Oasis of the Seas - Traveling with Unvaccinated Child

[Marleycruiser]

We will be boarding the Oasis of the Seas in a couple of weeks and have an 11AM check in time. We are a family of 4 and our 2 year old son is not fully vaccinated. I was hoping someone could shed some light on how the testing of children is within the Bayonne Cruise Terminal. I celebrating the 4th when our neighbors, who had gone on the Oasis last month, said they heard some pretty negative things when speaking to fellow passengers (3+ hour wait). I just wanted to mentally prepare myself if that is the case.

 

Lastly, I am a goody two shoes when it comes to following directions, but I was not going to show up earlier than my 11AM check in. Given I have a child that needs to be tested the day of, should I rethink that strategy?

 

Thank you all in advance. 

[smokeybandit]

Go back and check your check-in time to see if they opened any 10:30am slots

[Sunshine3601]

The line for children to be tested can be long if there are a lot of children on your particular sailing.     Which I suspect Oasis will continue to have lots of children sailing this summer.    Last week or two they had over 700 children onboard.

If you have a 11 am check in, try to show up around 10:30 as you may be able to get right in and go to the testing station set up (I believe on the right hand side of the terminal).    

If you can get a 10 or 10:30 check in I would not show up any earlier than 10 am as last passengers from previous sailing are usually off no later than 9:15 or 9:30 and they want time to clean etc before new passengers board.   

cabins are usually ready between 1 and 2 pm.

 

[broadwaybaby123]

I'm in the same situation. When I was there in April, they had a separate line for the unvaccinated kiddos.

[Merion_Mom]

1 hour ago, Marleycruiser said:

We will be boarding the Oasis of the Seas in a couple of weeks and have an 11AM check in time. We are a family of 4 and our 2 year old son is not fully vaccinated. I was hoping someone could shed some light on how the testing of children is within the Bayonne Cruise Terminal. I celebrating the 4th when our neighbors, who had gone on the Oasis last month, said they heard some pretty negative things when speaking to fellow passengers (3+ hour wait). I just wanted to mentally prepare myself if that is the case.

 

Lastly, I am a goody two shoes when it comes to following directions, but I was not going to show up earlier than my 11AM check in. Given I have a child that needs to be tested the day of, should I rethink that strategy?

 

Thank you all in advance. 

 

There was someone last week who was VERY concerned about this.  She reported after her cruise that it was VERY easy and VERY smooth.  They arrived around 1.

[MaddyandMax]

We cruised out of Bayonne in March.  Though both my kids are vaccinated, they made us go to the line where unvaxxed kids check in.  I suspect it was because my youngest is 9 but looks younger.  But it worked out in our favour because we were on the ship in 15 min. Once they saw we were all vaccinated and looked at our paper work we were good to go.  It did look well organized.  They had a section curtained off for the testing and a ton of chairs.  We had an 11am check in but there were already a dozen or so families there getting tested.  What seems to be the biggest back up was the mental detectors.  Lot of families with strollers and whatnot that needed to be checked.

[Merion_Mom]

7 minutes ago, MaddyandMax said:

  What seems to be the biggest back up was the mental detectors.  Lot of families with strollers and whatnot that needed to be checked.

 

Oh, how I wish they had mental detectors!  Far too many cruisers without.

[MaddyandMax]

Ugh good catch! LOL  It's been a long day.

 

Metal Detectors....

[Merion_Mom]

1 minute ago, MaddyandMax said:

Ugh good catch! LOL  It's been a long day.

 

Metal Detectors....

I like it better the way you originally posted!

[Roybthered]

Hope there are less children travelling mid Oct when we travel with our granddaughter.

[MaddyandMax]

2 minutes ago, Roybthered said:

Hope there are less children travelling mid Oct when we travel with our granddaughter.

My family group is traveling out of Bayonne with children so you'll at least have us! LOL But only one child out of our group needs to be tested at the pier.

[Roybthered]

9 hours ago, MaddyandMax said:

My family group is traveling out of Bayonne with children so you'll at least have us! LOL But only one child out of our group needs to be tested at the pier.

LOL, great. Really looking forward to it, waiting in a line for her to be tested is a very small price to pay to get away for 7 nights. 

[DukeASUGirl]

9 hours ago, Roybthered said:

Hope there are less children travelling mid Oct when we travel with our granddaughter.

Depending on when in October, there could be some (Fall Break), but even if there are "more" kids that week than usual in fall, it definitely won't be anywhere near as many as in the summer.

 

We'll be on Harmony Oct 2-9 because that's when my kids and I have Fall Break, but I know that Fall Break isn't a thing everywhere, so I expect that kid numbers will be comparatively lower, although obviously not nonexistent.

 

But summer is obviously packed with kids.

[Roybthered]

34 minutes ago, DukeASUGirl said:

Depending on when in October, there could be some (Fall Break), but even if there are "more" kids that week than usual in fall, it definitely won't be anywhere near as many as in the summer.

 

We'll be on Harmony Oct 2-9 because that's when my kids and I have Fall Break, but I know that Fall Break isn't a thing everywhere, so I expect that kid numbers will be comparatively lower, although obviously not nonexistent.

 

But summer is obviously packed with kids.

We are on the 16th Oct Sailing so might miss quite a few, but like you say nowhere near as many in the summer!