DAILY COVID TESTING

[oskidunker]

Viking doesn't have any ships with 3400 people. You must be referring to a different cruise line. 

[basenji56]

Yes, different cruise line.  

[noe4laj]

On 11/17/2022 at 2:25 PM, Insanityx4 said:

I have been following the roll calls of a few cruises where pax have mentioned they have gone back to daily Covid testing or pax being contacted by Viking saying their upcoming cruise will be doing daily testing, especially on cruises in the Southern Hemisphere. Are there any updates on which ships, which itineraries, and which countries are requiring daily testing?

Viking Expedition ships currently sailing Antarctica out of Ushuaia (Polaris and Octantis) are doing daily testing and quarantine.

 

Pax testing positive are quarantined both on board while in Antarctica and in Argentina, if they still test positive on disembarkation day.

[ssaxsma]

Thanks for this information. It is very helpful.
 

Anyone have any idea why they might be doing this? It doesn’t seem to be an Argentinian requirement, and if so, what basis can they have for quarantining you in Argentina after you’ve left the ship? Once you’ve disembarked, why should Viking care at that point? Also, I don’t believe any of the competition are doing daily my testing and quarantine (and likely can’t, lacking onboard laboratories), further making me wonder why Viking is. 

 

We have a booking on Polaris in January, and we’ve already quarantined on and after a Viking cruise once and would prefer to avoid doing it again. If we know this protocol will be in place during our planned voyage, we may postpone it to avoid the possibility of a trip ruined by quarantine, despite taking all precautions we can. Looking for any additional info or advice from anyone to help make an informed decision. Thanks!

[Insanityx4]

This is the reason i originally posted. It seems to be a crap shoot as to what Viking does and doesn't do with testing and quarantining. Even management on the ships don't know what Viking passengers are told before boarding. We have either cancelled or have had Viking  cancel 4 cruises because of Covid. In Chile, during the midst of Covid, Viking removed passengers from the ship as per Chilean authority and were placed  in Chilean government run youth hostels without any resources from Viking. As many as 16 days with terrible accommodations, terrible food,  more like a prison camp. Not even coffee, salt and pepper, etc. We have a cruise lined up that starts in Chile and we are really concerned what Viking will do and we have only a few days left to cancel without losing our vouchers. No one at Viking has any idea as to what is going on or why. The daily testing and quarantining seems to be a Viking thing, not something that is mandated by the countries they are visiting. We are loyal Viking cruisers but are really frustrated at this point. Our loyalty is definitely waning and will start looking at other cruise lines with more definitive guidelines.

Edited November 30, 2022 by Insanityx4

[CDNPolar]

9 hours ago, ssaxsma said:

Anyone have any idea why they might be doing this? It doesn’t seem to be an Argentinian requirement, and if so, what basis can they have for quarantining you in Argentina after you’ve left the ship?

I am going to suggest that yes, Viking are making calculated decisions to test on certain cruise itineraries and some will be country specific and some are itinerary specific.

 

I am going to suggest that they are doing this on an Antarctic cruise because if an outbreak happens, they are several days - at best - away from land with medical help.  You have two full days in the Drake Strait both ways, and no one wants the ship to turn around half way through the cruise.  When you are cruising around Antarctica there is no medical help other than what is onboard.

 

This just my opinion.

 

We know that Viking read all the cruise critic discussions.  We also know that Viking are aware that some people are against daily testing.  Viking are still making decisions to put certain protocols in place regardless of some opinions.  Obviously Viking feel that these protocols have more value than the loyalty that they may lose from a guest or two.

[Heidi13]

6 hours ago, CDNPolar said:

I am going to suggest that yes, Viking are making calculated decisions to test on certain cruise itineraries and some will be country specific and some are itinerary specific.

 

I am going to suggest that they are doing this on an Antarctic cruise because if an outbreak happens, they are several days - at best - away from land with medical help.  You have two full days in the Drake Strait both ways, and no one wants the ship to turn around half way through the cruise.  When you are cruising around Antarctica there is no medical help other than what is onboard.

 

This just my opinion.

 

We know that Viking read all the cruise critic discussions.  We also know that Viking are aware that some people are against daily testing.  Viking are still making decisions to put certain protocols in place regardless of some opinions.  Obviously Viking feel that these protocols have more value than the loyalty that they may lose from a guest or two.

 

An excellent response.

 

Viking also walk the talk when it comes to safety and do place pax and crew safety as a priority. The mega ship owners have lots of talk about crew & pax safety, but it is more talk than action. Best recent example is they all refused to install labs onboard for testing, so they actually know the virus load aboard and make informed decisions to control spread.

 

By re-introducing targeted testing, Viking are endeavouring to prevent the recent example of a Princess ship docking in Australia with 800 infected pax.

 

With respect to Argentina, we have no knowledge of the requirements the Master receives from the local authorities, with respect to handling positive cases. Marine requirements have always been different from other modes of transport and local port authorities can implement any requirements higher than national standards. Prior to arrival, the Master must report any infectious diseases and adhere to all directions provided by local authorities.

[Mich3554]

2 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

 

An excellent response.

 

Viking also walk the talk when it comes to safety and do place pax and crew safety as a priority. The mega ship owners have lots of talk about crew & pax safety, but it is more talk than action. Best recent example is they all refused to install labs onboard for testing, so they actually know the virus load aboard and make informed decisions to control spread.

 

By re-introducing targeted testing, Viking are endeavouring to prevent the recent example of a Princess ship docking in Australia with 800 infected pax.

 

With respect to Argentina, we have no knowledge of the requirements the Master receives from the local authorities, with respect to handling positive cases. Marine requirements have always been different from other modes of transport and local port authorities can implement any requirements higher than national standards. Prior to arrival, the Master must report any infectious diseases and adhere to all directions provided by local authorities.

Last year, South America was an utter nightmare sailing from port to port.  In Uruguay, after 9 consecutive sea days and no cases, Uruguay wanted us tested twice more before they’d let us in  (we were Covid tested 3 times before 9 am).  Despite having no positives on board, we were essentially quarantined for 14 days because we had been to Cape Verde.  That meant we sailed into Argentina 3 days after we should have (14 days, to the hour).  We then had to jump through additional hoops for Chile.  
So I suspect that restarting testing is one way of making it smoother for Viking to jump through the hoops that all these countries on this particular cruise.  
One thing I learned on that cruise is that things didn’t have to make sense.  We just did as requested.

[seasack]

1 hour ago, Heidi13 said:

By re-introducing targeted testing, Viking are endeavouring to prevent the recent example of a Princess ship docking in Australia with 800 infected pax.

I’m confused by this statement what exactly will be prevented? If a Viking ship is scheduled to dock in Australia and they do full testing or as you say targeted testing just before docking what is the difference? At my guess it’s only the time to administer the tests and that’s only if Australia will accept the results that Viking presents to them. This also assumes some people on the Viking ship will test positive. 

[Heidi13]

9 minutes ago, seasack said:

I’m confused by this statement what exactly will be prevented? If a Viking ship is scheduled to dock in Australia and they do full testing or as you say targeted testing just before docking what is the difference? At my guess it’s only the time to administer the tests and that’s only if Australia will accept the results that Viking presents to them. This also assumes some people on the Viking ship will test positive. 

 

The previous daily testing on Viking ships identified the virus at the earliest stages, preventing spread. Best example is the 2021 WC that had a number of early infections, but with daily testing and quarantine they managed to complete a 120+ day cruise, mostly with zero infection.

[seasack]

31 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

 

The previous daily testing on Viking ships identified the virus at the earliest stages, preventing spread. Best example is the 2021 WC that had a number of early infections, but with daily testing and quarantine they managed to complete a 120+ day cruise, mostly with zero infection.

I get there would most certainly be an advantage if a Viking ship could sail into an Australian port or any port for that matter stating they have zero Covid but with itineraries trying for the most point to get back to a pre Covid normal preventing spread is going to get more and more difficult to achieve and therefore more likely the norm is going to be there will be pax at each and every port who will have Covid and unfortunately it will be the new norm. Just saying…

[Pushka]

2 hours ago, seasack said:

I get there would most certainly be an advantage if a Viking ship could sail into an Australian port or any port for that matter stating they have zero Covid but with itineraries trying for the most point to get back to a pre Covid normal preventing spread is going to get more and more difficult to achieve and therefore more likely the norm is going to be there will be pax at each and every port who will have Covid and unfortunately it will be the new norm. Just saying…

Australia requires testing of all cruise ship passengers. Once a certain percentage tests positive then different arrangements are made for disembarkation of affected passengers at the end of their cruise. Not put into isolation though. It’s just about limiting further spread.