Carnival Cruise Line Announces Covid Policy Adjustments
Posted on August 1, 2022
Carnival Cruise Line is adjusting some of its Covid-19 rules for travelers including no pre-cruise testing for fully vaccinated guests with 5 nights or less cruises.
Carvinal says the new covid policies came about as a result of the CDC lifting requirements for the U.S. cruise industry.
The following changes are effective with embarkations August 4, 2022 or later.
- No pre-cruise testing for fully vaccinated guests booked on cruises with itineraries 5 nights or less.
- Pre-cruise testing for itineraries 6 nights or longer can be conducted three (3) days before departure.
- There will be no in-terminal testing for unvaccinated guests on day of departure, but all unvaccinated guests ages 2 and older must provide proof of a negative result of a lab-administered or supervised self-administered antigen COVID test taken within three (3) days before embarkation.
You can find Carnival's Covid protocol page on carnival.com.
Here's John Heald, Carnival's Brand Ambassador, discussing the Covid testing policy for Carnival. As you might expect he's been extremely busy discussing it in recent days. He calls it a great leap towards normality.
USA Today reports that Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Virgin Voyages and other cruise operators are also dropping pre-embarkation testing for Covid-19. Be sure to check the rules for each cruise ship because rules are usually different for vaccinated and unvaccinated passengers.
The CDC stopped tracking Covid-19 cases aboard cruise ships last month. Covid-19 cases on cruises were monitored for over two years according to CBS News through the COVID-19 Program for Cruise Ships initiative.
There were some issues earlier this summer with cruise ships getting overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients so if you do travel you could run into a similar situation if there is a Covid-19 outbreak on your ship.