Ship excusions

[sun bum]

Sorry if this has been addressed before. I have not been on the boards for a while. We have a cruise in January on the Edge. I read on their website where NCL allows their passengers to" take shore excursions or explore on your own". Is the same true for Celebrity? Do you need to book a celebrity excursion ?

[canderson]

Yeah, it has ... right here on page one.

 

This answers most of it:

 

https://www.celebritycruises.com/healthy-at-sea/us-travel-requirements

[Fouremco]

Just bear in mind that whatever the Healthy-At-Sea link says today, it might be very different tomorrow or next week. You really need to keep monitoring it for changes.

[Ken the cruiser]

1 hour ago, sun bum said:

Sorry if this has been addressed before. I have not been on the boards for a while. We have a cruise in January on the Edge. I read on their website where NCL allows their passengers to" take shore excursions or explore on your own". Is the same true for Celebrity? Do you need to book a celebrity excursion ?

When we were on the Edge in August, you pretty much had to book Celebrity "bubble" excursions. However, on the bright side, you didn't have to wear a mask anywhere on the Edge. For those cruise lines that allow folks to do as they wish in port, you may want to check to see what their onboard face-mask policy is. 

 

For us when we were on our B3B, we booked around 9-10 Celebrity shore excursions, mostly those that included seeing animals rather than visiting beaches, and usually had a great time at a very reasonable price. 

Edited October 5, 2021 by Ken the cruiser

[deliver42]

It depends more on the port than the ship. The ports have gone back and forth on this.

[c-leg5]

19 minutes ago, deliver42 said:

It depends more on the port than the ship. The ports have gone back and forth on this.

 

Not sure that is correct - some ships have required bubbles in some ports where other ships have allowed independent excursions. You have to check the above "healthy at sea", or equivalent, for your particular sailing on your particular ship.

[Ken the cruiser]

1 minute ago, c-leg5 said:

 

Not sure that is correct - some ships have required bubbles in some ports where other ships have allowed independent excursions. You have to check the above "healthy at sea", or equivalent, for your particular sailing on your particular ship.

That is very true. When the Edge was in the Bahamas in August on our B3B, we were only allowed to get off the ship if we had booked a Celebrity excursion. However, on our second visit a Carnival ship was docked next to us and everyone was free to roam. Then on the last visit a RCCL ship was next to us and they were allowed to roam free. One big difference. We didn't have to wear a mask while on the Edge. I know for a fact the Carnival passengers had to wear them while onboard, but unsure whether the RCCL passengers had to wear them onboard.

[sun bum]

Thanks everyone. I did see on NCL that they o not require a mask onboard the ships

[Guppy99]

1 hour ago, c-leg5 said:

 

Not sure that is correct - some ships have required bubbles in some ports where other ships have allowed independent excursions. You have to check the above "healthy at sea", or equivalent, for your particular sailing on your particular ship.

This is correct. It's driven by the port, not the ship. The port changes just as frequently with their rules as the ships have. So you do have to keep rechecking. The resurgence of the delta variant has caused reversals in prior policies at several ports

[Guppy99]

54 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

That is very true. When the Edge was in the Bahamas in August on our B3B, we were only allowed to get off the ship if we had booked a Celebrity excursion. However, on our second visit a Carnival ship was docked next to us and everyone was free to roam. Then on the last visit a RCCL ship was next to us and they were allowed to roam free. One big difference. We didn't have to wear a mask while on the Edge. I know for a fact the Carnival passengers had to wear them while onboard, but unsure whether the RCCL passengers had to wear them onboard.

That's differences between different cruise lines, not different ships within the same cruise line. Aso, keep in mind that if it's not a Celebrity excursion, and you get held up for any reason, the ship may not wait for you.

[Ken the cruiser]

42 minutes ago, sun bum said:

Thanks everyone. I did see on NCL that they o not require a mask onboard the ships

So NCL does not require a mask onboard and they let you do what you want while in port. OK, I'm starting to get a little nervous now as we have a middle eastern 19 day NCL cruise followed by an eastern Africa 19 day cruise booked for Nov 2022 and right now the African nations are not doing so good with vaccines.

 

More Than 6.38 Billion Shots Given: Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker (bloomberg.com)

 

If that is still the case when it comes time for final payment, we'll definitely have to take a closer look at them if NCL doesn't cancel the cruises first. 😎

[sun bum]

This was taken off NCL's website..just now

Benefits of 100% Vaccination Requirements*

Breathe freely and witness smiles everywhere you go!

Get up close and personal with confidence, everyone on board is vaccinated.

Dine in any of our restaurants mask-free, including our self-service buffet. Plus enjoy all entertainment options.

Feel Free to take the shore excursion you’ve been dreaming of or explore on your own!

Appreciate the full Norwegian experience — all venues and experiences are entirely open.

• Cruise Mask-free**
• No Social Distancing Required
• All Restaurants & Experiences Are Fully Open
• No Restrictions on Shore Excursions †
• No Capacity Restrictions

[ECCruise]

10 minutes ago, sun bum said:

This was taken off NCL's website..just now

Benefits of 100% Vaccination Requirements*

Breathe freely and witness smiles everywhere you go!

Get up close and personal with confidence, everyone on board is vaccinated.

Dine in any of our restaurants mask-free, including our self-service buffet. Plus enjoy all entertainment options.

Feel Free to take the shore excursion you’ve been dreaming of or explore on your own!

Appreciate the full Norwegian experience — all venues and experiences are entirely open.

• Cruise Mask-free**
• No Social Distancing Required
• All Restaurants & Experiences Are Fully Open
• No Restrictions on Shore Excursions †
• No Capacity Restrictions

That does not, however, apply to Europe, where they have a number of ships currently operating. That is what the double asterisk next to "mask-free" means.

**On Europe sailings only, currently local government regulations requires all guests to wear masks onboard. Refer to FAQs section for complete details.

[Ken the cruiser]

3 hours ago, sun bum said:

This was taken off NCL's website..just now

Benefits of 100% Vaccination Requirements*

Breathe freely and witness smiles everywhere you go!

Get up close and personal with confidence, everyone on board is vaccinated.

Dine in any of our restaurants mask-free, including our self-service buffet. Plus enjoy all entertainment options.

Feel Free to take the shore excursion you’ve been dreaming of or explore on your own!

Appreciate the full Norwegian experience — all venues and experiences are entirely open.

• Cruise Mask-free**
• No Social Distancing Required
• All Restaurants & Experiences Are Fully Open
• No Restrictions on Shore Excursions †
• No Capacity Restrictions

Also, not quite sure NCL has their COVID strategy down yet, as all of their ships sailing from US ports right now (i.e., Breakaway, Encore and Gem, all with the CDC Restricted status designation) are either Yellow or Orange. But, in time, I'm sure they'll figure what the necessary combination of preventative measures should be to get their ships into the Green.

 

Cruise Ship Color Status | Quarantine | CDC

 

 

[Guppy99]

why not hop over to the NCL board and find out more there...............

[Moonarino]

On 10/5/2021 at 2:14 PM, sun bum said:

Sorry if this has been addressed before. I have not been on the boards for a while. We have a cruise in January on the Edge. I read on their website where NCL allows their passengers to" take shore excursions or explore on your own". Is the same true for Celebrity? Do you need to book a celebrity excursion ?

This is the latest from the Celebrity page linked in a post near the top (and also below), updated Oct 5 (underline & italics below are mine, bold is Celebrity's):

"All vaccinated guests may go ashore on their own in ports where it's permitted."

...and ...

"Unvaccinated guests and families with unvaccinated children may only go ashore on a shore excursion provided by Celebrity Cruises."

 

Below those paragraphs is a list of individual port requirements. This is all found about midway the page in the "While Ashore" section.

 

https://www.celebritycruises.com/healthy-at-sea/us-travel-requirements

 

Edited October 7, 2021 by Moonarino