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A little better every day, @mking8288—thanks for asking! Taste and smell are mostly back, still not quite as sharp as pre-COVID, but still improving daily. Cough is mostly gone, nasal congestion still there but not as much. Feels like a mild cold that's on its way out. I did a rapid test yesterday and still got a positive result. I'll test again in a couple more days. When I went to my first CC M&G (in 2012) all of the attendees were from the CruiseCritic Message Boards. But the last couple times I've gone to the M&G, the vast majority are from Social Media. The one person we were talking with didn't even know what CruiseCritic was! 🤦‍♂️ I'm not on a Certain Well-known Social Media Site so I am unfamiliar with the roll calls that happen there. I'm just going to chalk up our Meet and Greets as yet another victim of Social Media (see also: decency, democracy, privacy). I'll continue to visit the CC Roll Calls, but at this point, I'll only attend the M&G if there's someone from the Roll Call that I actually want to see.

If it makes you feel better, I stayed in my stateroom a lot and did a lot of reading on my balcony, avoided crowded spaces, masked in the Theater and Comedy Club, mingled with people outside instead of inside, and I still got it. So honestly, it might not have made a difference! 😄 I hope you have a speedy recovery. 🙂

Don't we live and breathe BS rumors here on CruiseCritic? 😄 Definitely take it with a grain of salt, but it does sort of make sense, given that NCL will be having multiple new ships coming online, and they'll need places to homeport them. They might also want to homeport one of their older, smaller ships in Norfolk.

I tested positive a week ago. Today I'm still a little under the weather, but mostly recovered. I had flu-like symptoms for a couple days, then I lost my sense of taste and smell just as I was starting to feel better. My taste and smell are back, but not all the way back yet. I was still positive as of yesterday. My experience will no doubt differ from yours. For me, even a "mild" case hasn't been much fun. But being vaxxed and boosted, we don't have much to worry about...just have to stick it out. I hope you feel better soon! I still think the cruise was worth it. 🙂

I tend to agree. We were going to get it sooner or later. At least now, we'll have some summer immunity for other travels at least. That protection could extend even longer with additional boosters, if they come. Either way, our our immune systems will get better at handling COVID, which is the goal long-term. I'm not worried about monkeypox. There doesn't appear to be any asymptomatic spread, making it way easier to track down, and also, the vaccine for smallpox is effective against monkeypox. The US government maintains a stockpile of smallpox vaccines large enough to vaccinate everyone in the US, so worst comes to worst, we just get a smallpox vaccine. Once this wave is past its peak, we'll probably take advantage of the dip + our immunity and set sail.

I came down with symptoms after arriving home the evening of disembarkation day, but didn't test positive until two days later. I woke up Tuesday with a fever, and that's when I tested positive. The PCR may detect it, but try again in a couple days if it doesn't—or as soon as you get a fever.

A lot of crew on the Joy are at the end of their contracts and going home for break, including the actors and actresses in Footloose. This could contribute to cancellations, if there's a lot of COVID spread aboard (there certainly seems to be) and lots of the new folks test positive.

When I was aboard the Joy, a member of the crew told me that they are visiting Norfolk because NCL wants to homeport a Prima class ship there, and they have to establish a relationship with the port and city. He told me that this was hearsay, and he wasn't 100% sure, but it seemed to make sense. They may be partially provisioning the ship there to establish supply lines with vendors, etc.

Hi @mking8288, hope you and yours are feeling better. I am almost feeling 100% now. I've still got a stray cough here and there. My sense of taste and smell has returned—definitely not as sharp as before, but I heard it can take about 2 weeks to fully return. Longer for some folks. I'd say I'm at about 50% from a smelling/tasting capacity. Still testing positive on a rapid test, so I am not cleared to resume being a member of society just yet. 🤣 My daughter did wind up testing positive on Sunday. She came down with a fever on Saturday afternoon, went to sleep, and tested positive on Sunday morning. Her fever was gone this morning when she woke up, and now it's like nothing ever happened. So fingers crossed it stays that way. My wife tested herself several times over the past week, including taking a PCR at CVS, and has not tested positive yet. She may yet escape. So, all in all we're doing well. The flip side of this is that we'll most likely take a vacation once we've all recovered. The jury's still out on whether natural immunity will provide lasting protection, but most experts seem to think it'll provide at least 2-3 months' of protection. So ironically we may be cruising again sooner because of this, especially if my wife does wind up testing positive. Maybe for our anniversary in August—or maybe even sooner.

No, this specific sailing didn't have Norfolk, VA. Probably because it's Memorial Day and everything will be closed.

Ahh, I had a bit of a setback: my fever is gone, cough is nearly gone, but now so is my sense of taste and smell. I can hardly smell anything—only if it’s a super strong smell, and even then only a tiny whiff, like it was something the next room over. I can taste the difference between salty and sweet but that’s about it. I had my coffee this morning, it tasted like warm water with just the slightest hint of burned wood. 😔 I heard it can take a week or two for smell and taste to come back. I would be happy with taste for breakfast, even if I can’t have Taste for breakfast.

Hey Henry! Thanks for checking up on me! Tuesday and Wednesday were a bit rough. Low-grade (100°F) fever, aches, sore throat, fatigue, congestion, and a cough. Today has been a big improvement. I woke up fever-free, so that was a good start. Aches are gone. I still am a bit more tired than usual, and my nose is super congested, but I’m not coughing quite as much anymore. I drove myself to the CVS drive-through for a PCR test, which will confirm the rapid test and help get me a doctor’s note for work. Right now I feel about like I do when I have a cold. I’m not particularly enjoying it, but I’ve felt worse. Thank goodness for the vaccine. Glad to hear you and yours are doing all right, and on the road to recovery. My wife and daughter still are symptom-free, but my wife has a PCR test for tomorrow just to check (she had symptoms just before I got home that could have been COVID, but tested negative on a rapid test). We’ll see. Ironically, this may mean we’ll all go on vacation sooner than planned—if we all get COVID and recover, might as well take advantage of that immunity window. 🤪 But yeah, clearly the onboard protocols aren’t good enough to avoid substantial spread. It seems like 7 days is short enough to avoid testing positive onboard, but people are testing positive once off the ship.

@mking8288 thanks for the well-wishes…I’ve been just relaxing, and so far my symptoms are mild. My wife and I are both vaxxed and boosted, and my daughter is young enough that symptoms will likely be mild, if she gets it at all. I could have gotten it anywhere. Heck, the way the latest variant is spreading, I could easily just have gotten it anyway had I stayed home. We’ll just get through it. In a way I’m almost relieved—it was pretty much inevitable that I would get COVID at some point, but I didn’t test positive while on the ship. Now I just have to get it over with!

And I hit the “jackpot” this morning. I tested negative on Sunday and Monday, but woke up with a fever and aches this morning, and a cough. Positive. I was as careful as could be onboard—masking in crowded areas that I didn’t avoid entirely, didn’t set foot in an elevator, talked to people mostly outside. Didn’t help. At this point I just feel fortunate that I didn’t get sick onboard. But still, if I took all these precautions and still got it, that kind of says something about how safe ships are at this point.

You hit the nail on the head here. I was far more worried about getting quarantined than the effects of COVID. Let’s say that hypothetically, NCL put this quarantine policy on their website: All quarantine cabins have a balcony, for access to fresh air. Quarantined guests have the ability to order food and beverage at mealtimes from the MDR, and can order in with their dining and drinks packages. All quarantine cabins have free on-demand movies and unlimited Internet. Let’s contrast that with their stated quarantine policy on their website: …oh right, they don’t have one on their site. As such, I have to imagine at least some guests aren’t reporting symptoms, out of fear of being confined to an inside or oceanview, with questionable access to meals and entertainment. Even if I eventually test positive after the cruise, I feel like I got lucky by not getting quarantined. It shouldn’t be that way. Better policies and more transparency would have me sailing again sooner.

Ahh, thanks for letting me know, Henry. I’m not too worried. Even if I don’t get COVID from the cruise, it’s probably pretty likely that I’ll wind up getting it from some other source over the next few weeks—there are a lot of people that have it right now. My wife narrowly avoided (we think!) getting it from two different close contacts last week while I’m away. It’s going to be hard to hide from COVID forever. We’ve all got a date with it at some point, even if we’ve avoided it up until now. Hope you recuperate quickly over the next few days. We’ll laugh about this on some future cruise, I’m sure. 🙂

I just got off the Joy this morning. I tested myself prior to getting off, and was negative, but I’ve got a test scheduled again in a few days. After going back and forth whether I should go at all, due to case numbers starting to increase in the last few weeks, I decided to go. I was burnt out from work, and needed a break, and my wife encouraged me to go (she couldn’t go, so I went alone). This was my first cruise since right before the pandemic—Feb 2020 on the Joy, right under the wire. Here’s my anecdotal experience: - The vast majority of passengers were not wearing masks. There were some passengers wearing masks, and the crew was masked (to varying degrees of compliance—I found that the cabin stewards chinstrapped their masks pretty often). - My cabin steward disappeared by Day 3, to be replaced by another cabin steward. When I asked the replacement what happened, he said something along the lines of “Oh, they rotate us around”. But in all my past cruises, I had never had my cabin steward changed mid-cruise. I would guess it’s more likely than not that he tested positive. - My cabin was by the Medical Center, on Deck 13. I did not observe anyone going in or out of the Medical Center—no long lines, suspicious activity, anything of that nature. - The port side cabins on Deck 5 were blocked off. Could be that because the ship was at less than half capacity (1900 guests out of 4400 total occupancy), but I think it’s more likely that Deck 5 was the quarantine deck. If true, don’t count on getting fresh air if you get quarantined. - I saw someone get taken off in an ambulance while docked in Bermuda, and someone I was talking to saw another evacuation a day later. Not necessarily COVID-related, but worth mentioning. - Bermuda itself seemed pretty safe. More Bermudians were wearing masks than not while indoors and in vehicles, and most activities were outdoors. I didn’t feel unsafe there. - Getting on and off the ship in Bermuda used facial recognition instead of key-cards. This probably aids in contact tracing and quarantining. Setting aside the lack of caution required to travel on a cruise ship during a pandemic 🙃, I was pretty cautious onboard. I tried to avoid crowded areas, and if I couldn’t, I masked. There were enough other passengers wearing masks that I didn’t feel odd wearing one. I did feel like I held myself back a little, because I didn’t want to get quarantined for either testing positive or being identified as a close contact of someone who had. I went to see the Beatles tribute band in the Cavern Club, but it was crowded enough for me to feel uncomfortable, even with a KN95 on, so I left. All in all, it was a good experience overall, and I’m glad I went. My goal was to relax and disconnect a bit, and I did. The sea air, and seeing the turquoise waters of Bermuda again had a therapeutic effect on me. I wasn’t looking for a party cruise, and I was looking for some quiet downtime, and I found what I was looking for. Would I go again, and with family? Yes…but I think I would have to wait until case numbers were a bit lower. I still felt like I was looking over my shoulder a bit…if you’re thinking you’d be able to forget about COVID once onboard, I wasn’t really able to do that. I felt like I was about as careful as one could be onboard, and with the reduced number of people onboard (less than 50% capacity on my sailing), if I still wind up testing positive in a few days, that’ll be interesting. I’ll report back…anyway, let me know if you have any questions.

Henry! It was a pleasure getting to meet you onboard. Hope you and yours have safe travels home, and I hope to see you again sometime! Maybe in the fall… I was browsing through your review—stellar job as always!

I decline it for long cruises. The gratuities add up, and honestly I’m not much of a drinker. For 7-day cruises, the cost tends to be low enough that I can justify it (“I can get a beer whenever I want”).

There is glass, and there's even a little railing! Not that you would want to stand at the railing, with your face against the screen. 😄 During the day, it's a nice little illusion, and can be helpful to see if you're in a port or not. The curtains control the switching mechanism, so if they're closed, the screen turns off. When you open them, it does take a moment for the window to boot up. 😄

We stayed in one just before the pandemic hit. It was a great room, and had a lot of space. I'll try to answer your questions as best I remember: We were on the starboard side, and there are some minor differences in cabin configuration: First, I believe the location of the closet in the living room differs. Ours was adjacent to the virtual balcony, but the deck plans show the closet to be next to the entry door. The configuration where it's next to the balcony might eat up some additional space. Second, the second bedroom's bathroom is also in a different location on the deck plan, down a little hallway of sorts. Ours was on a slight angle right where that little hallway is located, and closer to the bed. Third, our master bedroom closet was in front of the bed, not on the right side. Lastly our entryway didn't have a little table adjacent to the door, either, while our neighbor across the hall did (I remember that). The differences look to be very minor. Ours slept 5, and had a Pullman, directly above the bed in the second bedroom. I think perks have changed since we sailed (ours was "Concierge Class" when we sailed), but we had access to the concierge, and could get breakfast / lunch in La Cucina, which we enjoyed, particularly because it allowed us to sit outside on the Waterfront while we ate. It was a fantastic room. We certainly weren't wanting for space—the cabin was huge. It was priced just a little higher than a balcony at the time, and we wanted DD to have her own bedroom. If it had a real balcony, it would have been absolutely perfect, that was the only thing we missed. The virtual balcony was an interesting illusion, but sometimes didn't hold up (particularly at night when the picture got super grainy). Still, we'd book the same room again in a heartbeat.