are all on one deck together.  

So why do they keep selling them. Bait and switch?

[JimmyVWine]

1 hour ago, Eglesbrech said:

So why do they keep selling them. Bait and switch?

Why do you think that Princess is selling them?  They could show up as unavailable" during the booking process and you would never know if they were purchased by a passenger or blocked out by Princess.

[ChutChut]

I always catch some kind of virus just as I'm disembarking a cruise, too. Feel better soon!

[PhotoGal07]

2 hours ago, JimmyVWine said:

Why do you think that Princess is selling them?  They could show up as unavailable" during the booking process and you would never know if they were purchased by a passenger or blocked out by Princess.

I think there are at least a few reports of people who booked quarantine cabins, and being moved at the last minute to a different floor.  I know I've seen at least a couple different posts with stories like that.  

[JimmyVWine]

23 minutes ago, PhotoGal07 said:

I think there are at least a few reports of people who booked quarantine cabins, and being moved at the last minute to a different floor.  I know I've seen at least a couple different posts with stories like that.  

I haven't seen anything so significant as to suggest that there is a systemic "bait and switch" tactic being employed.  If a cruise ship experiences more Covid than anticipated, it is going to need more quarantine space and the only want to achieve that is to move chess pieces around the board.  Nothing nefarious about that.  What's the alternative?  Let non-Covid people keep their booked cabin right smack dab in the middle of the quarantine area? That in and of itself would be cannon fodder for a tirade here, and rightfully so. 

[fishnchips]

I too tested positive on the same cruise the day after....all protocols followed ,masks worn ,sip&cover all those things ..mandated. And now I am getting over what seems like  that I have a cold !

Make your own mind up if they worked ??

 

 

 

 

 

[PhotoGal07]

26 minutes ago, JimmyVWine said:

I haven't seen anything so significant as to suggest that there is a systemic "bait and switch" tactic being employed.  If a cruise ship experiences more Covid than anticipated, it is going to need more quarantine space and the only want to achieve that is to move chess pieces around the board.  Nothing nefarious about that.  What's the alternative?  Let non-Covid people keep their booked cabin right smack dab in the middle of the quarantine area? That in and of itself would be cannon fodder for a tirade here, and rightfully so. 

This is happening before the cruise embarks.  The ones I have seen do not seem to be people being moved mid-voyage.  I am not saying it's nefarious, there are a few logical explanations (perhaps people who booked very early before these cabins were earmarked for quarantine).  But there have definitely been a few posters that were rather upset because they specifically wanted a particular cabin and were subsequently moved.  My only point was that they have indeed been sold.  I don't know for sure when or if that has stopped happening.

[JimmyVWine]

26 minutes ago, PhotoGal07 said:

This is happening before the cruise embarks.  The ones I have seen do not seem to be people being moved mid-voyage.

But that depends on how one defines when the voyage begins.  There might be people on B2B cruises who need to be moved to a quarantine area, and perhaps the quarantine area wasn't big enough to hold everyone.  So there may have been a mid-voyage move for an infected person that affects a pre-voyage move as to someone who hasn't yet boarded.  The bottom line is that this type of movement provides no benefit to Princess and they really don't want to have to do it.  If they are doing it, it is because they have to and not because they gain anything out of it.  While it wasn't you who used the term, the term "bait and switch" was used here, and that always has a nefarious bent to it.

[Eglesbrech]

10 hours ago, JimmyVWine said:

But that depends on how one defines when the voyage begins.  There might be people on B2B cruises who need to be moved to a quarantine area, and perhaps the quarantine area wasn't big enough to hold everyone.  So there may have been a mid-voyage move for an infected person that affects a pre-voyage move as to someone who hasn't yet boarded.  The bottom line is that this type of movement provides no benefit to Princess and they really don't want to have to do it.  If they are doing it, it is because they have to and not because they gain anything out of it.  While it wasn't you who used the term, the term "bait and switch" was used here, and that always has a nefarious bent to it.

There have been several posters on here who have been moved at the very last minute and generally to cabins in a location that they really didn’t want.

 

I am facing the prospect on my next cruise and the only reason I am aware of this potential is because the area where I am booked for was closed off on my most recent cruise. It has apparently been the quarantine area for many, many months. I bought that cruise (obviously unaware of this) during a period when the cabin I booked was already being used for quarantine.

I can understand the situation happening if someone booked the cabin long before the area was allocated as quarantine. But why still keep on selling cabins when it is possible that you are going to have to move the affected customers at the very last minute.

 

So as I said above why are Princess still selling those cabins. I put a question mark after bait and switch because it was a question, not a statement. I would be interested in what other possible reasons there are for doing so.
 

I can’t think of any logical reason from a customers perspective to sell me a cabin which has been in the quarantine area for months. From my point of view I may or may not get the cabin I booked in good faith and won’t know until the very last minute if the quarantine zone is moved or reduced in size (or goes altogether). I asked the question while onboard and was told that I would indeed be moved if my cabin was still in the zone but no answer to why they are still being sold.

 

Princess have shown that they are happy to keep selling these cabins and then just move customers from their carefully selected preferred location. I appreciate that Princess don’t want to have to do this however surely there are better ways of doing it that selling attractive cabins then moving folks at the last minute to just what’s left over.

 

In the interest of being fair to Princess on the cruise I was on we spoke to passengers who had been moved and they were happy as they had gone from a standard balcony in the quarantine zone to a mini suite. They only found out they had been moved when printing their labels. 
 

Personally I would prefer to get what I booked with no last minute surprises, good or bad.

 

 

[villauk]

So is Dolphin deck port side the quarantine area on Sky Princess? I only ask as one of our cabins has been moved to another location. If it is Dolphin deck, I’ll cancel all our cabins (4) and reassess our options.

 

Jo and Rob, hope you are doing okay and not suffering too badly? Think we’ve sailed on a Celebrity cruise with you previously - many moons ago 😃.

[JimmyVWine]

4 hours ago, Eglesbrech said:

I can understand the situation happening if someone booked the cabin long before the area was allocated as quarantine. But why still keep on selling cabins when it is possible that you are going to have to move the affected customers at the very last minute.

 

So as I said above why are Princess still selling those cabins. I put a question mark after bait and switch because it was a question, not a statement. I would be interested in what other possible reasons there are for doing so.

The answer is rather simple.  There is a Covid surge happening now that reverses the trend of improvement we had been seeing and at the time the cabins were sold, Princess did not and could not have predicted that Covid cases in March/April/May would far exceed the number of cases in January and February.  Princess isn't going to block out many, many cabins for quarantine if it didn't think that it was going to need them for that purpose.  But now that it realizes that it needs them, they have to move people around.  Again, they gain NOTHING (but grief) for doing this so you can rest assured that they are not doing this intentionally to tick people off, nor are they doing it to boost revenue.

[Ken the cruiser]

1 hour ago, JimmyVWine said:

The answer is rather simple.  There is a Covid surge happening now that reverses the trend of improvement we had been seeing and at the time the cabins were sold, Princess did not and could not have predicted that Covid cases in March/April/May would far exceed the number of cases in January and February.  Princess isn't going to block out many, many cabins for quarantine if it didn't think that it was going to need them for that purpose.  But now that it realizes that it needs them, they have to move people around.  Again, they gain NOTHING (but grief) for doing this so you can rest assured that they are not doing this intentionally to tick people off, nor are they doing it to boost revenue.

If I might ask, where is this surge documented? I can't seem to find it on the JHU trend chart. At least not any resemblance sort of surge when compared to the 2021 or 2022 Holiday seasons or the summer of 2021 with the Delta surge kind of.

 

Have we flattened the curve in the US? - Johns Hopkins (jhu.edu)

 

[JimmyVWine]

16 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

If I might ask, where is this surge documented?

On the ships themselves.  The number of people testing positive while on board is way higher now.  It may not be a CDC-type of surge and instead it might be a "relaxation of precautionary measures" type of surge.

[Ken the cruiser]

12 minutes ago, JimmyVWine said:

On the ships themselves.  The number of people testing positive while on board is way higher now.  It may not be a CDC-type of surge and instead it might be a "relaxation of precautionary measures" type of surge.

Thanks for clarifying. I was just curious. But I agree with you, the rules are changing on the ships. It's now really up to my DW and myself to take whatever protective measures we feel are adequate to protect ourselves while on the cruise, of which I've documented in another thread.

Edited April 19, 2022 by Ken the cruiser

[PescadoAmarillo]

27 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

If I might ask, where is this surge documented? I can't seem to find it on the JHU trend chart. At least not any resemblance sort of surge when compared to the 2021 or 2022 Holiday seasons or the summer of 2021 with the Delta surge kind of.

 

Have we flattened the curve in the US? - Johns Hopkins (jhu.edu)

 

As far as Princess goes, I doubt anyone will ever know the full extent of transmission. This is from the 3/27/22 Ruby Princess roll call:

 

“Just spent 69 minutes trying to explain the debarkation process to a Princess agent. I just asked if the company wanted to know if people tested positive after a cruise. She asked her supervisor and was told no, they didn't need to know since we were off the cruise. She went on to tell me it's just what it is. People catch covid. I tried to explain that Princess didn't follow their own protocols to keep us safe during the debarkation process. She said, "You had to maintain 6 feet distance." I tried to explain how crowded it was in the Wheel House bar. Like talking to theproverbial brick wall. I gave up and told her to help someone else.”