Covid and Royal plus a MTD rant.

[broadwaybaby123]

You're going to find that across lines.  Every single cruise line is short staffed right now.  As for COVID, I can personally verify that it's not just a cruise issue.  No matter how many precautions we take and the cleaning practices we adopt, COVID will be around.

[AlohaLivin]

20 hours ago, davekathy said:

After years of doing MTD, we've switched back to early TD. Good move. Same time (6:00 PM), table and wait staff and excellent service. Both legs of our B2B Explorer cruise. 

Same. Just asked our TA to change us to first seating for all 7 booked cruises and we will re-evaluate things again in 2024.

[brillohead]

On 5/28/2022 at 10:01 AM, smeck said:

On my recently completed cruise on the Allure I read post after post on our Facebook page of more and more cruisers contacting Covid on our cruise. Royal are you listening?

Listening to what?

I did FIVE CRUISES IN A ROW, never wore a mask, shared dining tables with strangers most weeks, did shared excursions / taxi rides in most ports, and didn't get COVID.  

 

[Callan33]

I can attest to covid on the ship. We just got off Allure and my husband just tested positive. My opinion is it's a much more significant risk (one we willing took) on a cruise ship. The problem is that you can be cautious wash your hands, etc.... But if they people around you aren't? We experienced so many people open mouth hack coughing without as much as a hand over their mouth or elbow. If they did, they then seemed to touched everything.  And then don't get me started on the people who walked right out of the restroom without washing their hands. Covid or no covid...this is just gross. We'd traveled to Vegas, several other busy cities in the last couple of months, and by far the cruise ship had the worst hygiene.  Now I finally understand how so many people prior to our sailing and now from our FB group are also saying they've tested positive. It is what it is. 

[rudeney]

20 hours ago, sgmn said:

When Omicron reared its head in Dec/Jan they should of listened to the science that it is way more transmissible and kept the numbers on board at a lower % instead of ramping up. 

 

 

"The Science" has also shown that while Omicron may be more transmissible, it is less harmful.  It is not causing anywhere near as many hospitalizations and deaths as the original or delta variants.   I heard one scientist actually suggesting that Omicron may be the best thing to happen in this pandemic because so many more people will get it and build that natural immunity, but with a tremendously lower risk.  

[sailor05]

On 5/28/2022 at 5:49 PM, smeck said:

I have gone to land based restaurants where they cut hours  and lower the table count for waiters and waitresses.  The cruise lines should cut capacity until they can service all of their guests. 

You are EXACTLY right. If you have 70% staff, you ought to be sailing at 70% capacity. There's your magic number cruisingator...🙄

[sellwingri]

On 5/29/2022 at 7:14 AM, Merion_Mom said:

6 PM?  It's 5:30 on other ships.

I’m currently on Vision in the Med and first seating is at 6pm.  Last month on Harmony, it was at 5pm.  The cruise before was at 5:15.  Guess you don’t really know the time until you board.

[sgmn]

5 hours ago, brillohead said:

I did FIVE CRUISES IN A ROW, never wore a mask, shared dining tables with strangers most weeks, did shared excursions / taxi rides in most ports, and didn't get COVID.  

 

Have you had Omicron before?  I think you get good immunity from particular variants if you've had it already.

Otherwise well done on avoiding it and enjoying your cruises.  

[sgmn]

3 hours ago, rudeney said:

 

"The Science" has also shown that while Omicron may be more transmissible, it is less harmful.  It is not causing anywhere near as many hospitalizations and deaths as the original or delta variants.   I heard one scientist actually suggesting that Omicron may be the best thing to happen in this pandemic because so many more people will get it and build that natural immunity, but with a tremendously lower risk.  

Agree its way less harmful, but the important side issue is the subsequent quarantine that you have to endure if you catch covid on board and the difficulties in getting back to your home country if it still has a negative test mandate to travel. 

Also agree on immunity in the general population. Thats what's happened here. Our rates was 1 in 12 with covid in March. It's now 1 in 60 and continuing downward. Of course all bets are off if a more dangerous variant comes along 🙄 

[sgmn]

41 minutes ago, sellwingri said:

I’m currently on Vision in the Med and first seating is at 6pm.  Last month on Harmony, it was at 5pm.  The cruise before was at 5:15.  Guess you don’t really know the time until you board.

The Meds has always seemed later for set dinning times. I seem to remember it was 9pm years ago 

[lovesthebeach2]

On 5/28/2022 at 10:21 PM, davekathy said:

After years of doing MTD, we've switched back to early TD. Good move. Same time (6:00 PM), table and wait staff and excellent service. Both legs of our B2B Explorer cruise. 

Same for us.  We did MTD for longer than I can remember, but since the restart the earliest time we have been seated was 7 pm and by the time we left it was 830. Our last cruise we switched to early dinner and liked it better. Quicker service, less chaotic for us. I’ve  since changed all  7 upcoming cruises to early dining.

[chmusar]

Just of Anthem and MTD worked great spoke to the Head waiter on Day 1 and got the same table and waiter all week , we always do 8.30pm dining which I reserved before getting on ship so maybe that helped

[island lady]

6 hours ago, sgmn said:

The Meds has always seemed later for set dinning times. I seem to remember it was 9pm years ago 

 

As does PR sailings....later dining...different culture.  

[rudeney]

8 hours ago, sgmn said:

Agree its way less harmful, but the important side issue is the subsequent quarantine that you have to endure if you catch covid on board and the difficulties in getting back to your home country if it still has a negative test mandate to travel. 

 

 

Yep, it's a situation where the world is still in knee-jerk mode so the reaction to the virus is 100x worse than the virus itself.  

[mjkacmom]

20 hours ago, foxgoodrich said:

We think the early and late dining times vary by ship.  When they first changed early dining to 5:30 on a cruise out of Galveston years ago, an officer told us they changed the early dining to 5:30 to make it less popular and the late dining to 8:00 to make it more popular due to a consistent imbalance of requested MDR regular dining times.  More people wanted early than late, and they were trying to get some of them to switch with the new times.  It seems to have worked.  We noticed back then that ships leaving from Florida still had 6:00 and 8:30 dining times, so it may have been a regional thing.

 

Then MTD was introduced, and it complicates the situation.   In the old days half the ship ate early and half ate late, so dining room capacity wasn't an issue.  If you wanted early and it was full when you booked, your only choice was late (or buffet.)  Now they have to allocate capacity for early, late, and MTD, which seems to be harder to get right.

 

We've sailed Norwegian with their "Anytime Dining" and we laughed at the name since our experience was that it was indeed "anytime" and not the time you presented yourself at a dining room for dinner.  We were never seated right away.  We were given a beeper thing, and it took anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to get a table.  So we didn't think they got it right either.  

 

We tried MTD once on Royal and it seemed difficult to get the times we wanted, and sometimes we had to wait.  So we've stuck with late dining because there is less hassle.  8:00 is definitely better than 8:30 though!

We’ve sailed NCL 4 times with our family of 7, never made a reservation, never waited for a table, went all different times. We prefer the larger MDR.

[fpcruiser]

On 5/29/2022 at 12:14 AM, Merion_Mom said:

6 PM?  It's 5:30 on other ships.

Our recent Freedom cruise our dining time said 6pm. The dining room opened at about 5:45 so that's when we went.

 

[smeck]

22 hours ago, brillohead said:

Listening to what?

I did FIVE CRUISES IN A ROW, never wore a mask, shared dining tables with strangers most weeks, did shared excursions / taxi rides in most ports, and didn't get COVID.  

 

Count your blessings 

[brillohead]

17 hours ago, sgmn said:

Have you had Omicron before?  I think you get good immunity from particular variants if you've had it already.

Otherwise well done on avoiding it and enjoying your cruises.  

Nope, never had any variant, unless I had the original back in January 2020 before we knew that this was going to be made into a big deal.  (Early January I had what I assumed at the time was influenza -- fever, fatigue, cough -- unsure which it was, don't really care, as the treatment for both was the same: rest and fluids.)

I've only been regular-vaccinated, no boosters at all.  

 

35 minutes ago, smeck said:

Count your blessings 

Meh, for the vast majority of the population, it's only ever been the equivalent of a regular cold.  I understand the need for extra protective measures for those at risk (elderly, immunocompromised, comorbidities), but the general population hasn't had nearly as much to fear as the media and government have wanted us to believe.  JMHO

[Cruising89143]

18 hours ago, sailor05 said:

You are EXACTLY right. If you have 70% staff, you ought to be sailing at 70% capacity. There's your magic number cruisingator...🙄

LOL…What’s the Magic number for reducing Covid which was one of the OP’s complaints? What’s the magic number for RCI to limit capacity that will eliminate Covid? Let me help you…There isn’t one. By the way, I can give the same SA eye roll. 🙄🙄😉

[Lorey2007]

On 5/29/2022 at 12:14 AM, Merion_Mom said:

6 PM?  It's 5:30 on other ships.

On our Ovation cruise it's 5:00😬

[LaCal]

I’ve been following quite a few FB roll calls for the Quantum Alaska cruises….once’s before ours and ones after ours 

 

We both got Covid on ours and each and every sailing so far has quite a few cases 😓😓

 

Just reading lots of posts from guests who just got off the 23rd sailing and a lot are now testing positive once home and there were quite a few who tested positive while onboard and had to be quarantined….Those posts alone are eye opening on how they are treated or lack of I should say while in isolation…..Hours to get food or water and medical not answering their phone calls 🙈

 

Most guests have minor symptoms of coughing, congestion, weakness BUT there are a few who’ve had breathing problems and needed further treatment 

 

Royal sees how many cases each sailing are happening of guests and crew and IMO should at least bring Back mask mandates for now and bring back staff serving in the buffet 

 

The amount of coughing and hacking and nose picking and then guests picking up tongs etc on my cruise was enough to stop us from going to the buffet at all and we are skipping it 100% on our next cruise 

[rudeney]

2 hours ago, LaCal said:

I’ve been following quite a few FB roll calls for the Quantum Alaska cruises….once’s before ours and ones after ours 

 

We both got Covid on ours and each and every sailing so far has quite a few cases 😓😓

 

Just reading lots of posts from guests who just got off the 23rd sailing and a lot are now testing positive once home and there were quite a few who tested positive while onboard and had to be quarantined….Those posts alone are eye opening on how they are treated or lack of I should say while in isolation…..Hours to get food or water and medical not answering their phone calls 🙈

 

Most guests have minor symptoms of coughing, congestion, weakness BUT there are a few who’ve had breathing problems and needed further treatment 

 

Royal sees how many cases each sailing are happening of guests and crew and IMO should at least bring Back mask mandates for now and bring back staff serving in the buffet 

 

The amount of coughing and hacking and nose picking and then guests picking up tongs etc on my cruise was enough to stop us from going to the buffet at all and we are skipping it 100% on our next cruise 

 

It seems to me that the way passengers are treated for a positive test is much worse than the effects of the disease itself.  Given the negligible number of people being hospitalized for the latest Sars-CoV-2 strain, instead of mask mandates, maybe they should just discontinue testing and quarantines.  If people feel healthy enough to cruise, let them make their own decisions.  There is always a risk of getting some illness when around a large number of people in small spaces.  And yes, some people will have underlying conditions, maybe even unknown to them, that put them at greater risk when contracting any disease.

 

As for buffet issues, it has always been this way.  Many people just tend to be unsanitary, but it hasn't killed me yet.  In fact, I've probably gotten more sick from food being improperly prepared and cross-contamination in the kitchen than by handling a buffet tong.  

[MrCoachRentz]

59 minutes ago, rudeney said:

 

It seems to me that the way passengers are treated for a positive test is much worse than the effects of the disease itself.  Given the negligible number of people being hospitalized for the latest Sars-CoV-2 strain, instead of mask mandates, maybe they should just discontinue testing and quarantines.  If people feel healthy enough to cruise, let them make their own decisions.  There is always a risk of getting some illness when around a large number of people in small spaces.  And yes, some people will have underlying conditions, maybe even unknown to them, that put them at greater risk when contracting any disease.

 

As for buffet issues, it has always been this way.  Many people just tend to be unsanitary, but it hasn't killed me yet.  In fact, I've probably gotten more sick from food being improperly prepared and cross-contamination in the kitchen than by handling a buffet tong.  

A lot of truth in this post!