kearl003

On 8/18/2021 at 10:53 AM, debenson0723 said:

Well I am traveling to Italy and have private tours booked.  My biggest issue is that there is nothing that I can find which states the Italian Government has made this mandate.  They do have certain restrictions (no more than 6 passengers per vehicle and masking indoors) but nothing re: cruise ship passengers.  Why is it ok for 60 people to get on a bus, be dropped off in Florence or Rome (per the "on your own" tours that NCL is offering) for 5-6 hours versus 6 people in a van doing the same thing?  The issue is money and NCL wants ours (at a markup of about double what the private vendors charge). The other countries we are visiting (Spain, France, Croatia and Greece) do not have these government mandates and we are free to do as we please in these ports so I doubt NCL is really concerned about letting their 100% vaccinated passengers loose in Italy to infect their citizens.

 

I am hoping this restriction is changed prior to my cruise (not until November) but if not, I will do one of the NCL 'on your own' tours and visit/eat where I want while allowed to roam free.  But I feel bad for the Italian tour operators who are struggling to survive and thought they would finally be able to provide the services they have been so good at doing for many years.

I’m supposed to be on the epic starting October 31st. I called NCL just yesterday (9/1) and she confirmed that in fact AT LEAST through NOVEMBER passengers will not be allowed to disembark in any Italian ports without being on a fully-guided NCL-booked excursion. And it doesn’t look like they’ve updated the excursions list yet because I’m still seeing many that have “on your own” time but they in fact told me no time will be allowed without a guide. So that’ll also shorten the list of excursions to even try to choose from…

6 hours ago, millie_17 said:

I think the fact that it doesn't say on the website that we have to stay confined to the ship anymore, confirms this (wording has been removed). Although it would have been nice for them to officially tell us this. And I've booked 3 excursions which have not been cancelled. We are on the Epic on 12th and are travelling to Barcelona on 8th. We are just looking to order our 2 day UK test now and there are some companies that seem to be as cheap as £20 (with links from gov.uk) which we are thinking of going for. We need to recoup some costs due to the extortionate cost of NCL excursions 🙂 

51 minutes ago, ScratchTheRat said:

Will you please keep us all informed on as much as possible? 🙂

9 hours ago, JohnMenston said:

We’re booked in the Epic out of Barcelona on 19th Sept and working on the following for tests. Antigen testing 48hrs before we cruise as we’ve a night booked before the cruise in Barcelona, NCL antigen test at the port, NCL test on board prior to disembarkation which will suffice for entry back to the UK and lastly booked a day 2 PCR test when we get back to the UK. Hopefully I’ve worked this out correctly!

 

Has anyone had confirmation from NCL that we can now go on NCL shore excursions in Italy following this weeks changes?

I’m supposed to be on the epic starting October 31st. I called NCL just today (9/1) and she confirmed that in fact AT LEAST through NOVEMBER passengers will not be allowed to disembark in any Italian ports without being on a fully-guided NCL-booked excursion. And it doesn’t look like they’ve updated the excursions list yet because I’m still seeing many that have “on your own” time but they in fact told me no time will be allowed without a guide. So that’ll also shorten the list of excursions to even try to choose from..

I’m supposed to be on the epic starting October 31st. I called NCL just today (9/1) and she confirmed that in fact AT LEAST through NOVEMBER passengers will not be allowed to disembark in any Italian ports without being on a fully-guided NCL-booked excursion. And it doesn’t look like they’ve updated the excursions list yet because I’m still seeing many that have “on your own” time but they in fact told me no time will be allowed without a guide. So that’ll also shorten the list of excursions to even try to choose from..