Ovation Turned Away Half a Dozen Unvaccinated Cruisers in Seattle

[Shmoo here]

4 minutes ago, broadwaybaby123 said:

Clearly, they found the requirements for the testing (as I read that they knew about the negative test requirement), wouldn't it have also stated the vaccine requirement on the same source?

Not defending them, but she said she was told that "vaccinated or unvaccinated, all are welcome.  Only a negative COVID test is required."

 

Now whether she made clear they were sailing from Seattle, or just asked "do we have to be vaccinated?" and the person on the phone thought she was asking about a Florida cruise, who knows?

[Goodtime Cruizin]

3 hours ago, Iamcruzin said:

I have to say that I'm done with cruising for a while. My son has been doing land trips as early as last August. He is headed for Cabo San Lucas this week. He hasn't had any issues. This year he is vaccinated. Last August he was in St Thomas when they went into lock down. He still had a good time and didn't spend as much money as planned since everything had to be take out and they had to buy liquor and  make their own drinks.  Cruising is just too nerveraking right now. Wearing masks on board which I am opposed to is the least of the problems. 

 

Smart move. Even vaccinated people are now passing covid to other and catching covid as well. Even though the industry has tried, and even w/ all the protocals, cruising just isn't a viable option these days. The ports of call are only half open anyway. Too much time, energy and money is invested in cruising to go to ports that have another set of rules. And you're right , masks are only just a small part of the overall discomfort of cruising these days. I truly hope things will be better in one year from today as we are supposed to fly to Amsterdam. 

[brillohead]

14 hours ago, kearney said:

I have been thinking about this... Those of us on CC have been aware of virtually every change as they have happened... most of which we have likely learned here. If you go to the Royal website..the health protocol link is not highlighted that well and you have to go through a few clicks to find the information. I know, as a former marketing person, that you don't want to have negatives on the front page... but it would be helpful if it was more prominent (vs almost hidden in smaller font at the top).

I dunno, it's LITERALLY the very first thing on the website... if you go there looking for it, you really cannot miss it.

And the clicks required to get the information are totally necessary -- if they didn't have a drop-down menu to select the port of departure, people would read the rules for Florida and assume it applied to their other cruise port.  By separating out a different page for each port, there's no mistaking what rules apply to your particular port.

 

[ONECRUISER]

1 hour ago, brillohead said:

There's a lot more to Cruise Critic than these forums.... a very very small percentage of the cruising public is going to see your signature.  But it's your signature, and you can make it say whatever you like, grammar mistake and all.

Yeah, not sure it's Six Million different people or total visits. I get on here 25-50+ times a day myself, times 30 Days a month. Use to be list on here of all CC Members, think I'm #300 and something on the new non AOL version when I rejoined in 2000. Not sure we have access to that spread sheet anymore. Curious the total number CC Members there are, though still wouldn't show difference in Active, those never on here anymore or ones that have passed away. One time was talk on here that only about 3% Cruisers had ever been on CC

[livingonthebeach]

4 hours ago, broadwaybaby123 said:

What I would like to know is how could they not have known?  It's basically plastered on every cruise site I've seen, including Vacations To Go and the Royal Caribbean website.  

 

Even if they didn't know, don't they tell you that in your cruise documents?  Or at the very least, don't they have those on the tickets?

 

Finally, in this day and age, don't you think they would have thought to call the cruise line if they weren't sure?

 

Clearly, they found the requirements for the testing (as I read that they knew about the negative test requirement), wouldn't it have also stated the vaccine requirement on the same source?

 

Inquiring minds want to know!

 

Yes and yes and yes. I can understand their frustration if they were in fact told they did not need to be vaccinated, but I don’t think that’s what truly happened. I have a feeling they tried to defy the requirements which shows in their contacting the local news and their efforts to trash RCI. Their two years of planning went totally out the window.

 

If you don’t have enough funds to travel and are not fully vaccinated and you are relying on the local news to get you back home — guess what? You are positioning yourself for trouble.  This is a perfect example of people who should not travel. 

 

[jean87510]

it doesn't surprise me people are this misinformed.  I will never forget boarding at civitavecchia and a couple did not know what ship they were supposed to be on and couldn't find their folder in their bags with their boarding passes.  

Edited August 17, 2021 by jean87510

[Missusdubbya]

6 minutes ago, jean87510 said:

it doesn't surprise me people are this misinformed.  I will never forget boarding at civitavecchia and a couple did not know what ship they were supposed to be on and couldn't find their folder in their bags with their boarding passes.  

Nightmare fuel

[Ocean Boy]

1 hour ago, jean87510 said:

it doesn't surprise me people are this misinformed.  I will never forget boarding at civitavecchia and a couple did not know what ship they were supposed to be on and couldn't find their folder in their bags with their boarding passes.  

To this day I have never forgotten a conversation we were having with some folks on Explorer. While mentioning the names of some of the ships people in the group had been on, one woman piped up and asked... what is the name of this ship?...😯🙄

[A&L_Ont]

10 minutes ago, Ocean Boy said:

To this day I have never forgotten a conversation we were having with some folks on Explorer. While mentioning the names of some of the ships people in the group had been on, one woman piped up and asked... what is the name of this ship?...😯🙄

At least they didn’t call it a boat. 😉

[DirtyDawg]

35 minutes ago, Ocean Boy said:

To this day I have never forgotten a conversation we were having with some folks on Explorer. While mentioning the names of some of the ships people in the group had been on, one woman piped up and asked... what is the name of this ship?...😯🙄

We have a final exam this morning for one of the university courses I taught this summer. The exam is worth 40% of the final grade for the course. The date and time of today's final were in the course outline, on the website for the class, in multiple announcements that I made online and in class. And what did I get from a student this morning in my email? 

Dear Professor ...

When is our final exam? ...

 

I don't know why we want spend $Billions to travel to Mars to find intelligent life. I'd like to be able to find it here on Earth first!

 

 

Edited August 17, 2021 by DirtyDawg

[read2learn]

[brillohead]

5 minutes ago, DirtyDawg said:

We have a final exam this morning for one of the university courses I taught this summer. The exam is worth 40% of the final grade for the course. The date and time of today's final were in the course outline, on the website for the class, in multiple announcements that I made online and in class. And what did I get from a student this morning in my email? 

Dear Professor ...

When is our final exam? ...

 

I don't know why we want spend $Billions to travel to Mars to find intelligent life. I'd like to be able to find it here on Earth first!

I have a few friends who are professors, and the stories they've told make it pretty obvious why "helicopter parenting" and "participation trophies" are horrible ways to raise human beings.

[Biker19]

10 hours ago, pcur said:

"More than six million people, from first-time cruisers to avid cruise fans, visit Cruise Critic each month to research and plan their cruises, connect with other cruisers and share their passion for cruising."

That could be a highly manipulated statistic and says nothing about RCI specific visitors. Given the blank stares most get when asked on a ship if they are on CC, it's a good guess that the cruising public who visit CC is less than 10%.

[ArthurUSCG]

38 minutes ago, Ocean Boy said:

To this day I have never forgotten a conversation we were having with some folks on Explorer. While mentioning the names of some of the ships people in the group had been on, one woman piped up and asked... what is the name of this ship?...😯🙄

Once you get outside the Cruise Critic bubble, there is a decent % of cruisers that think an RCCL ship is an RCCL ship, or only know them by the big ones and the little ones. To them it's like an flight, you pick where you want to go an don't care about the airplane that's flying the route.

[ArthurUSCG]

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, having different requirements for different ports is not the norm. It's like having different domestic flight rules when you fly out of JFK vs MIA. Since majority of cruises are closed loop, a lot of the international travel stuff doesn't normally apply.

 

And now, with each Caribbean island developing their own vaccination requirements, it's getting more and more confusing to the average tourist.

[DirtyDawg]

11 minutes ago, brillohead said:

I have a few friends who are professors, and the stories they've told make it pretty obvious why "helicopter parenting" and "participation trophies" are horrible ways to raise human beings.

I don't disagree with you but if I was able to go back and talk to the professors who taught university back when I went through I'm pretty sure there would be similar stories. Perhaps not as many, but the human race had been quite dumb for a long, long time. 😉

 

Now I'm off to email that student back and inform him that his final exam starts in less than an hour. This should be fun!

[Ocean Boy]

35 minutes ago, ArthurUSCG said:

Once you get outside the Cruise Critic bubble, there is a decent % of cruisers that think an RCCL ship is an RCCL ship, or only know them by the big ones and the little ones. To them it's like an flight, you pick where you want to go an don't care about the airplane that's flying the route.

Funny you mention that. Any time I book a flight I always check the airplane type that is listed. I have in the past, pricing being equal, chosen a flight because it was a type if plane that I had not yet been on.

[LucasLikesToCruise]

18 minutes ago, Ocean Boy said:

Funny you mention that. Any time I book a flight I always check the airplane type that is listed. I have in the past, pricing being equal, chosen a flight because it was a type if plane that I had not yet been on.

Being a huge Aviation Geek myself, I have done that as well.  I have also chosen a particular airline based on going through a new hub airport that I haven’t been through as well.  I’ve even chosen longer layover times in order to explore the new airport fully.  

[kearney]

9 hours ago, brillohead said:

I dunno, it's LITERALLY the very first thing on the website... if you go there looking for it, you really cannot miss it.

And the clicks required to get the information are totally necessary -- if they didn't have a drop-down menu to select the port of departure, people would read the rules for Florida and assume it applied to their other cruise port.  By separating out a different page for each port, there's no mistaking what rules apply to your particular port.

 

When I type in Royal... the health protocol background is the same as my menu bar at the top. In the beginning I didn't even notice it.. so I can see how someone could over look it..that was my only point... I assume you added the green box because otherwise it would blend in...perhaps they should do the same

[xxHadleyxx]

28 minutes ago, Ocean Boy said:

Funny you mention that. Any time I book a flight I always check the airplane type that is listed. I have in the past, pricing being equal, chosen a flight because it was a type if plane that I had not yet been on.

oh we absolutely do that.  I never really thought about people not looking at the aircraft type which normally flies that route/airline as a deciding factor.    Apparently I am more abnormal than I previously realized.

[ArthurUSCG]

The only thing I look for is a nonstop and if the airplane is flying school bus or a normal large plane. aka, small boat or big boat. TBH, that's why I like SouthWest, I can get nonstop flights to most places and it's on a 737 and don't have to worry about dealing with the tiny planes and the crap like Gate 35X at DCA.

[AustinCruise]

Why oh why doesn’t RCCL request a photo of a vaccine card uploaded during checkin and a checkbox and initials that the card must also be shown at the pier.

 

And/or partner with someone like clear or one of the companies that is dealing with the Hawaii requirements.

 

I do bet these folks were attempting to game the system. But RCCL is leaving the door open. 

 
 

 

Edited August 17, 2021 by AustinCruise

[sgmn]

1 hour ago, Ocean Boy said:

Funny you mention that. Any time I book a flight I always check the airplane type that is listed. I have in the past, pricing being equal, chosen a flight because it was a type if plane that I had not yet been on.

Years ago when the airline I worked for introduced airbus A380s , if we had to swap to a 777 for operational reasons the pax would get  very upset 

[brillohead]

51 minutes ago, AustinCruise said:

Why oh why doesn’t RCCL request a photo of a vaccine card uploaded during checkin and a checkbox and initials that the card must also be shown at the pier.

 

And/or partner with someone like clear or one of the companies that is dealing with the Hawaii requirements.

 

I do bet these folks were attempting to game the system. But RCCL is leaving the door open. 

I checked in for my Freedom cruise last night, and before I even started the process, a huge box popped up (covered probably 75% of my screen) listing the rules.  Then later on towards/at the end of the process, I had to check a box acknowledging that I was aware of the health protocols.  

RCCL didn't leave any door open -- they did everything possible to make sure that anyone checking in knows what is going on.

 

[brillohead]

1 hour ago, kearney said:

When I type in Royal... the health protocol background is the same as my menu bar at the top. In the beginning I didn't even notice it.. so I can see how someone could over look it..that was my only point... I assume you added the green box because otherwise it would blend in...perhaps they should do the same

Yes, I was using the green box to show that the link to the health protocols is literally right at the top of the page.  If you are going there looking for it, you can't miss it.