Cruising in Covid Times

 It’s been interesting travel during what I hope is the end of the COVID pandemic times. Obviously, Covid is still going on. We knew we would just need to stay flexible. We’re going to be in a lot of different countries with different rules. We’re gone a long time, so some things will change while we’re out. For better or worse.

But, it has been fascinating to see how the countries do things differently.

In order to get on the boat in Florida, we needed to be fully vaxxed and show a negative test from 2 days before boarding.

Once we got to Portugal, we were given a form to complete which was pretty much a copy of our vax cards- including the dates of the shots. Masks were required inside.

In Spain, we were allowed to bop around all Spain stops with masks inside until Barcelona. For some reason, before Barcelona, we all had to take Covid tests. Unless you were getting off ship and…get this…staying in Spain. Those people didn’t have to take tests. How does that make sense?

In France, we didn’t have to do anything except masks inside and often people weren’t following that.

In Italy, the police and health department surprise boarded the boat when we arrived and immediately the entire boat had to put on KN95 masks (which they gave us for free). We had to wear them all day with an option to remove them when we were outside. We also had to take covid tests again. We also have to carry our vaxx cards, our KN95 masks (no other mask is acceptable), and a “passenger locator form”. Italy isn’t messing around.

The first time the boat tested us, 6 people tested positive out of 3800 people. The are using the 8th floor as quarantine. It is completely sealed off and the 6 people who are positive are ruling that deck. It’s probably kind of fun, really. They said none of them are really sick. 

We haven’t heard yet how many tested positive yesterday. Will be interesting to see. We did pick up 1400 new people in Barcelona. I’m not sure if they all had to test negative to board, but I’m guessing so. 

All things considered, it’s not been too big a deal. The boat is VERY clean. They are taking very good care of it. They are trying VERY hard to keep up with the constantly changing rules in every country. They give us everything we need. Imagine trying to keep up with it all? It’s exhausting to even think about. 

Our guide yesterday in Genoa, Italy, said that Italy’s restrictions are ending today. I wasn’t clear if that included the masks or not. We’ll find out today when we stroll into Rome!