Going ashore with an unvaccinated kid

[Grenadinka]

Hi!

I have a question about going ashore with an unvaccinated 7 year old daughter. I haven’t read carefully the rules before booking, I just was so excited, that we are going on vacation (shame on me!).

Is the only possibility to go ashore is to buy an excursion from MSC? I never bought excursions with the cruise company before, we prefer self guided tours. Will it be possible to explore the town on our own, or we have to board the ship right after the excursion is finished? 
We are sailing on Meraviglia on 11/20 and we have Curaçao and Bonaire and Ocean Kay. As I understood, we could go ashore on Ocean Kay with no problems.

Every advice is greatly appreciated, as it is so confusing to travel during this COVID era 🤷‍♀️
‘Thank you!

[Two Wheels Only]

"If you are traveling with children 11 years old and younger who are not fully vaccinated, you must purchase an MSC shore excursion if you wish to go ashore (excluding Ocean Cay MSC Marine Reserve, our exclusive private island). This is to help ensure everyone is following the same health & safety protocol"

 

"PLEASE NOTE: Fully vaccinated guests in the same traveling party with a not fully vaccinated guest or a child 11 years old or younger are considered not fully vaccinated for the purposes of shore excursions." 

[Morgsmom]

You are fine with Ocean Cay; other than that it is correct that your party would be considered unvaccinated.

[Grenadinka]

1 hour ago, Two Wheels Only said:

"If you are traveling with children 11 years old and younger who are not fully vaccinated, you must purchase an MSC shore excursion if you wish to go ashore (excluding Ocean Cay MSC Marine Reserve, our exclusive private island). This is to help ensure everyone is following the same health & safety protocol"

 

"PLEASE NOTE: Fully vaccinated guests in the same traveling party with a not fully vaccinated guest or a child 11 years old or younger are considered not fully vaccinated for the purposes of shore excursions." 

Thank you, yes, I saw this. 

[Grenadinka]

58 minutes ago, Morgsmom said:

You are fine with Ocean Cay; other than that it is correct that your party would be considered unvaccinated.

Thank you!

Yes, I got it, that we are considered an unvaccinated group.  I just thought that maybe someone, who already traveled with children and could provide some details. For example, if we take an MSC excursion, when it’s finished, are we going straight to the ship? We aren’t interested in large group activities, we were thinking about very social distanced snorkeling 😀

[soosie74]

On our cruise in September on the Meraviglia, the vaccinated 12+ were able to get off the ship without an excursion booked through MSC. We were a group of 13 including 4 under 11 years. So we left the kids in Kids Club, and we’re able to exit and explore the port.  But if the unvaccinated, under 11 years, wants to get off the ship; you will need to book an excursion through MSC.  Hope this helps ~

[racephoto]

7 hours ago, Grenadinka said:

Thank you!

Yes, I got it, that we are considered an unvaccinated group.  I just thought that maybe someone, who already traveled with children and could provide some details. For example, if we take an MSC excursion, when it’s finished, are we going straight to the ship? We aren’t interested in large group activities, we were thinking about very social distanced snorkeling 😀

You’re going straight back to the ship. You’re not allowed to wander around on your own. It states that if you do leave your group/excursion, you won’t be allowed back on the ship.  

[Grenadinka]

6 hours ago, soosie74 said:

On our cruise in September on the Meraviglia, the vaccinated 12+ were able to get off the ship without an excursion booked through MSC. We were a group of 13 including 4 under 11 years. So we left the kids in Kids Club, and we’re able to exit and explore the port.  But if the unvaccinated, under 11 years, wants to get off the ship; you will need to book an excursion through MSC.  Hope this helps ~

Thank you for the reply! It looks like they changed the rules, because we all live in one cabin, even the vaccinated adults aren’t allowed to go ashore without the excursion. 

[Grenadinka]

50 minutes ago, racephoto said:

You’re going straight back to the ship. You’re not allowed to wander around on your own. It states that if you do leave your group/excursion, you won’t be allowed back on the ship.  

Thank you! We do not want to break the rules or to be irresponsible, so we’ll try to find the longest excursions 🙂

[racephoto]

11 hours ago, Grenadinka said:

Thank you! We do not want to break the rules or to be irresponsible, so we’ll try to find the longest excursions 🙂

I don’t know if you’re set on this particular cruise, but if you weren’t, you could try to use the cruiseflex thing and try to move to a later date where your kids would be vaccinated and you could do what you want. If you’re going to do that, you might want to do it today as over the next few days MSC is revamping their cabin categories and no one knows what that will do to the fares. But I don’t think they’re going to go down. 

[Grenadinka]

1 hour ago, racephoto said:

I don’t know if you’re set on this particular cruise, but if you weren’t, you could try to use the cruiseflex thing and try to move to a later date where your kids would be vaccinated and you could do what you want. If you’re going to do that, you might want to do it today as over the next few days MSC is revamping their cabin categories and no one knows what that will do to the fares. But I don’t think they’re going to go down. 

Yeah, I was also thinking about rescheduling, but we are so ready for the vacation, we’ll try to enjoy it as much as possible in these circumstances 🙂

there is not lots of information about the excursions on MSC website, will it be much more expensive to book the excursions on board?

[perakcruiser]

11 hours ago, Grenadinka said:

Yeah, I was also thinking about rescheduling, but we are so ready for the vacation, we’ll try to enjoy it as much as possible in these circumstances 🙂

there is not lots of information about the excursions on MSC website, will it be much more expensive to book the excursions on board?

There is no price difference as far as I know. But the most interesting excursions will all be fully booked when you try to book on board. Especially in times like these, before it was not a big thing to book late.  

 

And all the informations about the available excursions are to be found in a PDF that you can download when you log into your booking. Only refer to this, not to the "public" information on the MSC website.

[Grenadinka]

19 minutes ago, perakcruiser said:

There is no price difference as far as I know. But the most interesting excursions will all be fully booked when you try to book on board. Especially in times like these, before it was not a big thing to book late.  

 

And all the informations about the available excursions are to be found in a PDF that you can download when you log into your booking. Only refer to this, not to the "public" information on the MSC website.

Yes, one of the excursions is already sold out!

Thank you for the advice to look at the PDFs, I thought about it, but haven’t checked them yet.

We were thinking about taking 2 excursions in one day, if the schedule permits, so we could do some sightseeing and snorkeling in one day. But website doesn’t show the duration (only in some cases) and the exact schedule 🤷‍♀️

[racephoto]

29 minutes ago, Grenadinka said:

Yes, one of the excursions is already sold out!

Thank you for the advice to look at the PDFs, I thought about it, but haven’t checked them yet.

We were thinking about taking 2 excursions in one day, if the schedule permits, so we could do some sightseeing and snorkeling in one day. But website doesn’t show the duration (only in some cases) and the exact schedule 🤷‍♀️

Yes, it’s quite lame.