How are Covid cases on NCL ships?

[dcipjr]

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.

Edited May 15, 2022 by dcipjr
bulleted list didn’t work, boo!

[herbanrenewal]

I returned home from a Royal Caribbean cruise friday. Ports of call were Bermuda and Bahamas. I  was travelling with two friends who had slight cough problem on last day. Because of this we self-isolated the last day and used medical grade n95 masks when disembarking and drove straight home. Within minutes of arriving at our homes we all tested - both my friends are positive.  We all are vaxed and boosted X2. Two days in a row I am so far negative.

 

I also found most of the same thing as dcipir in previous post. However I found the mask wearing behaviors much more lax during our cruise. While staff wore masks, onboard very few people wore them. In ports, entering the ports masks were required, but once in town masks were rarely worn. I saw three ambulance removals of passengers but have no idea the medical causes.

 

We all have conscious decisions to make every day with regards to our health. Personally I would strongly recommend being very cautious with your behaviors. I see no reason to cancel cruising or postponing life. I see every reason to assume personal responsibility.

[Geckotraveler]

On 5/14/2022 at 10:54 AM, KateQ22003 said:

I am on oral chemo as well; my oncologist is against the idea of a cruise but knows it's ultimately my decision how much risk I am willing to take. She is suggesting an antibody infusion for me; not sure I want to go this route as it only has emergency FDA approval. Right now I am leaning towards canceling, but will wait a few more weeks and watch what's going on in the Northeast. I'm really more afraid of the Boston cruiseport than I am of the ship!

My husband also has cancer and has been informed it is not survivable. He wants to see Alaska and this will be his last chance. We plan on taking every precaution. His doctor agrees with our decision because there just won't be many other opportunities. We have been on cruises previously and know we are more interested in the relaxing aspect and spending time in our balcony cabin, not pool lovers, partiers or lovers of crowds. It's about seeing the scenery, spending time together and time without doctors and treatments for a little while.

[ChiefMateJRK]

23 hours ago, cruising sister said:

I am glad we had that last cruise together. 

^^^this.  Most of us have no idea if our next cruise will be our last cruise.  As I mentioned above, life is too short to just stop living it due to a virus.  Unless my Doctor tells me that the risk is unacceptable, I'll be sailing away as often as possible.

[ChiefMateJRK]

21 hours ago, styles27 said:

Nobody on Pearl told us to do that or even asked how we planned to get to our car. They just asked if we had a flight and when we told them no we live an hour away and drove our own car they just said ok  

 

We weren’t impressed with their lack of concern when it came to that. 

What would you expect NCL to do?

[FlGoodShips]

3 hours ago, herbanrenewal said:

I returned home from a Royal Caribbean cruise friday. Ports of call were Bermuda and Bahamas. I  was travelling with two friends who had slight cough problem on last day. Because of this we self-isolated the last day and used medical grade n95 masks when disembarking and drove straight home. Within minutes of arriving at our homes we all tested - both my friends are positive.  We all are vaxed and boosted X2. Two days in a row I am so far negative.

 

I also found most of the same thing as dcipir in previous post. However I found the mask wearing behaviors much more lax during our cruise. While staff wore masks, onboard very few people wore them. In ports, entering the ports masks were required, but once in town masks were rarely worn. I saw three ambulance removals of passengers but have no idea the medical causes.

 

We all have conscious decisions to make every day with regards to our health. Personally I would strongly recommend being very cautious with your behaviors. I see no reason to cancel cruising or postponing life. I see every reason to assume personal responsibility.

You should post this on RCL forum.

[styles27]

39 minutes ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

What would you expect NCL to do?

There should be protocols in place because I guarantee you that not everyone in our situation would care about getting on a packed shuttle exposing the other unsuspecting passengers to Covid. 
 

Believe it or not there are people out there that need to be told exactly what to do. 

Lucky for the other passengers on that shuttle we aren’t “those” people. We actually care about other people not just ourselves. 
 

Having worked in a Senior care facility the last 26 years I could tell you dozens of stories of stupidity. 
 

We felt like the medical staff on Pearl had zero direction when it came to what to do with passengers who test positive during the cruise. ZERO. It was both pathetic and a little scary at the same time. 

 

That’s not a good feeling. I didn’t feel like that after our last cruise 11/2021

 

 

 

[ziggyuk]

On 5/14/2022 at 6:16 AM, complawyer said:

we were on the jade from athens april 8th thru the 17th.  ncl required a negative covid result 3 days before sailing, so we had that done. at the pier in athens, before being allowed to board, we were tested once again (no charge) the 1st day was a sea day and the 1st port on the 10th was jerusalem. on the sea day (april 9th) the israeli health ministry sent their own inspectors, and the entire ship was tested  once again.  all  the results had to come back before we were allowed to disembark in israel.

 

all that being said, i didnt hear of any problems. or cases of covid on this cruise.

 

i will give ncl credit where it's due. they seemed to have all their based covered as far as safety of the passengers and crew were concerned.

 

now, obviously this may not be the case for all ports of call and all ncl ships, but we had no problems at all.

 

to even simplify things, we flew delta and needed another negative covid test before we were allowed to board any flights back to the u.s.  we stayed at the athens marriott, and right next door was a hospital. it took 30minutes to get t he test and results, no charge, and the next day we were happily  on our way home

 

I was on that cruise there were 6 cases of Covid picked up by the extra testing, those poor soles spent their cruise isolating on deck 5.

[complawyer]

in that case, i stand corrected. i was certainly unaware that there were any covid positive cases found, especially after all the testing prior to barding and with the israeli medical staff aboard.

 

so if you were also on this cruise, you should have said something and i'd have bought y ou a drink

[alanstarr]

6 hours ago, dcipjr said:

 

- My cabin steward disappeared by Day 3, to be replaced by another cabin steward.  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 steward swapped mid-cruise last week (TA on the Escape) because his 8-month contract was up. He told me ahead of time, and introduced me to his replacement. And one of the MDR servers told me the same thing, she was leaving mid-cruise because her time was up. They've been working non-stop since cruising restarted in earnest last summer. 

Having said that, it does seem more likely in your case that Covid was involved.

 

[NauticalOtter]

3 hours ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

^^^this.  Most of us have no idea if our next cruise will be our last cruise.  As I mentioned above, life is too short to just stop living it due to a virus.  Unless my Doctor tells me that the risk is unacceptable, I'll be sailing away as often as possible.

I'm really not quite sure why people have this view that sailing (covid or otherwise) is more risky than other forms of vacationing.  I just got back from doing a stint at Universal Orlando and if you wanna talk about companies pretending like covid doesn't exist, LOL....NCL and the cruise lines are doing far and away WAAAAAY more than any other industry (including airlines at this point).  Is it perfect? No.  But at least everyone on you are sitting in a restaurant/bar on a cruise ship has had proof of vaccination and tested.  That's more than I can say about the 100+ people I sat with in restaurants/bars/attractions in.  

[mking8288]

7 hours ago, dcipjr said:

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.

... 

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 ... 

 

Dan - guest what, Susan and I hit the (unlucky) jackpot this afternoon, you and I were out on the Waterfront Friday afternoon and on the back of Deck 8 chatting about things, including this subject ... with the wind & breeze, I don't think you should worry about catching it from us.  But - I just added a bit of details on Semi-Live.  It's clear that the current measures aren't catching it all.  

 

Henry / mking8288

[ziggyuk]

1 hour ago, complawyer said:

in that case, i stand corrected. i was certainly unaware that there were any covid positive cases found, especially after all the testing prior to barding and with the israeli medical staff aboard.

 

so if you were also on this cruise, you should have said something and i'd have bought y ou a drink

 

I missed a drink 😱

It was me that organised the meet and greet on our roll call.

[renji]

24 minutes ago, NauticalOtter said:

I'm really not quite sure why people have this view that sailing (covid or otherwise) is more risky than other forms of vacationing.  I just got back from doing a stint at Universal Orlando and if you wanna talk about companies pretending like covid doesn't exist, LOL....NCL and the cruise lines are doing far and away WAAAAAY more than any other industry (including airlines at this point).  Is it perfect? No.  But at least everyone on you are sitting in a restaurant/bar on a cruise ship has had proof of vaccination and tested.  That's more than I can say about the 100+ people I sat with in restaurants/bars/attractions in.  

I agree with you and am comfortable with the risks of catching covid, as most cruisers are. The reality is that it is everywhere and we are all going to be living with the risk for years to come. It’s the risk of quarantine without fresh air and being held captive without decent food service that is most distressing to people. The idea that we are going to “flatten the curve” with targeted lockdown is just not likely to be effective, and the lottery to see if you’re going to enjoy your vacation or be treated like garbage has to stop. Passengers who are symptomatic or positive should comfortably distancing in their own cabins, and the service to their comfort and care should be at the highest level the ship has, not the lowest…

 

then we can get back to cruising with a reasonable level of risk for tolerable vacation interruption. I think this will actually help stem the spread because people will be willing to admit to covid and symptoms and remain in their cabins, rather than denying it for fear of the awful consequences we are reading about.  

[dcipjr]

1 hour ago, mking8288 said:

 

Dan - guest what, Susan and I hit the (unlucky) jackpot this afternoon, you and I were out on the Waterfront Friday afternoon and on the back of Deck 8 chatting about things, including this subject ... with the wind & breeze, I don't think you should worry about catching it from us.  But - I just added a bit of details on Semi-Live.  It's clear that the current measures aren't catching it all.  

 

Henry / mking8288

 

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. 🙂 

[mummyez]

2 hours ago, renji said:

I agree with you and am comfortable with the risks of catching covid, as most cruisers are. The reality is that it is everywhere and we are all going to be living with the risk for years to come. It’s the risk of quarantine without fresh air and being held captive without decent food service that is most distressing to people. The idea that we are going to “flatten the curve” with targeted lockdown is just not likely to be effective, and the lottery to see if you’re going to enjoy your vacation or be treated like garbage has to stop. Passengers who are symptomatic or positive should comfortably distancing in their own cabins, and the service to their comfort and care should be at the highest level the ship has, not the lowest…

 

then we can get back to cruising with a reasonable level of risk for tolerable vacation interruption. I think this will actually help stem the spread because people will be willing to admit to covid and symptoms and remain in their cabins, rather than denying it for fear of the awful consequences we are reading about.  

I couldn’t agree more. My husband had a cough on our Transatlantic  on the cruise last week and I had some test kits with us. He tested positive I told him we had to call medical and he would likely be isolated, but it’s the responsible thing to do.   I didn’t realize that my my husband who is in early stages of Alzheimer’s was whisked away to an inside. Cabin on deck 5 by men I. White hazmat suits. I was hysterical I thought we would just have to stay in our mini suite balcony cabin .  I told them he needs mei need to take care of him. I was told they would take care of him.  I called constantly asking if they gave him his meds and called him to see if he got meds and ate. 
they didn’t order for him I told them he isn’t able to do those things . Well first day I called him to see if he had breakfast he didn’t.  So I took over ordering for him.  However the method of room service delivery leaves.  Lot to be desired.  A box is delivered the door is knocked on twice and then left on a table. 

So most of the time he didn’t even know his good was delivered.  One day I told him to check if meal came , he said they left me garbage . Someone must have put their finished meal on his table outside the door.
it was one nightmare after another!  
I told them I need to be with him, that if I had a child that needed to be isolated you wouldn’t separate them, well my has needs as much as a child needs his mother.  It’s not as if I could go ashore or really enjoy myself . I was eating I 

In my cabin   Until I was being charged $12 + $3+ fir s coke a meal , it’s not the $15 It was the principle. I had a drink package.

I never got to have  our 3 specialty dinners, 

So I went to buffet and brought it  to the cabin. My dream vacation broke my heart . 

All I can say is we got through it but my dream of going to Tuscany still a dream. It was

going to be our last cruise and I wanted to make it special for us.  My Poor hubby was

so confused it broke my heart .

The staff does try, they were all very sweet .  but they aren’t equipped to handle numerous cases.  
A special thank you to Ruthy and Mark from The Medical Dept.  Ruthy cried with me a couple of times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[styles27]

50 minutes ago, mummyez said:

I couldn’t agree more. My husband had a cough on our Transatlantic  on the cruise last week and I had some test kits with us. He tested positive I told him we had to call medical and he would likely be isolated, but it’s the responsible thing to do.   I didn’t realize that my my husband who is in early stages of Alzheimer’s was whisked away to an inside. Cabin on deck 5 by men I. White hazmat suits. I was hysterical I thought we would just have to stay in our mini suite balcony cabin .  I told them he needs mei need to take care of him. I was told they would take care of him.  I called constantly asking if they gave him his meds and called him to see if he got meds and ate. 
they didn’t order for him I told them he isn’t able to do those things . Well first day I called him to see if he had breakfast he didn’t.  So I took over ordering for him.  However the method of room service delivery leaves.  Lot to be desired.  A box is delivered the door is knocked on twice and then left on a table. 

So most of the time he didn’t even know his good was delivered.  One day I told him to check if meal came , he said they left me garbage . Someone must have put their finished meal on his table outside the door.
it was one nightmare after another!  
I told them I need to be with him, that if I had a child that needed to be isolated you wouldn’t separate them, well my has needs as much as a child needs his mother.  It’s not as if I could go ashore or really enjoy myself . I was eating I 

In my cabin   Until I was being charged $12 + $3+ fir s coke a meal , it’s not the $15 It was the principle. I had a drink package.

I never got to have  our 3 specialty dinners, 

So I went to buffet and brought it  to the cabin. My dream vacation broke my heart . 

All I can say is we got through it but my dream of going to Tuscany still a dream. It was

going to be our last cruise and I wanted to make it special for us.  My Poor hubby was

so confused it broke my heart .

The staff does try, they were all very sweet .  but they aren’t equipped to handle numerous cases.  
A special thank you to Ruthy and Mark from The Medical Dept.  Ruthy cried with me a couple of times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THIS is exactly what I mean when I said NCL is not prepared for this. 

I am so sorry that they didn’t allow you to isolate with your husband. Being a close contact you should have HAD to isolate anyway. 
 

I worked with seniors for a very long time…most of my career so I am very experienced with Alzheimer and Dementia patients and I’m just heartbroken that the medical staff on your cruise didn’t understand your husband’s needs. You should have been with him not only because you were already a close contact but because of his Alzheimer’s.  
 

Where are they getting these people from?  Unacceptable. I’m sorry this is just so wrong on so many levels. I’m livid.  

[sassycruiser]

11 hours ago, dcipjr said:

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.

Just an FYI -one of the ambulance evacuations was my husband.  He slipped getting into the hot tub and dislocated his shoulder.  The medical center sent him to the hospital in Hamilton.  

[complawyer]

ok ziggyuk, maybe next time. i owe you a drink!, but i usually dont  participate in meet and greet. sorry

[fshagan]

The CDC lists the ships and their score at https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/cruise/cruise-ship-color-status.html

 

Fill in the header to limit to NCL and you can see the ships and their color code. Note that any cases get them to Yellow, and just 0.3% qualify them for Orange. That's not "three percent" as some have said, it's "zero point three percent".

[ontheweb]

8 hours ago, sassycruiser said:

Just an FYI -one of the ambulance evacuations was my husband.  He slipped getting into the hot tub and dislocated his shoulder.  The medical center sent him to the hospital in Hamilton.  

Everyone just assumes in these times that every medical emergency is due to Covid. Thanks for the information and the reminder that not every medical need is Covid related.

[hawkeyetlse]

Was on the Star last week (Trieste to Barcelona) and since it was an all-EU cruise (along with Montenegro, which would not dare risk its tourism recovery by imposing testing requirements), there was no testing during the cruise. Only at embarkation (or up to 3 days before if done independently) and then 10 days later, only for those who required it to travel home. There were rumors of cases among passengers (but there always are). If true, these would only have been caught if those people self-reported symptoms or had a fever detected by the face recognition getting on or off the ship in port.

 

There were definitely cases among the staff and crew, most notably the cruise director, who disappeared after Day 2, and we only ever heard from the assistant CD after that. We were told that the ship had just experienced a peak of crew cases a couple of weeks earlier, and that more cases had been brought on board with new crew in the middle of our sailing.

 

Unless forced to by local regulations (like the Israel sailings), NCL is not interested in investing in testing for all passengers every few days. And I suspect that most passengers prefer it that way. But it is a huge gamble to mix a thousand people together from all over the world (plus hundreds of guest-facing crew) and then put a blindfold on for 10+ days.

 

Masking was supposedly still required on board for this sailing, but it was only mentioned in the Daily on the first day, and absolutely not enforced. And I'm sorry to say that there were anti-mask jerks on board who actively picked fights with people they saw wearing masks.

[styles27]

1 hour ago, hawkeyetlse said:

 

Masking was supposedly still required on board for this sailing, but it was only mentioned in the Daily on the first day, and absolutely not enforced. And I'm sorry to say that there were anti-mask jerks on board who actively picked fights with people they saw wearing masks.

Nothing but bullies. Probably raising little bullies as well.  

[cruiseny4life]

My husband and I sailed on 4/17 from NYC on the Getaway to Bermuda. You know, the one where people waited in line for up to eight hours to embark. I'm sure a few instances of COVID/flu transmission occurred while everyone waited in this line as there was no social distancing and it seemed that only my husband and I wore a mask. We got lucky and embarked in just three hours (feels really weird to say we were lucky). This was one of the first cruises that was at over 100% capacity due to school breaks, so we probably got a glimpse of what full ship cruising will be like. 

 

When we got on the ship we were amongst the masses that pretended COVID didn't exist. 95% of cruisers didn't wear masks. That percentage may be even higher! Masks, on passengers, were virtually non-existent. I will admit to being one of those. At this point, we are both triple vaccinated. At the time I worked in a school and was around COVID every single day as I was the director of the school so went to the nurse's office almost every time we had a student test positive for COVID. 

 

I've taken the position that I'm going to get COVID. I don't know when, where, or how, nor will I ever really know the details of how the transmission occurs. I'm a fat diabetic so am immunocompromised - I'm hoping the vaccines will aid me when I do get COVID! 

 

When we were in Bermuda, masks were required on public transportation, including NCL's free ferry and buses. I wrote a review on this forum where I mentioned that I forgot to put my mask on when getting on one of the Bermuda buses. No one reminded me, but I did hastily put it on when I looked around and realized I was the only one not wearing it. I truly forgot, wasn't trying to be an arrogant American with an attitude. 

 

We feel that we did take some precautions on the ship. We did not attend any shows. We did participate in the CC slot pulls and were unmasked during this time. Also, spent a little extra cash in the casino and were unmasked. We only used the elevators 3 or 4 times the entire week. Twice we were smashed in with a lot of people. I don't believe the ten or so had a mask on (we didn't). 

 

Most days we were in the thermal suite with limited numbers of other guests (except the first day when it was crazy) and spent considerable time in the Haven Courtyard and Restaurant. Honestly, the Haven made this trip feel safer. Also, our meal times were early so Cagney's and Teppanyaki were not full. We then retreated to our balcony or the thermal suite. 

 

There were plenty of occasions for transmission if you spent considerable time in public spaces, waiting in line, participating in trivia, or shows, etc. Thankfully we did not get COVID, however many people reported they got COVID on social after the cruise. There was also some other type of respiratory bug going around (maybe the flu) that was reported. 

 

I say all this just to give you an idea of what it was like on a fully booked cruise. Best wishes as you make the right decision for you. As for my husband and I, it's going to be a year or so until we venture onto a cruise ship again. We'll be going camping, hiking, and fixing up our new house. 

 

To many happy voyages!

[dcipjr]

15 hours ago, renji said:

It’s the risk of quarantine without fresh air and being held captive without decent food service that is most distressing to people.

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.