We have one booked for August 2022, which is a reschedule from August 2021, which was a move from May 2021. We have booked pre and post hotel, with a rate that does not require a deposit and can be canceled without penalty upto 3 days before checkin. We have not yet booked airfare.
DCL has changed their "international travelers need undergo pre-trip testing even if vaccinated" policy for US departure ports, and that is no longer the case. I believe this change occurred along with the change to all travelers 12 and over must be vaccinated. See
https://disneycruise.disney.go.com/why-cruise-disney/experience-updates/us/ . Now it is only
"Pre-Trip COVID-19 Testing: Guests 11 years of age and younger are not required to be vaccinated but must provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test result (paid for by the Guest) taken between 3 days and 24 hours before your sail date. The test should be a rapid PCR test or lab-based PCR test. Rapid antigen tests are not accepted."
Note that pre-trip testing is different than "Embarkation COVID-19 Testing" (all guests tested at the terminal before getting on board the ship) and "Debarkation Day COVID-19 Testing" (
"All unvaccinated Guests on 5-night and longer sailings are required to undergo a rapid COVID-19 PCR test (paid for by Disney Cruise Line and administered by Inspire Diagnostics) on the ship prior to debarking.")
What is a problem for many Canadians for the US departure cruises is that they do not accept mixed dose AZ-mRNA vaccination schedules.: "Guests who have received one single dose of a vector vaccine (e.g., AstraZeneca) and one single dose of an mRNA vaccine (e.g., Pfizer, Moderna) are not considered fully vaccinated." About 1 million Canadians were vaccinated this way; I am one of them, though my sister and mother, who will be taking this cruise with me, are dual-Pfizer. Note that for some other cruise lines even Canadians with dual mRNA have a problem because of the spacing between the doses: there are some cruise lines that won't accept you as vaccinated if the spacing is more than 42 days and many Canadians have more than that because some provinces required waits of 8+ weeks between doses for most people.
Obviously DCL will have to get this mixed dose issue sorted before they sail from Vancouver. The Canadian government (where the ship will depart from) recognizes the mixed doses, but the CDC right now does not (but the ship will sail to US ports, so that could still be a factor). They have the better part of a year to work on that issue, hopefully that will be sufficient time. All the other cruise lines will be in the same boat, so there is incentive to solve it government:government. The Canadian government has previously said they are working with other governments on the issue.
In August, the Government of Canada announced (bold added) "In addition,
as soon as possible in the fall and no later than the end of October, the Government of Canada will require employees in the federally regulated air, rail, and marine transportation sectors to be vaccinated. The
vaccination requirement will also extend to certain travellers. This includes all
commercial air travellers, passengers on interprovincial trains, and passengers on large marine vessels with overnight accommodations, such as
cruise ships. " (see
https://www.canada.ca/en/treasury-b...ederally-regulated-transportation-sector.html )
If those regulations are still in place come next summer, then anyone taking the cruise (plus flying to get there) would need to be vaccinated, with exceptions for those unable to be vaccinated (eg too young).
It will be interesting to see if there will still be testing requirements by then, including debarkation testing requirements for getting back into Canada.
SW
But excited to do Alaska again! We live in Vancouver so it's easier for us. I don't think mixed vaccines will be an issue since it sails from Vancouver (cruises in Europe are accepting mixed vaccines including AZ, it's just the US ports that are not).
