What happened when I tested positive for Covid on a cruise ship

Well it finally

happened

, I

tested

positive

for greed on a Royal Caribbean

cruise

and I wanted to share

what

my experience was like so you know

what

to expect Hi everyone, I'm Matt from Royal Caringblog.com and yes, unfortunately on my Alaska

cruise

to the At the end of the trip I

tested

positive

for the coveted 19. Now I'm not sure where they covered me, in fact I'm pretty sure I got it from somewhere outside the cruise, like one of the ports you visited in Alaska or maybe even the airport or the plane that took me to the west coast because it can take two to twelve days for their systems to show up so we'll never know, but I started feeling a little weird on day six and on day seven I tested positive for the cruise.

I was on a seven-night Alaska cruise from Vancouver, Canada on the Royal Korean Serenade of the Seas and obviously my experience in terms of what

happened

may vary from yours, but I wanted to give everyone an idea of ​​what happened . wait because I think a lot of people are certainly a little worried, a little worried about what it would be like if you tested positive on a cruise and what happens afterward, I think from the beginning

when

you start to feel a little bit weird, a little bit out of the loop denial. It is probably the first feeling you will have regarding kovid.

My first symptom was a sore throat and I certainly ruled it out because I overdid it. I spent a lot of time on this cruise getting up early to go to sleep. afternoon and on day six, which was our glacier viewing day, I got up early, I was outside, it was cold, it was raining a little, it was dreary, so I thought I had tried too hard and that's what happened. That night I really had one of those terrible sick nights, you know,

when

you have fever dreams and everything is wrong. I woke up in the morning and knew something was wrong, so my next step was to test myself before contacting Royal Caribbean, one of my advice to everyone going on a cruise right now is to bring cova tests with you. at home just to make sure you can get tested yourself without having to call the doctor.

The reason is if you call the doctor and think you may have a code and they will test you. If you have coverage symptoms, if you test negative, you might still be quarantined for 24 hours just as a precaution, so I wanted to make sure that if I just overexerted myself or got the flu or something like that. I wasn't going to be in that kind of situation, I took my own greed test and sure enough, it came back positive almost immediately, so my next step was to call the doctor and inform them of my positive tests, the next thing that happens is The medical team goes up to their cabin and examines everyone, not just me, my wife and my children.

The

ship

's doctor and nurse arrived to give us a rapid antigen test. They each dropped off some Dayquil and Tylenol pills to treat the symptoms they were experiencing. The doctor listened. he to my breathing and he told us that we would have the results very soon, probably within the hour. He also mentioned that all the treatment we were receiving was completely free from the cruise line and almost an hour later I got a call saying it was safe. my wife and children were negative. Now let's talk about quarantine because I think this is probably the biggest concern we all have when it comes to being covered on a cruise, even more so than feeling sick.

Fortunately I was able to stay in my stateroom for two reasons: one, it was the last day of the cruise and we had a two-bedroom suite. The doctor explained to me that if I could quarantine myself in one of the dormitories, I could stay there instead of being moved to a different cabin on a different deck, which certainly seemed like a better idea than going somewhere else. I couldn't leave my cabin at all. My wife and children were allowed to leave the cabin, but they had to wear masks and were not allowed to eat in any of the restaurants, so we were allowed to order food. from room service at no extra charge, after one or two orders the room service representatives started calling me to place orders even before I could, at certain times of the day, in terms of food, it's exactly the same menu of the room service to which any other guest has access. for dinner we were able to order the main dining room menu just to give it something different.

Broom service food ages pretty quickly. Unlike the main dining room, there are no variations or new options from one day to the next. I can see how this becomes. really frustrating if you had been quarantined for a longer period, plus the royalty gives you complementary internet access and free phone service and another change to know once you enter quarantine is that the daily cleaning of your cabin stops , so it's up to you to arrange for new towels to be left, we obviously need that, so in terms of monitoring once you test positive expect lots of phone calls from people checking on you.

Frankly, I was impressed by the number of crew members who had called. and gave me information. I was really worried about not having access to all the questions about what happens next, but between the medical team and guest services they sorted everything out. The medical team called several times to check on how I was feeling and they were happy to provide me with more medication if I need it. Guest service is also called to coordinate plans and I'll talk more about that in a moment, but both medical and guest service come across and ask me if the other had done certain things to make sure I didn't miss anything, so let's talk about what happens after cruise guest services gave me options on what I could do at the end of our trip because our crews were being sold out of Canada, which has public health regulations that require me to continue isolating after the trip is over, I had three options: number one, I could disembark in Canada and quarantine in Canada for a minimum of 10 days according to Canadian health regulations, of course, in reality it would have been nine days because I was already quarantined for a day in my cabin option. two, I could disembark and take my rental car that I had already parked in Vancouver before the cruise and drive back to the US and option number three, I could have stayed on board for the next trip, this was a shock to me , frankly. but in the paperwork that was provided very quickly, the option of staying on board for another voyage and quarantining on board is listed as an option as long as there is room for it and in my particular case there was availability if I wanted to stay on board if I remained on board, I would need to quarantine for four more days, and if I tested negative after that, I could leave the

ship

and port and resume normal cruise activities.

My family, who of course are still negative, would need a test every day, but they could enjoy the boat if they have a negative result. It was quite tempting to stay on board, but my fear was that someone else might test positive as they had been exposed to me and it seemed too risky later in the disembarkation. process I spoke to another couple who had chosen to stay on board in quarantine and they spent the entire cruise all seven nights in quarantine on board because they continued to test positive, which actually made me feel a lot better about my decision not to stay on board.

I finally chose the option of taking a rental car and driving back to Seattle to stay there. If I didn't have a rental car parked in Vancouver, I probably would have been stuck in Canada under Canadian regulations. I had to provide guest services from management. where I was going and my arrival may be the most impressive part of the efforts Rollerbane makes to help those cover themselves during their sailing is the compensation package they have provided since I left Canada, which is a country that has isolation regulations and does not I could drive home to Florida.

Royal Caribbean offered me daily per diem if I quarantined in a hotel specifically, offering reimbursement up to a limit of 250 per hotel room per night 100 per person per day in food costs air change fees up to 400 per person and $150 for one car rental cost per day, plus all quarantined guests and their travel party get a prorated refund of their cruise fare based on time spent in quarantine and cruise time lost, this refund will come back to original form of payment, this is incredible, frankly, it is incredibly generous, especially the financial support that is provided after you jump ship and are isolated in a hotel, if they cover you in a theme park, in a hotel, in a resort , in a casino.

Not receiving anything from anyone, maybe you will get a phone call or maybe a taxi somewhere, but they are definitely not supporting you in this way and this just shows you the lengths the cruise lines will go to to make sure you. Now we are taken care of, it's true, if this would have been totally different if this had happened in Florida, for two reasons: one, I could have driven home because I live in Florida, but also two, because the public health regulations in Florida are different, they do not require. In order for you to continue to self-isolate after your trip ends, there are different rules and different compensation available to you, but the good news is that if the country you are selling in has these requirements, there are some pretty generous compensation options available to you in terms of actual cost.

During the disembarkation process, we were instructed to wait in our cabin until all other guests left the ship at 9:00 am. m. Some crew members came to take my luggage and would have taken it down separately from everyone else's luggage at 9:45am. m. a crew member. They came to escort us out of our room and off the ship, they actually escorted us first to a conference room where eventually another 10 coveted positive guests joined us, this represented 11 of 2,100 guests or just 0.5 percent of the guests on our trip. that we had coveted in waiting, we all shared our stories about how we had secretly discovered how it all happened there and most people seem to be heading to the hotel in Vancouver that the royal community organized for them to continue their quarantine.

They took me off the ship and put me in a van to take us to our quarantine place. The bus dropped me off at my rental car office which was parked nearby and then I was alone, they picked up my car and my family crossed the border. to washington and quarantined for four more days in washington before flying home, so this is my advice to anyone going on a cruise anytime soon, as long as greed remains the number one priority. I think it's very important to talk about this at the beginning of the video. bring some cova tests with you to test your cabin again just to be sure, it's much easier for you to get tested yourself to make sure you don't have, maybe allergies or some colds, rather than wanting to get tested in home. it's really important, you can bring the cheap test that you can get at Walgreens, something you just have to check on your own to see if it's a code or not before you call him doctor number two.

This is really important, download some shows or movies on your mobile device to watch most of the streaming services that you subscribe to allow you to download programming offline to watch like on a plane, so it is very important because television from Royal Caribbean is very limited, there is simply nothing to see there, you will get tired of television. Programming pretty quickly and I was glad I had a couple of programs already downloaded for my plane ride home because it really made a difference. I also recommend bringing extra prescription meds for possible quarantine and bringing some over the counter flu meds with you, my wife had packed ibuprofen in some aisles but I wish I had a day and night pen or even muce on the side to help me deal with my sore throat, but even having just ibuprofen was a big deal, so in conclusion, here's my take on what happened.

Probably different than most people in this situation because I already knew a lot beforehand about what the cruise lines were doing with people who tested positive and recovered. I was really interested to see how much truth there was in some of the subjective comments people had made about their experiences, yes the room service menu does get boring and if I were to eat it for three, four or more days I would probably have too Hated the food, but I never received cold food or anything that was really bad, people just reported that, it can be lukewarm at times, but it's certainly no different than any other food I would have received in the main dining room, which sometimes comes out very hot or maybe lukewarm orwith soap, so it was totally fine.

I really admit that I was lucky to only have to quarantine. for a day on board because the television schedule was limited and there were no pay-per-view movies, the uncertainty of the seas, plus the slow Internet on Saturday nights of the season made streaming virtually impossible, although I admit that YouTube worked pretty well because it just seemed to buffer its services much better than I thought. I thought the support from medical and guest services was exemplary. I was encouraged to call if I had any questions, so when I wasn't sure about mixing medications, I called the medical center and they took care of me. from my doctor almost immediately my primary care doctor at home is not as accessible plus how bad the quarantine is my other concern was communication because I had read some people lamenting the gaps in time before knowing what was going on moving on next I started on my ordeal Around 7am lunchtime I had a good idea what the game plan was and by 4pm I was clear on the break down and what to do after that.

I knew when I booked this cruise and all the other cruises I have taken since June. 2021 that there is a risk of vandenkovit on board. I was lucky enough to not have to encounter this until now, but I can't say it was handled well. It would have been much easier if this cruise had left Florida because I much prefer to quarantine in my own home and not have to fly, but the generous compensation package helped quite a bit. I'm not sure what kind of compensation options there are if the cruise had ended in the US, which would likely have different requirements than those. from Canada and I wanted to touch on one more thing because I had actually shared my experiences on real Quickblog.com and some people have pointed out to Matt clearly that they knew who you were on Real Quickblog.com and you received preferential treatment and my response to That was At no point did any of the team members I had spoken to ever get the feeling that they knew who I was.

Every time I talk to team members who know who I am, they almost immediately let me know that they read the blog or left me. I know that they know who I am, it is very clear that they do not mess around, at no time did I have that feeling and then, when talking to other people at the end of the cruise, my experience seemed very similar to everyone else's. Otherwise, I firmly believe that I did not receive any preferential treatment during my quarantine period, so there you have it. I hope this helps a little in terms of what to expect when it comes to quarantine if you've coveted aboard a Royal Caribbean cruise.

Let me know in the comments any questions you may have and while you're there hit the Like button, subscribe to our channel and turn on your notifications so YouTube lets you know we have a new video to share. This has been matt. from royal caringblog.com and we will talk again very soon