With vaccines now available to 5-11 year-olds and a worrisome new variant of Covid-19 in the picture, cruise line rules are starting to evolve again, with stricter requirements.
Much of the change involves requiring younger passengers to be vaccinated; Celebrity's new rule sums it up simply: "All crew and guests who are eligible to be vaccinated must be vaccinated in order to sail with us." Although Disney was the first to require vaccination for the 5-11 group, Norwegian and a number of others insist on vaccination for all passengers, and had already not allowed unvaccinated children.
Testing rules are also changing, as well. Royal Caribbean, which had previously required advance testing followed by a pierside test will no longer accept rapid antigen tests for the pre-cruise result, requiring a more-expensive PCR test. The pierside test, at the cruise line's expense, will still be the rapid.
Even with the tightening of requirements, it's too soon to know what effect the new omicron variant will have on cruise sales and operation over the next few months.
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