Carnival Cruise Line announced today, July 29, that it will waive all pre-cruise testing requirements for vaccinated guests on short-haul cruises of 5 nights or less, beginning August 4. The cruise line will introduce further changes in phases.
Carnival will also change the amount of time guests will have to be tested on cruises longer than five nights and has introduced much less stringent measures for unvaccinated guests.
Carnival cruise line introduces new testing requirements
With most major cruise lines having already introduced changes to their testing requirements following end of CDC requirements for the cruise industrymany people were waiting to see what Carnival Cruise Line would do.
Carnival announced a number of changes that will be introduced in the coming weeks and months. The most important difference is that guests will no longer need to be tested if they are sailing on short cruise itineraries of 5 nights or less, effective on and after August 4, 2022.
The policy change has been a long time coming from the cruise line, which only recently said it would not make any sudden changes following the end of the voluntary CDC program for cruise ships. However, with Royal Caribbean making significant changes to their policies on July 28, Carnival Cruise Line could not be left behind.
In a statement posted on Carnival Cruise Line’s website, the company said: “Carnival Cruise Line is pleased to announce that we are adjusting some protocols to reflect the lifting of CDC requirements for the US cruise industry. We remain, as always, committed to the health and safety of our guests, crew and the communities we serve.”
“These changes will be phased in, with the first of these updates coming into effect on Thursday, August 4, 2022, and will focus on short-haul itineraries of 5 nights or less. More changes will be announced soon and all changes are subject to any requests from destinations on the itinerary.”
Carnival’s new testing policies explained
Effective August 4, guests sailing on cruises of five nights or less will not need to be tested before sailing, as long as they are fully vaccinated.
Guests sailing on cruises of six nights or more will still have to undergo testing, but Carnival Cruise Line has extended the time frame in which it must be done to three days before the cruise’s departure.
There will be no more terminal testing for guests who are not fully vaccinated. However, all unvaccinated guests, two years of age and older, must provide evidence of a negative result of a self-administered or laboratory-supervised COVID antigen test performed within three days prior to departure.
This means that guests no longer need to provide a negative PCR test; instead, an antigen test will suffice. This change will have a major impact on families traveling with unvaccinated children, especially due to the expensive nature of PCR testing.
Also Read: First Cruise Line Abolishes Testing for US Home Gateways
The cruise line also talks about further changes in the future. That could mean the cruise line would consider dropping all testing requirements and possibly vaccine mandates.
Although this may seem pointless, Royal Caribbean insinuated the same yesterdaysaying he was working towards a plan where all guests would be able to navigate.
Regardless of what the future holds, the protocol changes introduced will be welcomed by the thousands of guests who sail on Carnival cruise ships each week, but who have had to deal with the stress of finding and passing a suitable test alone two days before sailing.
