Covid infection poll

[Stephen]

Mobietta still has a bit of a cough but other than that we are both back to being ' normal '

Loosely termed

[barney]

We know of a party of eight who went on Iona on the first cruise without a negative lft before sailing.
Six tested positive within a day or two of getting home.
I wonder if someone knew that they were positive but went anyway.
They sailed the same day as our 10 day Ventura cruise with lft and I’m not aware of any cases from that one.

[Mervyn and Trish]

The non testing on Iona is certainly a gamble. I wonder how it's working overall. I guess P&O will neither know nor really care about cases once people are home. Just those that show up during the cruise. Fingers crossed for 4 weeks time when we will be aboard. No word yet on whether we have to test or not.

[Manoverboard]

Yep,it’s that ruddy cough.

It's certainly much better today following last night's Chicken Jalfrezi .... just saying

[Manoverboard]

Mobietta still has a bit of a cough but other than that we are both back to being ' normal '

Loosely termed

At your age one probably does get a tad loose ...

[Stephen]

The non testing on Iona is certainly a gamble. I wonder how it's working overall. I guess P&O will neither know nor really care about cases once people are home. Just those that show up during the cruise. Fingers crossed for 4 weeks time when we will be aboard. No word yet on whether we have to test or not.

I think it’s absolute madness allowing passengers to board without clarity they are Covid free. It would certainly put me off booking a cruise on Iona at this current time.

[Jan Rosser]

Just been talking to friends who’ve been on Marella cruise - they’ve had to do lateral flow 24 hours before flight to ship.

But flight is Tui and the plane is a mixture of cruise passengers and others on land based holidays who haven’t had to test. Sounds crazy to me!!!

To make it even worse they are going on a Greek cruise in September so lft before flight then another lft before boarding ship - Greek authorities requirements. The mind boggles

[Ray B]

Someone's not thinking this through correctly, me thinks.

[Mervyn and Trish]

My preference would be that I avoid the bother of a test but everyone else has to do one..

However I do think the unsupervised self administered test is a nonsense and waste of time. It is too easy to cheat. Quite simply don't bother to stick the swab up your nose and bingo negative result. Paying £20 for someone else to tell you the test you administered or not is negative is ludicrous. Bring back supervised testing at the terminal, even if they had to charge for it.

But even doing that LFTs are useless for early incubating Omicron so don't stop it getting aboard. Just saying do you have any of these symptoms would be equally effective.

[Stephen]

I agree about the testing but anything is better than nothing Merv.


The biggest joke is P&O state in their online gumph that if you have had Covid within fourteen day of travelling the you should/will not be allowed to board, yet here they are letting everyone board Iona without any form of testing.

[Ranchi]

Just read Merv’s post re: cheating the test. I did wonder what triggered the C band on a LFT. Is it simply a response to the solvent front moving through the test or do they respond to some other chemical indicative of a test taken by a human? I would hope the vast majority of passengers would take the test honestly.
As Stephen said, I think anything to reduce the base level of infected passengers boarding will be better than nothing.
Regarding testing at dockside; it’s quite daunting for passengers who have had to travel a long distance to Southampton. We tested before we left home and tried our best to isolate in a Soton hotel the night before boarding but it was still a nervy 20 odd minute wait after testing. The thought of having to pack up and drive home was not a pleasant one.

[Chalgrave4]

Out of pure interest a couple of months ago I ran a test through without using a swab at all - result C line no T line ie negative test.

[Mervyn and Trish]

Yes I did that too. That's what I mean about it being simple to fake a negative test if it's unsupervised. . And you can bet that among rhe passengers there will be some who feel a bit off and will do just that rather than lose their holiday. Probably the same ones who lie on the usual norovirus health declaration form.

[Manoverboard]

There may also be those who find the whole process too fiddley / difficult to see so don't bother.

[oldbluefox]

All I would say is if I am going to be ill with Covid I would rather be ill at home than on a cruise ship miles from home worrying whether we might be off-loaded.
Sadly not everyone sees it that way.

[towny44]

All I would say is if I am going to be ill with Covid I would rather be ill at home than on a cruise ship miles from home worrying whether we might be off-loaded.
Sadly not everyone sees it that way.

Read somewhere, probably CC, that P&O were now not offloading passengers on Southampton round trip sailings. Don't know how reliable it was though.