Can you find out how full your ship is before you cruise?

[MARRIEDATSEA]

We are set to leave on the Freedom on 11-20...8 nights from Miami. Is there a way to get this info from a web site somewhere?

 

Also, just a more general question. If people have been getting covid on Carnival cruise ships, is there a way to know how many people and on which ships? I have Googled  this with no luck. 

 

The reason I am asking is because we are deciding whether it us safe for us to go and it is a really hard decision to make. Was just wondering if there is data anywhere that we can use to make an informed decision. Thank you for any help.

[Jelly_Toast]

That is a Thanksgiving cruise and based on my past experience they are always booked full so I would assume it's going to be as full as they are allowed.  I have read 70-75% capacity in the past but I'm not sure this is an official number. I would also expect more (unvaccinated) children than a typical cruise as Thanksgiving cruises typically have a high percentage of children - at least in my previous experience.  I do think there is a cap on how many unvaccinated children there can be, last I read it was 5% of the passengers.

 

As far as numbers of positive cases there is no official numbers being published.

[Bostwick girl]

On our August 30 cruise on Magic, there was a delay in allowing passengers in port because a crew member tested positive. That’s all I’ve heard of.  In my opinion, it’s a whole lot safer on a cruise ship than going to Walmart!

 

[evandbob]

We could only discover a ship's capacity after we've boarded it and asked a reputable source, like the Captain or one of the top ship officers.

 

I found that asking waitstaff or cabin stewards only gave us a range of numbers, say 50 to 75%.

 

We figured our MG sailing in Sept had 95% vaxxed and not showing any positive test results was way more safe that say shopping in our home town of Ft Myers, where vax rates are about 58%.

[mredandchis]

I don't know of any way to get that information.  The cruise lines are being monitored by the CDC. Also the rules may loosen up Nov 1.   But if you are afraid of the virus can you still enjoy the cruise?  The cruise ships are running with a 95 percent herd immunity which no community has reached but at the same time it is a group of people in closer quarters,

[jfunk138]

You can check the color here, counterintuitively "yellow" is worse than "orange":

https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/cruise/cruise-ship-color-status.html

If your ship is "green", no active cases onboard currently.

If your ship is "orange", there are active cases but CDC is checking to see if there are enough to investigate further.

If your ship is "yellow", there are active cases onboard currently and there are enough for CDC to be monitoring it.

If your ship is "red", there are enough active cases to exceed some arbitrary threshold set by the CDC.  Folks on CC previously believed this threshold to be 1.5% of passengers or crew.  But Vista doubled this threshold and never moved to red, so we really have no idea what it might be.

The majority of ships sailing with passengers fall into "yellow".

[Elaine5715]

Does it matter how full the ship is?  If there are 30 people and one person develops COVID or there could be 3700 people all negative.

[Pellaz]

6 hours ago, jfunk138 said:

You can check the color here, counterintuitively "yellow" is worse than "orange":

https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/cruise/cruise-ship-color-status.html

If your ship is "green", no active cases onboard currently.

If your ship is "orange", there are active cases but CDC is checking to see if there are enough to investigate further.

If your ship is "yellow", there are active cases onboard currently and there are enough for CDC to be monitoring it.

If your ship is "red", there are enough active cases to exceed some arbitrary threshold set by the CDC.  Folks on CC previously believed this threshold to be 1.5% of passengers or crew.  But Vista doubled this threshold and never moved to red, so we really have no idea what it might be.

The majority of ships sailing with passengers fall into "yellow".

 

Looks like quite a few -- maybe around half -- are currently green.    

 

Comparing the Big Three, it looks like about the same number of ships for each line are in green, orange or yellow status...so Carnival's policy of approximately 70% capacity seems to be working...or at least not backfiring, compared to other lines (Royal) sailing at 50%.  

 

Per our CD, our Mardi Gras sailing had 3,880 +/- 5 on board, which puts it at a bit over 60% capacity.  However, at least a hundred pax were unable to make it to Port Canaveral in time due to weather or vaccine-walkout delays.  

 

 

[Virga]

12 hours ago, jfunk138 said:

You can check the color here, counterintuitively "yellow" is worse than "orange":

https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/cruise/cruise-ship-color-status.html

If your ship is "green", no active cases onboard currently.

If your ship is "orange", there are active cases but CDC is checking to see if there are enough to investigate further.

If your ship is "yellow", there are active cases onboard currently and there are enough for CDC to be monitoring it.

If your ship is "red", there are enough active cases to exceed some arbitrary threshold set by the CDC.  Folks on CC previously believed this threshold to be 1.5% of passengers or crew.  But Vista doubled this threshold and never moved to red, so we really have no idea what it might be.

The majority of ships sailing with passengers fall into "yellow".

 

I somehow had misunderstood the Vista outbreak - how many ultimately tested positive??  I'd been operating on the assumption that the color chart was tied to fairly conservative (though frustratingly opaque) thresholds - I'm a bit stunned to realize that 3% of the crew could test positive and not earn a red label.  I'm having trouble finding legitimate sources, unfortunately - do you have any suggestions on article titles to Google to find out how bad it actually got?

[jfunk138]

15 hours ago, Virga said:

 

I somehow had misunderstood the Vista outbreak - how many ultimately tested positive??  I'd been operating on the assumption that the color chart was tied to fairly conservative (though frustratingly opaque) thresholds - I'm a bit stunned to realize that 3% of the crew could test positive and not earn a red label.  I'm having trouble finding legitimate sources, unfortunately - do you have any suggestions on article titles to Google to find out how bad it actually got?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2021/08/15/carnival-cruise-covid-19-outbreak-27-vaccinated-people-test-positive-for-coronavirus/

26 out of ~1000 crew = 2.6%.  Yes, it's not quite double but very close and very clearly more than the theorized 1.5% threshold.

[BoozinCroozin]

I would guess closer to 75% for that holiday week. 

[Virga]

39 minutes ago, jfunk138 said:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2021/08/15/carnival-cruise-covid-19-outbreak-27-vaccinated-people-test-positive-for-coronavirus/

26 out of ~1000 crew = 2.6%.  Yes, it's not quite double but very close and very clearly more than the theorized 1.5% threshold.

 

Thank you for that link!  I had finally found a Belize press release that seemed legitimate, but this has even more information.  The article indicates that there were 1441 crew, so 1.8% - but that's still higher than I'd have expected the CDC to still consider 'acceptable.'  I've snarked a bit ever since I discovered the color coding - who puts yellow as a higher threat than orange?? And why not give us even a tiny bit of transparency with which to estimate our risk?  But all in all, I've operated on the assumption that their thresholds would be quite conservative.  It is apparent that their  'red flag' threshold is higher than mine.

 

Mostly, I'm beyond frustrated with the lack of transparency.  If Belize had not 'outed' them, I don't believe we'd know anything beyond, 'The CDC is keeping a close eye on things on this ship.'  I do have high confidence that cruise lines consider limiting spread to be in their best interest, but it irks me that I don't have access to the data to look out for my best interests.  

[Shaded Lady]

On 10/18/2021 at 1:29 AM, MARRIEDATSEA said:

Also, just a more general question. If people have been getting covid on Carnival cruise ships, is there a way to know how many people and on which ships? I have Googled  this with no luck. 

 

The reason I am asking is because we are deciding whether it us safe for us to go and it is a really hard decision to make. Was just wondering if there is data anywhere that we can use to make an informed decision. Thank you for any help.

This site will give you a week by week status of the various cruiseships and their status... 

CDC Cruiseship color status

[phoneman69]

Our Horizon sailing of Sept 12th was only 47% full. We only found out after boarding, info was not available anywhere i could find it. Now this was the last trip before the testing changed to 48hr for a negative result.

[BlerkOne]

On 10/19/2021 at 2:10 PM, jfunk138 said:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2021/08/15/carnival-cruise-covid-19-outbreak-27-vaccinated-people-test-positive-for-coronavirus/

26 out of ~1000 crew = 2.6%.  Yes, it's not quite double but very close and very clearly more than the theorized 1.5% threshold.

There more than 1000 crew, and as I recall, the positives were split over two cruises. Just because the crew was quarantined on the ship does not mean you get to count them twice.

[mredandchis]

On 10/19/2021 at 4:05 PM, Virga said:

 

Thank you for that link!  I had finally found a Belize press release that seemed legitimate, but this has even more information.  The article indicates that there were 1441 crew, so 1.8% - but that's still higher than I'd have expected the CDC to still consider 'acceptable.'  I've snarked a bit ever since I discovered the color coding - who puts yellow as a higher threat than orange?? And why not give us even a tiny bit of transparency with which to estimate our risk?  But all in all, I've operated on the assumption that their thresholds would be quite conservative.  It is apparent that their  'red flag' threshold is higher than mine.

 

Mostly, I'm beyond frustrated with the lack of transparency.  If Belize had not 'outed' them, I don't believe we'd know anything beyond, 'The CDC is keeping a close eye on things on this ship.'  I do have high confidence that cruise lines consider limiting spread to be in their best interest, but it irks me that I don't have access to the data to look out for my best interests.  

Totally agree it would be of a great benefit to know and be able to decide for myself what I feel is a good or bad risk.  I hate having to rely on bureaucrats. And that 'orange' thang seems backwards to me also.