HAL further relaxes protocols...

[iflyrc5]

I have 2 - 14 day collector cruises booked back to back for a total of 28 days leaving on the NA Nov 6.  When I put in the booking numbers for each of the collector's cruises it states I don't need vaxed (We have 2 plus 3 boosters) and no testing.  However - we will be on the ship for 28 days.   I have a call into my TA to verify that we don't need to be tested.

[Navybikermom]

3 hours ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

 

Whoa... Even better!!

 

According to this link, cruises as long as 21 days are not required to be vaccinated OR any tests. If the link at Hal's site is correct, that means the article published is incorrect and the relaxed protocols are not limited to cruises 15 days or less.

 

Example... I clicked on link for Nieuw Statendam that says "standard". That is a 21 day sailing departing in December, but the link indicated no testing needed.

 

 

 

 

Am I missing something? 

Seems legit to me! According to the listing, the Panama Canal itineraries (over 15 days) are under the standard protocol. Hopefully it stays that way for mine in January. 🤗

[sayvan]

On 10/30/2022 at 3:18 PM, iflyrc5 said:

I have 2 - 14 day collector cruises booked back to back for a total of 28 days leaving on the NA Nov 6.  When I put in the booking numbers for each of the collector's cruises it states I don't need vaxed (We have 2 plus 3 boosters) and no testing.  However - we will be on the ship for 28 days.   I have a call into my TA to verify that we don't need to be tested.

Curious to see what your result is.  

[iflyrc5]

15 minutes ago, sayvan said:

Curious to see what your result is.  

Waiting to hear back from my TA.

[BermudaBound2014]

According to the HAL site, cruises up to 40 days are included in standard (no protocols). It could be actually longer than 40 days, but the longest I see with no protocols is 40 days. I think it's simply dependent on destination. Those of you with 28 day itineraries should be good to go as long as the destination doesn't require.

 

Edited November 1, 2022 by BermudaBound2014

[iflyrc5]

10 hours ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

According to the HAL site, cruises up to 40 days are included in standard (no protocols). It could be actually longer than 40 days, but the longest I see with no protocols is 40 days. I think it's simply dependent on destination. Those of you with 28 day itineraries should be good to go as long as the destination doesn't require.

 

Where did you find the 40 day criteria on the HAL site - I can't find it?  OK - it looks like you put in a long cruise in the tool they have.   I am doing 28 day back to back with different booking numbers and then 42 days with different booking numbers.  Each of the bookings show standard protocols

Edited November 2, 2022 by iflyrc5
added information

[StLouisCruisers]

Our 28 day Amazon River cruise on Volendam coming up in a little over two weeks required enhance protocol and we will have to test for Covid within 3 days of embarkation.  Destination is one of the factors I believe in determining testing protocols.

[BermudaBound2014]

13 hours ago, iflyrc5 said:

Where did you find the 40 day criteria on the HAL site - I can't find it? 

 

Post #19 from MightyCruiseQueen offered this link:

 https://book2.hollandamerica.com/protocols/?voyage=all

 

It lists all the cruises and the protocols. It's one of the best I've seen from cruise lines in terms of easily understood. I just looked for the longest cruise listed with 'standard' protocols, so according to HAL,  there are no protocols for cruises up to at least 40 nights. 

 

2 hours ago, StLouisCruisers said:

Our 28 day Amazon River cruise on Volendam coming up in a little over two weeks required enhance protocol and we will have to test for Covid within 3 days of embarkation.  Destination is one of the factors I believe in determining testing protocols.

 

Destination is positively one of the factors in determining the protocols. Actually, it appears to be the only factor.  Your sailing is one of the few listed as 'enhanced' on the link above.

 

 

Bon Voyage and I hope you have a wonderful time.

[ukpylot]

Surely it is the destination that determines this - right now South America cruises require testing but Chile eliminated their requirements last month so I'm hoping that next year's SA trips will go to the Standard protocol.

[Mary229]

Even though cruises from next year are on the list I expect a full blown revision of protocols for 2023.  I would not concern myself right now about what is going to happen in 2023

[BermudaBound2014]

I realize this is the HAL forum, but some people maybe interested in keeping track of what is happening across the industry.

 

As of today,  ALL major cruise lines have removed protocols (unless destination requires) and it doesn't appear their are any length requirements. NCL was first. Then CCL (including HAL), and just today Disney removed all testing and RCL/Celebrity have emails posted to social media groups indicating the same. Up until today, unvaccinated guests of RCL were required to test if the cruise was longer than 10 days. It appears to me that the only protocol requirements are those established by the destination (and there aren't many).

 

 

 

 

 

There are a few little nuances so be sure to check your individual sailings, but for the vast majority of passengers; all Covid protocols are finally in the rear view window!! No vaccinations. No Testing.

 

 

 

Edited November 2, 2022 by BermudaBound2014

[cruisemom42]

3 hours ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

Post #19 from MightyCruiseQueen offered this link:

 https://book2.hollandamerica.com/protocols/?voyage=all

 

It lists all the cruises and the protocols. It's one of the best I've seen from cruise lines in terms of easily understood. I just looked for the longest cruise listed with 'standard' protocols, so according to HAL,  there are no protocols for cruises up to at least 40 nights. 

 

I wish it went further out than early 2023. I'm wondering what the protocols will be if HAL does sail Westerdam to Asia and completes her itineraries in Japan...

 

[KroozNut]

10 minutes ago, cruisemom42 said:

 

I wish it went further out than early 2023. I'm wondering what the protocols will be if HAL does sail Westerdam to Asia and completes her itineraries in Japan...

 

 

Me too, but I suppose they don't want to go too far out, because Itineraries sometimes change due to ship schedules (as ours did recently), and these protocols are so heavily dependent upon destinations visited.

[Crazy For Cats]

I received our health assessment notice overnight.  The message states that guests who are fully vaccinated do not need to test.  Those 5 and above who are not vaccinated must test.  The link to confirm with HAL states differently.  This will cause many some last minute stress.

[BermudaBound2014]

5 hours ago, Crazy For Cats said:

I received our health assessment notice overnight.  The message states that guests who are fully vaccinated do not need to test.  Those 5 and above who are not vaccinated must test.  The link to confirm with HAL states differently.  This will cause many some last minute stress.

 

Let us know which information from HAL is wrong, the email or the website. 

 

I suspect the health assessment notice you received overnight was an auto generated email set up long ago. That is what has been happening with NCLH. Guests are getting these auto emails that were set up prior to the relaxed protocols. The auto emails are incorrect and are causing much last minute confusion :(.

 

On a side note, I'm listening to the conference call from RCL's third quarter release and they just said that changing protocols in August increased their bookings by 3.5 million almost instantly. They are very clear that relaxing protocols has had a very positive effect on bookings and even said they feel places like Australia are going to relax in the next few months.

 

 

 

 

 

[FlaMariner]

4 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

changing protocols in August increased their bookings by 3.5 million almost instantly. They are very clear that relaxing protocols has had a very positive effect on bookings

 

That's great news for all of us that like to cruise........We need them making $$$ again.

[Crazy For Cats]

1 minute ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

 

Let us know which information from HAL is wrong, the email or the website. 

 

I suspect the health assessment notice you received overnight was an auto generated email set up long ago. That is what has been happening with NCLH. Guests are getting these auto emails that were set up prior to the relaxed protocols. The auto emails are incorrect and are causing much last minute confusion :(.

 

On a side note, I'm listening to the conference call from RCL's third quarter release and they just said that changing protocols in August increased their bookings by 3.5 million almost instantly. They are very clear that relaxing protocols has had a very positive effect on bookings and even said they feel places like Australia are going to relax in the next few months.

 

 

 

 

 

I will report back.  Since we are vaccinated I’m not concerned.  We are bringing cards anyway.

[Mary229]

This thread is meant to be about protocols not a health bulletin.  So they dropped protocols they also continue to sell alcohol, high sugar beverages, cholesterol laden food etc….  For heavens sake, they even sell cigarettes.   Let’s stick to the topic of protocols instead of going into a health lecture.  

Edited November 4, 2022 by Mary229

[mightycruisequeen]

6 hours ago, HappyInVan said:

 

Let's think about it. What does it mean if there's a high infection rate onboard? HAL can unload the pax every 7 days. But, they can't do the same for the crew.

 

Who's going to run the ship, clean the staterooms, and man the the kitchens?

 

The crew are the litmus test. The canary in the coal mine.

The sky is not falling.  Breathe.  Go take a walk outside. 

We're not all gonna die.

[Level six]

On 10/30/2022 at 11:17 AM, mightycruisequeen said:

Nope!   I printed out the Protocols for our specific sailing in 2022, and you better believe I'm bringing it with us to the pier for check-in.

I did the same with Princess on a recent cruise in August/ September.  We had in writing that since we had booked a cruise that was sold as a 30 day (also sold as  14 and 16 day) that we would NOT need to test on turn around day. I had it printed with the Princess logo from the Princess site.  On the turn around day we had to test.  I showed the letter, talked to person after person and they basically said, "too bad, test or get off the ship"  Luckily we tested negative and were allowed to continue on the cruise. But we did get covid when we got home, end of September and are still sick.  It's not a joke for some and we were healthy and younger than most.  Good luck. 

Edited November 4, 2022 by Level six

[DaveOKC]

23 hours ago, HappyInVan said:

 

Thanks. Which ship and itinerary? Are they allowing the crew to drop the masks?

 

 

On our Oct 13-29 cruise on the Eurodam the crew wore masks for the first 3 or 4 days and then dropped them (crew very happy).  A week or so later they were told masks were optional??

[Damcruiser]

This will be interesting.  We’re on three consecutive back to back cruises for a total of 49 days.

COVID will not go away just because protocols are changed to attract more cruisers.

however, we are fully vaccinated  and we hope we won’t suffer too badly from either a cold, the flu or the latest version of COVID 

[mightycruisequeen]

8 hours ago, HappyInVan said:

 

 

 

The financial problems of CCL is well documented. I'm worried that the cruise lines are relaxing too much too soon. Once HAL collects your FP, they can do what they like. Blame it on the destinations!

 

On embarkation day, pax face the big question. Sail or no-sail???

 

How much longer would you have them wait?  Until they go completely belly-up?

[latserrof]

On 11/4/2022 at 7:04 AM, mightycruisequeen said:

The sky is not falling.  Breathe.  Go take a walk outside. 

We're not all gonna die.

IMHO HappyInVan makes a good point about crew wearing masks. In any case, there is no need for insult.

 

And yes, we are all going to die.

Edited November 5, 2022 by latserrof

[Daniel A]

For cruises that have the "standard' protocols, will there still be a VeriFly lane at embarkation?  How would one upload documentation which is not needed?