Last cruise post, I swear

The new Carnival cruise ship Mardi Gras pulled into Canaveral, Florida on Thursday and one of the company spokespeople outlined how the season will work once they’re allowed to start sailing:

1. You will be asked to upload your vaccine info when you book your cruise. I guess that website can be located somewhere other than Florida.
2. You will be asked to show your vaccine shot card. It’s implied that they’ll ask for this in the terminal or on the ship on embarkation day.
3. If there will be unvaccinated people on the cruise, there will be areas of the ships that will be off limits to them such as the casinos and spas. Not sure about excursions. As the Carnival spokesperson says, there is a path for unvaccinated passengers but they won’t have the same great cruise experience, probably due to restrictions.

The biggest issue for cruise lines like Carnival, and probably Norwegian and Royal Caribbean, is that they tend to be family vacation ships and children under 12 are not eligible for vaccines. To be honest, as a vaccinated passenger, I would be less worried about kids. In fact, I’m not worried at all about getting sick from Covid. That’s what the vaccine is for.

No, the problem is the parents who are more likely to go maskless, issue demands and generally make the cruise less pleasant for everyone else. It will be vaccinated passengers who will have the privilege of going to certain venues on board and they won’t need to wear masks. So it sounds like Carnival will be giving passengers some kind of access device depending on vaccine status. My guess is that it’s a wrist band of some sort. The Italian cruise line, MSC, gives passengers wrist bands. They look a bit like Fitbits or apple watches. You use your wristband to pay for extras like cocktails or access to VR lounges. MSC also uses the wristbands to track the location of guests in order to do contact tracing later if there is a Covid outbreak. MSC is allowing unvaccinated or partially vaccinated passengers on their ships but there are areas that are off limits, reduced services and/or require a mask. My guess is that Carnival will use similar technology and you’ll only know who’s been vaccinated once you try to get into a restricted area.

It’s not a problem keeping kids out of the casinos and spas. They’re not the problem here. I predict meltdowns. Really, this is so easy to avoid. Just get the shot for godssakes. 🙄 Pretend it’s a tetanus shot or an HPV shot if that makes it easier for your mind to take in. There’s literally no good reason for dragging out our return to normalcy.

Ok, I’m done.

Bye.