Ken the cruiser

Interesting. Right now we're booked on a 14 day Northern Lights RT cruise out of Southampton leaving on Oct 5th and returning Oct 19th. Since I would imagine it would take the Island longer than 3 days to get to Haifa from Southampton and it's currently sitting off Cypres right now, this doesn't add to our confidence factor that our cruise is actually going to happen. If true, which I don't doubt considering all that's going on, I wonder how long it will take Princess to let us know if/when the Island schedule does change?

You are correct, but the Nov 1, 2021 date is listed in the following document which is referenced in the "Code" document I pulled the quote from that was listed in my above post: https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/cruise/covid19-cruiseships.html

I could be wrong, but I thought only those cruise ships currently scheduled to dock at a US post prior to Nov 1st needed to be on the list. All cruise ships operating in U.S. waters, or seeking to operate in U.S. waters, must comply with all of the requirements under the Framework for Conditional Sailing Order and Technical Instructions even when outside U.S. waters.

I'm sure he had his political reasons, but I'm just glad he did what he did. I'm also glad the CLIA earlier asked the CDC to allow sailing from US ports to start back up in July. I'm also glad CDC formally released their Phase 2 Technical Instructions and subsequently suggest cruising out of US ports could start back up by mid summer. And of course we can't overlook the fact that 3.2+ million COVID vaccine doses are being administered daily here in the US with plenty more on the way! From my point of view, the table is now set for the various Big Dogs to come together and figure ou

LOL!! When you think about the big picture, we're all pretty much in the peanut gallery when it comes to the CDC and the cruise lines coming to their individual agreements to be allowed to sail out of US ports again. But I must say it's fun to speculate as it keeps us all somewhat engaged with the cruising world until we can once again get back out there sailing on the high seas!

I understand. But you would think they could find some common ground, especially with the amount of vaccines flowing in the US now, on some of those more costly issues to satisfy both parties if they just sat down and discussed them versus going public with their ultimatum. After all, we're only talking about the Phase 2B and 4 start-up cruises? But, that's their call. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

The document you referenced, Technical Instructions for Mitigation of COVID-19 Among Cruise Ship Crew, covers the following: "This document provides instructions for the initial phases of CDC’s Framework for Conditional Sailing Order for cruise ship operations in U.S. waters to ensure health and safety protections for the crew prior to resuming passenger operations in a way that mitigates the risk of spreading COVID-19." or am I missing something as I was referring in my post to the CDC Technical Instructions Phase 2A preparatory requirement to start Phase 2B test cruis

Recieved some great news from my granddaughter today who is 16. She has an appointment for her first Pfizer shot next Tuesday! Adding that to our son getting his first Moderna shot this past Friday along his wife getting her second Moderna shot earlier in the week, we can now all safely go on a family cruise again. It's amazing how much stress disappears once your family members are able to get vaccinated as well! 😁

We're addicted to cruising and I'll bet you can guess my first name. 🙃

Anyone heard of any movement on the part of Princess to work on the Phase 2A preparatory requirements defined in the CDC Technical Instructions to prepare the Caribbean Princess for her Phase 2B test cruise? Seems to me that would be the smart move to reach the potential goal of Phase 4 restricted cruises starting in July, especially when all the other cruise lines seem to be dragging their feet in this area.

But X is only giving antigen tests prior to debarkation, not PCR tests. Like @Fouremcosaid.

I just think this is cool! We did a B2B around Cuba on the Oceana Sirena back in April 2018 and had a wonderful time and meet some great people. I don't want to get into the politics of it all, but I just thought it was cool Cuba has created and is testing their own vaccines with apparent success so far. Cuba says it's 'betting it safe' with its own Covid vaccine (msn.com)

This is from the Celebrity Heath and Safety Protocol page associated with their new Greek cruises. Celebrity Cruises Requirements: Adult guests and crew members must have proof of full vaccination administered two weeks prior to embark. Children under the age of 18 must have a negative PCR test result within 5 days of embarkation. Celebrity will administer an antigen test to all guests 2 and older at the terminal and again at debarkation for country re-entry. How will children under the age of 18 get a negative PCR test to qualify for the second leg? My uninformed guess

I've been thinking about what you wrote and I have to agree with you. Let's take Celebrity, for example (or any other individual cruise line, such as HAL, Princess, Oceania, etc.). It really doesn't make logical sense why X doesn't go out on their own to perform the required Phase 2A preparatory work for one or two of their cruise ships (e.g., the Edge and Equinox) based out of Ft Lauderdale in preparation for Phase 2B test cruises, ultimately leading to restricted Phase 4 cruises in July. Just think of all the pent up demand of those that want to go cruising again they could tap i

When we tried to book a July 2021 B2B2B a couple of weeks ago on Celebrity's new startup Millennium cruise out of St Maarten, they would not allow B2Bs. Never heard a reason why, but since CDC wasn't involved, we're guessing is was a St Maarten stipulation. I can see why the Bahamas might not object since the Serenity was simply circling their own islands and they didn't object when RCCL was offering B2Bs on their new start-up cruises out of Nassau this summer. But in this case, the Symphony will be ported out of Antigua and stopping at quite a few Caribbean islands. On the bright