As I’ve observed, especially with the halting of requiring and “exit” test at the end of a cruise and the dropping of mandatory mitigation, IMHO the likelihood of someone acquiring COVID in the conditions found on a typical 7-10 day cruise are exceedingly high.
The CDC has, for all intents and purposes thrown in the towel on trying to keep people safe aboard cruise ships:
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/cdc-covid-travel-risk-des…
The CDC’s cruise ship color status page, which as of Friday listed most ships sailing in US waters as “highly vaccinated” and color-coded orange, has been removed.
The orange designation indicated that reported cases of Covid-19 on board had met the threshold for CDC investigation (0.3% or more of total passengers and/or crew). The color status system went from green to yellow to orange to red, with red status triggering additional Covid precautions.
The CDC said on its website that the color-coding system “depended upon each cruise line having the same Covid-19 screening testing standards, which may now vary among cruise lines. Therefore, the cruise ship color status webpage has been retired.”
The agency said it will continue to provide testing recommendations to cruise lines and that ships will still report Covid cases to the CDC. Passengers can contact cruise lines directly to find out about outbreaks on ships, the agency said.
The CDC said cruise lines have the tools and guidance to manage their own Covid mitigation.
“Additionally, cruise travelers have access to recommendations that allow them to make informed decisions about cruise ship travel.”
Incidentally, the page has been neutered and nearly useless for at least a couple of months anyway. At least on the ship I was on, even after the mask mandate was dropped a considerable number of the passengers (say about 30-40%) continued to wear masks under most circumstances, but that was in the context of spending months watching COVID infect fellow travelers. I’m guessing it will be rare to see someone wearing a mask on most cruise ships today.
You pay your money and take your chances.
Jeff