arkaine23

10 minutes ago, ScottsSweetie said:

To what end? So that people will panic? There WILL be positive cases on each and every cruise. If everyone on the ship has a negative pre-boarding test, 95% of the population is vaccinated and everyone is wearing masks, then what is to be gained by knowing the exact details of every sailing?

Which is why I followed up that snippet with there's no story until a ship is approaching red status numbers.  And also note that I did not say that these numbers should be reported constantly.  I would like them to be available somewhere, but I think only a large outbreak is actually newsworthy.    Someone has to try to track it.  My line of thinking says it should be journalists.  We shouldn't rely on foreign countries' health organizations to blow the whistle to their news media on ships with higher than average cases, like Belize did.

7 minutes ago, ScottsSweetie said:

We know that the vloggers Parodeejay were quarantined on the Mardi Gras, but it was only for one night. There were apparently several other passengers who disembarked alongside them down the crew gangway that were also in the quarantined group but I have not heard how long those people were in quarantine before disembarkation.

IMO reporters should be watching these crew exits for large numbers.  Also, requesting FOIA disclosure of the case counts from the CDC.  There's really no story until a ship goes red IMO, but it sure would be nice to have more transparency from cruise lines or the CDC, and interviews about positive passenger's experiences.  Its hard to know and plan for risks if cruise lines aren't being transparent.

35 minutes ago, TravelBluebird said:

 

I would love a definitive answer on this before I get on a Carnival ship. If you are positive with mild symptoms, do you simply stay on the ship in quarantine until it returns to the original US port, or does Carnival disembark you at the next port whatever that is? I know RC was disembarking people (and flying them back) but that seemed to be a special arrangement in the Bahamas.  

Speculation:

• Ship's doctor would make the call to evacuate you if you need better care than the ship's medical facility can provide
• Total cases onboard reaching a high water mark so to speak could also necessitate deboarding of some sick passengers and/or crew.  The line wouldn't want a ship to reach an infection threshold where ports would disallow debarkation or the CDC might assign red status.  Seems like deboarding for quarantine per port agreements might serve to alleviate the pressure of a rising outbreak.

According to a youtube blogger, 68 passengers were randomly tested during debarkation in Belize.  idk where he got that info.  I didn't see it in any of the new stories.  He also had rough testing numbers indicating contact tracing on the ship tested ~900 people over 3 days, mostly crew, and that the entire crew (which he had the number 1441) had been tested in a period of a week or less.

8 hours ago, NavyCruiser said:

Now that the kiddos should all be back for the new school year, I'm thinking that the cruise lines should just simplify their cruising policies for us all:  100% Everything cruise...

With the scientific data showing that death rates for fully vaccinated people are almost Zero, cruise lines should just state for ALL cruises until the end of the year are only allowed for: 

1.  100% fully vaccinated cruisers

2.  100% fully vaccinated crew members

3.  All guests must sign a death/holdharmless waiver, thus no legal action against cruise line for any reason

4.  No masks required anywhere onboard ship

5.  No masks required at any destination ports.  If local ports balks, I'm fine with just cruising between Texas & Florida, and cruise lines' privately owned islands (ex:  half moon cay...)

 

So by simplifying these policies to allow fully vaccinated cruisers to CHOOSE to freely cruise & accepts the minimal risks to travel with other fully vaccinated guests, who also make the CHOICE to go cruising.  For those who don't like these policies, can CHOOSE the many other cruise lines.

 

Please, please, please do not reply with political, pro & anti vaccine arguments on this post.

I'm just offering a simple suggestion...

Thoughts...?

1, 2, and 3, ok.  Prefer masks especially when I see a day like today with record breaking 27k+ new cases in Tx, and most hospitals running out of ICU.

26 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

More like 27 out 7500, +/-. The cases were over TWO cruises. Vista is expected to sail today as scheduled, as I predicted. Once again the doom and gloom false prophets were wrong.

You forgot to add the passengers that were positive last week.  If you add last week to the denominator, you should do the same with the numerator.

It doesn't really matter that there was a dividing line between 2 cruises, except the cases that debarked after the 1st cruise, which is the 4-5 you forgot add.  That's like hopping across the international date line.  Its an arbitrary demarcation of time.  And like saying a Friday case doesn't count but a Saturday case does?  A pretty significant number of crew tested positive within a few days of each other and went into isolation, far more cases than has been reported on any other ship since restart.  When this was an unconfirmed report early this week I was kind of hopeful it was a number between 2 cruises and that a chunk of them from the 1st cruise were debarked for quarantine and not present during the 2nd cruise.  But no, 27 is the number of positive cases on the ship when it rolled into foreign ports of call this week.  That's very nearly 1.5% of the crew.

Thankfully, Carnival responded appropriately to the situation by testing contact traced passengers and the entire crew, and appear to have it under control.

2 hours ago, firefly333 said:

@BlerkOneI saw your post earlier. Idk if you saw the bit that Belize was doing random tests and I think 60 were done, didnt memorize all the numbers. Hes been digging for information for us.

 

 

 

 

According to that, 68 passengers were randomly rapid tested by Belizian authorities during the day's stop in port.  All negative results.

On 8/10/2021 at 8:07 AM, dinoroger said:

CVS Free.

Did you answer yes about travel?  Did you answer yes about positive contact and/or symptoms?

Did your insurance kick back the cost later and you wound up owing CVS $139? 

My insurance, Cigna, confirmed they will not cover testing for travel.  Cruising on the 28th. My hot take is don't mention travel.  Answer affirmative about contact and symptoms.  Otherwise, risk paying full price.

Please feel free to refute, bc I'd like options.

1 hour ago, BlerkOne said:

The only protocols are that Carnival had to have agreements with hotels - even the CDC admits that they may not have occupancy available. Carnival has to have transportation arrangements. Nothing says they have to use either. There also has to be sufficient local health care, which in many places, there is not currently. Some people are having to go 100 miles or more for a hospital bed.

 

Someone who drove their personal car to the port may certainly be allowed to drive it to a quarantine hotel, and if they choose not to stop? Oh well. I'd drive the speed limit to the county line.

 

We continue to agree to disagree.

Galveston's trauma service area of counties is out of ICU beds.  They still have regular hospital beds and  can do a few makeshift ICU.  Thankfully, serious illness is rare for the vaccinated.

To the OP:  its unlikely.  Early response in 2020 was to an unknown pathogen.  Now there are quarantine debark agreements in place at every port and there are ways to handle covid patients.

There is still a risk that a ship-board outbreak could reach the threshold to end a cruise early however.

44 minutes ago, Brew12 said:

My understanding is that it works something like this.

 

If a ship has a positive case it goes to orange. If the number of positive cases exceeds 0.1% of passengers (or reports from passengers within 5 days of the end of the cruise) then it goes to yellow. The CDC starts an investigation and looks at how many people are testing positive, how many are sick, and the medical/QT capabilities of the ship being investigated. It will only go to red if the CDC believes the ship needs to return to port early or needs outside help to handle the outbreak.

New crew that are in their initial 2 week quarantine also trigger Orange.

Vista is out of Galveston, Tx so the on-going FL lawsuit against the CSO isn't a factor.

This is probably a between-2-sailings number of crew, and certainly Carnival puts some of them off the ship to quarantine, if so. Bc why risk continued spread among the crew, when required crew testing is a big chunk of the data you send to the CDC?

The criteria for red ship status are vague if you look them up.  We might expect them to be similar to simulated voyage thresholds or 10x yellow status thresholds because those are published numbers.  But it really seems to be a CDC investigation judgement call.  As someone mentioned earlier, losing control of it or persistence between voyages or even ultimate bad outcomes of the ship-linked cases like deaths seem to be important factors in the red status determination, moreso than just percentages of detected cases.

Just an opinion.

8 minutes ago, TNcruising02 said:

I'm not sure of the correct threshold, but when I was keeping up with the lawsuit, 1.5% infection rate was mentioned.  If the ship sailed with 3,000 people, then they could have less than 45 without reaching the threshold.  I think the cruise line is still safe, but is definitely being proactive with the testing and masks so they won't reach the threshold where the CDC will shut them down again.  The 1.5% was an arguing point made that the state of Florida thought it was too low for the cruise lines to be shut down again.

There's only like ~1500-1800 crew IIRC. 

Wow.  That's more than 1% of the crew.   Makes me wonder what it takes for red status... simply on-going transmission among the crew cruise to cruise, breaking a 1.5%+ threshold in a week?

If the source is credible...

3 hours ago, Cruisesfun65 said:

 

Incorrect. There's supposed to be a smoking and a non smoking area. Now it's all smoking. 

Isn't the new non-smoking section of the casino just on a few ships right now, like Breeze has it?  Not sure if Vista or Horizon do.

As for full indoor smoking ban, I know Vista implemented that along with masks last week by captain's orders due to the handful of cases that were detected.  But I don't think the new mask policy on its own includes no smoking in the casino or that that smoking restriction is being applied to any sailings this week.

Carnival requires insurance for unvaccinated passengers on Tx and Fl cruises.  Unvaccinated will be tested prior to debarkation, so you should be ok.  But its possible that contact tracing from anyone that tests positive could prompt you all to be tested.  We don't know much about Carnival's contact tracing aside from unvaccinated kids testing positive leads to vaccinated adults in the same party being tested.  It could also involve being in an excursion with someone who tested positive (as a different cruise line has demonstrated).

Responding to mutiple things but quotes are failing me. 

This seems very likely the first cases Carnival has dealt with in Galveston, almost certainly the first for the crew of Breeze.  Majority of the crew is newly hired, and was recently rushed through training.   Rumors about Horizon indicate that at least some cases are being detected days after the cruise, so no crew response possible for those.  Not trying to make excuses, just that's the situation at the moment.

From that list of hotels....

Webster is close to galveston and cheaper than galveston hotels, which double their prices in the summer.  At least one is by an airport.  And one is by the Texas Medical Center, the largest group of medical facilities in the world.  So some options there based on a passenger's priorities- price, flying home, medical care needed...

As for room service charges... this is a complaint about a mistake/lack of good hospitality.  Other lines have done better at the little things like that.

1 hour ago, pokerguy90 said:

But if the ship is 95% vax, and there is a almost equal effectiveness of the vax. What is the point of the mask onboard.  Who are we protecting?

How about the people in the countries we stop at, where vaccine availablity is super low?

Or the people back in our home cities where vaxx rates are 40-60% that come in contact with the vaccinated cruisers who brought it back from the cruise?  If wearing masks while on the cruise could have stopped some cruisers from getting it, then the people they might have spread it to at home would also have been protected by the masks being worn on the ship.

The cruise ship crew and the next sailing's passengers that might get it from them?

The 5% of exceptions and their families?

Breaking chains of transmission always has some value.  Masks aren't perfect protection and some people wear them incorrecrly, but they help a lot when deployed at large as a mitigation measure.  It was one thing when we thought our vaccines were 90%+ effective also would prevent us from spreading it if we still got it.  But we've come to realize that with Delta, neither of those things are true.

No worries here if masks were to become required.

I will wear a mask in a crowd.

I will wear a mask with colors loud.

I will wear one on a boat.

I will wear one with a goat.

I will avoid covid if I can.

I do not want covid, sam I am.  /drseuss

Surprised and not surprised.   Do what you want within the rules.  Masks don't bother me, especially the Cariloha bamboo viscose blend masks.  We have local Carilohas in Houston and Galveston, but you can also buy them online.  Heat is one of the reasons we always cruise in March-May, or September, so I understand the july/august cruisers' stance that heat + mask isn't ideal.  I'll be wearing one and getting off the ship.  I want some beach time where the water and sand aren't brown!  Hospitalized covid patients in Texas have nearly quadrupled since the lowest point we reached just last month.   Who knows how much higher that'll be in another month when we cruise?

Seems like Orange is not as bad as Yellow, and Horizon was Yellow for 3 weeks straight.  I think this is a reset to neutral after being Yellow and having triggered multiple consecutive investigations.

The trigger for Yellow is 3+ passenger cases (0.1%) when passenger count is below 3000 as it has been for the recent voyages, or a late/missing submission of required daily data from the ship.  Unknown if there is a crew case % threshold to go to Yellow.  If there is one, it isn't published.

Cruise lines don't want to submit their ships to constant CDC/USCG inspections in order to be allowed to dock in US ports, and don't want to be liable in passenger lawsuits over not doing enough to protect them from C-19.  Therefore they'll choose to follow CDC guidelines regardless of what the courts say about the enforcibility of the CSO in Florida.  ...I think is what Brew12 was saying...

I guess I just find it interesting that you are concerned that the CDC would do that, as if their goal is to stick it to the cruise industry and make cruising un-fun instead of their actual boring-old goal of protecting public health.  Or that Florida's lawsuit is somehow all that's preventing the CDC from going off the rails as far as safety protocols with no valid justification....

They've negotiated two sets of operational orders/guidelines that appear to be working for now.  That didn't happen without CLIA giving some input about what they thought they could reasonably manage while getting operations restarted.  Unless the combined CSO and individual cruise lines' protocols start resulting in failure to contain C-19 transmission aboard ships to a reasonable level and thereby prove to be insufficient, I find it unlikely that the CDC would move their Conditional Sailing phases in a backwards direction.  I'm not saying a new mask mandate for ships couldn't or won't happen.  I just think that there'd be a good reason for it if it did- like cases exploding in the US, a dangerous new variant of concern, large outbreaks detected aboard ships, etc.

If anything, choosing to non-comply with the CSO if the lawsuit ultimately results in having that option, would be when a mask requirement would be levied and targeted to those ships that choose not to comply with CSO guidelines.

2 hours ago, TNcruising02 said:

Carnival can use CDC guidance in order to sail with mostly vaccinated.  They have cleverly been able to do this.  As it is now, there are few mask requirements on the ships.  However, that could change if Florida loses their court case on the appeal.  Then the CDC can mandate masks for everyone on cruise ships and the cruise lines would have no choice but to require them.  

My cruise is in a little over three weeks and I am waiting to see how this plays out.  If masks are required at all times on the ship, I am going to move my cruise.  As it is right now, the CDC's recommendations are just guidance and not mandates since the judge ruled against them.  I don't know how long it will take for the CDC's appeal.

What nonsense is this now?  Its a fluid situation, I know....

I'm pretty sure that

A)  Carnival and every other line sailing from Florida is choosing to continue to voluntarily follow the CSO regardless of Florida's lawsuit vs CDC

B)  The CDC was willing to leverage its mass transport/transport hub mask rule over Florida cruise ships that did not voluntarily follow the CSO, which there have so far been none

C)  Ships the CDC cannot confirm compliance with the CSO will have a new color status- gray

They announced this change for july/august sailings in june and held off for ones after that bc wishful thinking.   However, in the meantime Cayman Islands announced they would stay closed to cruise ships until jan 27.  So this should come as no surprise for sailings in sept-jan.