KidCruze

Am I following you correctly? You believe masks prevent covid, you made a conscious decision to not wear a mask when you were capable of wearing one, and you are upset with someone else for not wearing a mask because you caught covid. Am I missing something?

I've been willing to cruise during the entire covid pandemic, but I'm just not going to with burdensome protocols in place. I don't mind vaccine requirements and pre-cruise testing. I view those as legitimate requirements that do not hinder the onboard experience. I do not want to cruise with a mask on. That causes me stress and reduces my fun. I go on vacation to relax and have fun. I am finally about to cruise in Alaska, after a 2.5 year wait, and then this past Sunday, HAL changed their mask rules back to "required indoors" for Alaskan cruises. That's a bummer. If it was just my wife and I, I would take a refund, but we are traveling with a her family, so its a little more complicated. I was prepared to spend a lot of money on board (relative, a lot of money to us, probably not to others🤣). We haven't cruised in a long time and I'm ready cut loose. We had planned to book a lot of spa appointments. I think there are a lot of people like me, not overly concerned with catching covid, they would rather just do something else with less hassle. Maybe I'll be grumpy on the ship Sunday, or maybe I'll be on a beach in Florida. If I'm on the ship with a mask, I'm certainly not spending money in the spa. I hope the cruise lines right the ship economically, because we love cruising, and I hope they are around for a long time. The ship I am booked on was only at 60% capacity before making the mask change and before people test prior to embarking, so that number will likely go down. I think cruise lines are going to have to remove all covid restrictions in order to get people back and start making money. They may have waited too long already. With the economy tightening up, and people not already having a cruise booked, I expect the money they would've normally allocated to a cruise will get spent on other stuff rather than new cruise bookings.

Princess updated their mask policy to “masks are required between Whittier and Vancouver.” Not sure if that means cruises that originated in SF or not. Are they enforcing that rule on your cruise now? I see you mentioned they were not at the beginning of your cruise, just wondering if that changed when the guidelines changed. Looks like y’all are having a blast! Thanks for the posts.

Well…my email from Sunday and the website yesterday, said cruises leaving from Whittier require masks, but now the website says “to/from Whittier or Vancouver”, so I guess they changed it. https://www.hollandamerica.com/en_US/worry-free-promise/travel-well/frequently-asked-questions/faq-for-cruises-from-usa.html it says updated June 15, 2022 I spent a lot of time trying to get through to HAL yesterday. I am supposed to sail from Whittier on Sunday. They offered a refund of my cruise fare, but had not figured out if they could refund my airfare I booked through them.

Kamfish, according to the website it only applies to cruises from Whittier, AK to Vancouver, Canada.