O Changes the Rules

I got an email from Oceania (O) on 8 February announcing rule changes for COVID-19 precautions. It’s not just O, of course. Every cruise line is changing its requirements … and sooner rather than later. At least O’s changes don’t go into effect until 1 March, so they can monitor to see if they want to back down.

I’ll be frank. I’m not sure I like the new rules. But hey … short of canceling the cruise, we’ll have to go along with them … with our own added precautions as necessary. And who knows? Things might change again. After all, hasn’t that been the word of the day with COVID-19? Change … again and again.

So, the mask mandate for passengers will be no more come March. O still strongly encourages people to continue to wear masks when they cannot social distance. We’ll definitely do that, but you know most people are not going to follow those rules. A poster on CruiseCritic mentioned that the crew will continue to be masked, but I have no official confirmation of that.

As for the pre-embarkation testing. The responsibility now lies totally with us. We were going to do the pre-departure test 72-hours in advance since the small print called for us to do that in order to get financial protection should we test positive when we submit to the O-testing just prior to embarkation. Now, the testing is to be done by the passenger 48-hours prior to embarkation day with no pier-side testing at O’s expense.

My big concern with all this … how many passengers will test positive after we set sail. It’s happened on practically every cruise … on every line since cruising recommenced in 2021. Worse yet, how many will attempt to hide their symptoms so as not to test positive and be forced to quarantine?

But as I said before, nothing to do but cancel at this point. And we won’t be doing that. So, we’ll continue to keep ourselves safe and stay away from crowds as much as possible. And hopefully, the continued requirement for passengers to be fully-vaccinated will alleviate the ramifications of these new rules for cruising.Read more