Australian cruise protocols

[DMMarla07860]

We are on the Oct 10 cruise from Honolulu to Sydney. I’m grateful the test is no longer required although I do wish they still required vaccines. We are going to New Zealand after we land in Sydney and vaccines are still required to be shown there once we land. We will be getting the latest booster, which will be available next week, before we go. I have not worn masks in a long time and don’t plan to return to them but I certainly have no problem with others that do. I do feel sorry for those that feel they can’t experience all the pleasures of the boat, like meals in the dining rooms, etc, but that’s got to be an individual decision. We are in our 70s and our only experience with Covid was a minor cold. The same with our daughter. I also plan to bring a few tests just in case. I broke my nose a couple years ago and if I forget my nose spray, my nose runs a lot. And my daughter has Down syndrome and takes allergy pills every day but still experiences a lot of congestion. If others look askance at a sneeze or two or blowing our nose that is on them.

My experience with Covid was same as you. I have lupus, so even a cold could mess me up. It was worth it. I wore a mask at shows, I enjoyed dinners

I think my mom and Nannie who don’t travel and mainly enjoy home are more worried then me

 

[rainbowredpanda]

Honestly on the ship you should have issues with abuse. As long as your not expecting everyone to be masked your fine. I'm sure there will be a few here or there. I for one think I might not have gotten covid if I was more careful, but it was my choice and I was happy for a week 3 Night/4 Night Back-2-Back

I understand people won't mask. We have been advised that we can ask our room attendants to mask, which we will do and give them extra when we tip for the small inconvenience. I know there have been some questionable behaviour in the Facebook groups with some people saying they would be telling people off for wearing masks but whether or not they will actually do so onboard is yet to be seen. I feel like many people say things online but won't do so in person. But we have certainly had issues since 2020 with anti maskers.

 

[DMMarla07860]

I understand people won't mask. We have been advised that we can ask our room attendants to mask, which we will do and give them extra when we tip for the small inconvenience. I know there have been some questionable behaviour in the Facebook groups with some people saying they would be telling people off for wearing masks but whether or not they will actually do so onboard is yet to be seen. I feel like many people say things online but won't do so in person. But we have certainly had issues since 2020 with anti maskers.

I was honestly the least concerned about my room attendant and my Facebook group had none of that. No one here cared at least for Wish

 

[Karin1984]

Requesting to be seated alone is not going to help. As the table next to you can be a only few inches/centimeter away. If lucky, it will be 2 feet/0.5m. You can often touch the people at the table next to you without much problem.

It was mentioned you can request your host to mask up. Did they mention your servers?

If you want to protect yourself, you better stick to room service or the pool deck eateries and avoid the buffet and MDR. Maybe MDR for breakfast and lunch if you go at off hours, but even then, little guarantee no people near you, and you do not have your own servers. Cabanas maybe for breakfast if you go directly when it opens at 6(?), so the utensils for serving are clean(er).

 

[Habitatnal]

We are on the Oct 10 cruise from Honolulu to Sydney. I’m grateful the test is no longer required although I do wish they still required vaccines. We are going to New Zealand after we land in Sydney and vaccines are still required to be shown there once we land. We will be getting the latest booster, which will be available next week, before we go. I have not worn masks in a long time and don’t plan to return to them but I certainly have no problem with others that do. I do feel sorry for those that feel they can’t experience all the pleasures of the boat, like meals in the dining rooms, etc, but that’s got to be an individual decision. We are in our 70s and our only experience with Covid was a minor cold. The same with our daughter. I also plan to bring a few tests just in case. I broke my nose a couple years ago and if I forget my nose spray, my nose runs a lot. And my daughter has Down syndrome and takes allergy pills every day but still experiences a lot of congestion. If others look askance at a sneeze or two or blowing our nose that is on them.

New Zealand and most countries no longer require proof of vaccination to enter their country.

https://www.newzealand.com/us/covid-19-travel-safety-information/

You can take your vaccination card with you but you probably won’t need it for your trip.

 

[rainbowredpanda]

Requesting to be seated alone is not going to help. As the table next to you can be a only few inches/centimeter away. If lucky, it will be 2 feet/0.5m. You can often touch the people at the table next to you without much problem.

It was mentioned you can request your host to mask up. Did they mention your servers?

If you want to protect yourself, you better stick to room service or the pool deck eateries and avoid the buffet and MDR. Maybe MDR for breakfast and lunch if you go at off hours, but even then, little guarantee no people near you, and you do not have your own servers. Cabanas maybe for breakfast if you go directly when it opens at 6(?), so the utensils for serving are clean(er).

Thank you. We've done a dozen Disney Cruises so well versed in the MDRs already. We know on several sailings in the past month across the fleet, the MDR teams have been back in masks on and off for various sailings, so it will interesting to see what happens here.

In Cabanas, we always request fresh serving utensils and often our food is prepared in the kitchen due to allergies. We will skip at least two of the MDRs (Tritons and Pirates Menu). We are travelling with a huge Tiana fan so we will do that meal and maybe Animators. We will at the very least mask in between courses to limit exposure.

For the shows, we will skip Frozen and the magic/ventriloquist show and attend the other two in N95s. We plan to limit exposure, masking as much as possible because that is what we have done since 2020 and will continue to do so.

 

[rainbowredpanda]

I was honestly the least concerned about my room attendant and my Facebook group had none of that. No one here cared at least for Wish

I'm hoping that's true for us as well, I can only report on what I've seen in the FB posts recently for some of the Australian Sailings.

 

[Sakura1017]

I understand people won't mask. We have been advised that we can ask our room attendants to mask, which we will do and give them extra when we tip for the small inconvenience. I know there have been some questionable behaviour in the Facebook groups with some people saying they would be telling people off for wearing masks but whether or not they will actually do so onboard is yet to be seen. I feel like many people say things online but won't do so in person. But we have certainly had issues since 2020 with anti maskers.

I'm kinda shocked that people in your fb groups would be telling people off for wearing masks, it has nothing to do with them but just a personal choice. Definitely bring them and pack them in your luggage, lots of people started coughing on day 5 and 6 on my previous 9 day cruise and they only had the cloth designs mask in shops which don't offer much protection.

In addition, the people that were coughing were not covering their coughs so it was spreading. So lots of kids were not feeling well and then parents would pick up their kids and now they are roughly same height so that didn't help with the spreading.

I saw some cast members wear masks too so it's just personal preference.

 

[Starwind]

I understand people won't mask. We have been advised that we can ask our room attendants to mask, which we will do and give them extra when we tip for the small inconvenience. I know there have been some questionable behaviour in the Facebook groups with some people saying they would be telling people off for wearing masks but whether or not they will actually do so onboard is yet to be seen. I feel like many people say things online but won't do so in person. But we have certainly had issues since 2020 with anti maskers.

We sailed on the last Alaska sailing of the season. We are immunocompromised and we both wore N95s everywhere outside our stateroom except when actively eating/drinking and did not attend any shows. Unfortunately, like many on our cruise, we did still manage to get covid, testing positive when we got home, and were quite sick and are still not recovered; Paxlovid seems to have helped considerably.

In terms of people on the ship making negative/rude comments about us "masking", that only happened *once*. We said nothing back to them and kept walking past them. While I did wish afterward that I had a pithy comment to say back, I think it was better to just ignore them and move past them; no sense getting into a confrontation with an idiot.

Some advice: bring plenty of extra masks. Many more than you think you may possibly need. And carry an extra with you at all times. I had straps on more than one suddenly break, including once when just walking around the ship (and these were 3M N95 Auras, so good quality respirators). Also, on some of our excursions between the exertion (10,000-15,000 walking steps a day) and the rain, the respirators were getting pretty damp inside and had to be disposed of when we returned to the ship. By the end of the cruise I was running low even though I had brought what I thought were quite a few extras.

 

[CarolynFH]

While I did wish afterward that I had a pithy comment to say back, I think it was better to just ignore them and move past them; no sense getting into a confrontation with an idiot.

You're definitely correct there.

 

[ladyofthetramp]

We sailed on the last Alaska sailing of the season. We are immunocompromised and we both wore N95s everywhere outside our stateroom except when actively eating/drinking and did not attend any shows. Unfortunately, like many on our cruise, we did still manage to get covid, testing positive when we got home, and were quite sick and are still not recovered; Paxlovid seems to have helped considerably.

In terms of people on the ship making negative/rude comments about us "masking", that only happened *once*. We said nothing back to them and kept walking past them. While I did wish afterward that I had a pithy comment to say back, I think it was better to just ignore them and move past them; no sense getting into a confrontation with an idiot.

Some advice: bring plenty of extra masks. Many more than you think you may possibly need. And carry an extra with you at all times. I had straps on more than one suddenly break, including once when just walking around the ship (and these were 3M N95 Auras, so good quality respirators). Also, on some of our excursions between the exertion (10,000-15,000 walking steps a day) and the rain, the respirators were getting pretty damp inside and had to be disposed of when we returned to the ship. By the end of the cruise I was running low even though I had brought what I thought were quite a few extras.

No one should be making rude comments about masking or anything else. That is unfortunate. I hope you feel better soon.

 

[rainbowredpanda]

We sailed on the last Alaska sailing of the season. We are immunocompromised and we both wore N95s everywhere outside our stateroom except when actively eating/drinking and did not attend any shows. Unfortunately, like many on our cruise, we did still manage to get covid, testing positive when we got home, and were quite sick and are still not recovered; Paxlovid seems to have helped considerably.

In terms of people on the ship making negative/rude comments about us "masking", that only happened *once*. We said nothing back to them and kept walking past them. While I did wish afterward that I had a pithy comment to say back, I think it was better to just ignore them and move past them; no sense getting into a confrontation with an idiot.

Some advice: bring plenty of extra masks. Many more than you think you may possibly need. And carry an extra with you at all times. I had straps on more than one suddenly break, including once when just walking around the ship (and these were 3M N95 Auras, so good quality respirators). Also, on some of our excursions between the exertion (10,000-15,000 walking steps a day) and the rain, the respirators were getting pretty damp inside and had to be disposed of when we returned to the ship. By the end of the cruise I was running low even though I had brought what I thought were quite a few extras.

Thank you. We're used to snide comments and abuse unfortunately. Masking is virtually non existent here but unfortunately people can get really aggressive. We will just ignore unless they're particularly over the top, in which case we will talk it over with crew if the problem becomes significant.

Thank you for the advice about the masks. We will only be on board, with maybe a couple hours off the ship but we will bring even more than we were going to already. Thank you. We are going to skip all the shows except one and likely only do to Tianas in the MDR as we have a huge Tiana fan with us.

I hope you feel better soon.

 

[Starwind]

Thank you. We're used to snide comments and abuse unfortunately. Masking is virtually non existent here but unfortunately people can get really aggressive. We will just ignore unless they're particularly over the top, in which case we will talk it over with crew if the problem becomes significant.

Thank you for the advice about the masks. We will only be on board, with maybe a couple hours off the ship but we will bring even more than we were going to already. Thank you. We are going to skip all the shows except one and likely only do to Tianas in the MDR as we have a huge Tiana fan with us.

I hope you feel better soon.

Hopefully you won't run into any issues with rude or aggressive people !

Regarding the shows -- they have taped versions on one of the stateroom TV channels at specific times - on our cruise each one was on at 4 different times the day it was in the theatre. So we "watched" some of the shows, but from the comfort and safety of our stateroom (others we just skipped entirely) Not the exact same experience, but we felt it was a decent compromise.

Thank you for the well wishes.