Vaccine requirements or not for cruising?
 

A rep from Carnival called last night. Nice person, interesting conversation. Carnival at this time has no plans to require vaccines, only tests 72 hours prior to departure. I personally see those as kind of pointless for travel purposes when you could contract the virus after getting the test. RCCL and Norwegian are both planning to require all eligible cruisers and all crew members be vaccinated. The Carnival rep was a bit surprised when I said for now, I will cruise only on ships that require vaccination.
Now, I see DeSantis is claiming he can legally prevent cruise lines from requiring vaccinations. Somehow, I doubt that, but it is pressure on the cruise lines that operate out of Florida. It is a problem if some islands require vaccinations because ships must comply or not stop there. DeSantis does not control other countries. Some cruise lines are giving up and have created itineraries departing from various islands. Then there is the issue of flying.
Would like to hear the opinions of cruisers on Fodors. If you do not cruise, do you have a perspective on the legality of it?

There has been a LOT of discussion of this on Cruisecritic. Polls have shown 80-90% in favor of requiring vaccinations, sometimes for everyone (i.e. no kids at present) and some just for adults. Usually includes the crew. Posters on Carnival seem to be less in favor than those on other boards. If I were planning to cruise I would be in the "everyone" camp, but I'm immuno-compromised, and I just discovered that the death rate for the immuno-compromised is 30%.

I have stage four kidney disease, had a stroke, and have Asthma, so a no brainer for me. I am fully vaccinated, but will avoid travel until things improve. A cruise with everyone vaccinated would be the only possibility for me. Will look at those polls on cruisecritic.

DeSantis is not going to win this. I saw how he took those pax off that cruise ship in Ft Lauderdale and bused them to the tarmac and flew them to Atlanta. They were free to board any flight they wanted there. Can you imagine talking to your seatmate and learning they were on that ship?
Key West doesn't even want large ships there anymore and voted in an election. He is trying to overturn that. The water is clear, fish are back. The cruise ship pax don't spend the night and buy a drink or two and maybe a tee shirt.
Port Canaveral does miss the business of supplying the ships with flowers, fresh goods. The pax would rent cars and stay the night before and after cruises at least. Disney pax were bused over. The port has been doing business with commercial ships more now.
I do know that we want vaccine passports and he won't budge. I think a cruise line has the right to enforce vaccines. Many of the cruise lines said they will start and end in other ports if DeSantis wants to play this way especially since the State has no jurisdiction in waters extending out from land. "The federal government retains the power to regulate commerce, navigation, power generation, national defense, and international affairs throughout state waters." Thus, Florida has no standing.

Thanks, Macross, I thought the same, but have no legal knowledge except a bit in real estate, and that is likely outdated. It just seems that this is a health issue with huge responsibility and liability on the part of cruise lines, and they would not be violating any equality laws that I can see. DeSantis is not a judge or lawmaker. Someone might claim religious beliefs, but I do not think any religions specifically prohibit vaccines, so that would probably not hold up in court. I do worry a bit about cruise lines someday limiting age, but seniors are a good percentage of cruisers, so can’t see them making that an issue.

I avoid Carnival anyways. I have a HS reunion in Florida this year and probably won't go just because of DeSantis.

The CDC just announced the cruises could resume in July but they require passengers and crew at a clip of greater than 90% each to be vaccinated.

jacketwatch is over-simplifying. Two things have changed:

-- Companies can skip the test voyages carrying volunteers and resume sailings with fare-paying passengers with 98 percent of crew and 95 percent of passengers fully vaccinated (but they need to submit plans for how to do that).

-- Companies will still need port agreements and provider contracts, but can now include multiple ports in one contract.

The rest of the CSO remains unchanged. I suspect that a resumption in July is over-optimistic.

by the way I don’t know if I mentioned this to you before but we are taking a cruise in June 2022 out of Iceland and it’s a really good deal. It’s on Norwegian. It’s 11 days and of course being that far north in June it will be white nights. It goes to several stops in Iceland as well as Belfast, another stop in Ireland and a stop in England which I think is Portsmouth and then ends in Southampton. Send me a message if you’re interested and I’ll give you more information. My travel agent got some really good perks on this one.

It seems to me that there will be difficulties also guaranteeing that everybody passengers might be exposed to will be vaccinated. For example, I have no idea how many people come onto a ship when it is in port, for repairs and to load or unload supplies, food, etc. also, how about port workers who are checking passengers in? You are sometimes in the terminal for quite awhile with a lot of people, not just passengers. Will all of those people be vaccinated? Given how many people are still refusing to take the vaccine, it is even more of a problem. If cruises start up and there is an outbreak, it will really hurt.

I do believe the day that a vaccine passport is required in on the horizon.

Will workers who come on board the ship be required to be vaccinated or those who work in the termimals? Good questions. I do agree that if the virus breaks out yet again on a ship it will really hurt. You would think or at least hope the cruise lines will have addressed all this.

We plan to cancel our Sept. cruise this year out of Southampton. We just don't have the comfort level to go. I am hoping but 6/2022 this will be past us as we of course miss cruising but now things are just too vague.

If I was you given your medical conditions I would certainly wait. I am waiting now anyway.

Hopefully one day we can again break bread on a ship like that great evening on the Constellation with the Dogster. That was a fun night.

Cheers, Larry :)