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What's your Backup Plan if you test + at the port?

PocahontasRN

Earning My Ears
Joined
Jun 3, 2021
Ugh, so stressed over testing as we get closer to our sailing!
Starting to look at plan B options since we are flying in from a few states away.....Just curious, if anyone else has any back-up vacation plans if they test positive at port?
 
We dont sail until October from Miami, but my plan is to have a rental car reservation set up through Costco. There’s no credit card taken. If someone tests positive, we’ll drive to Key Largo and rent a house or hotel room. I wont reserve a hotel/house but my plan is to scope it out and have options in mind beforehand.

We live in AZ so driving home is not really feesible. I’ll also test here at home 2 weeks out (with time to get a clear sailing letter if we are positive) and then 1-2 days before we go depending on turnaround time. We could get it in the meantime, but my hope is that at least gives us information going into it.
 
We're sailing out of New Orleans in March. Our Plan B is to drive to Destin, FL and quarantine there for 5 days. Once we're free to re-enter the world, I'd like a few days to spend at the beach then fly home. I just started looking at places to stay, getting some ideas. It's probably better to get a rental home with a pool so we can enjoy the sun without exposing others.
 


Drive home

This, sailing towards the end of May, all 3 of us have been stuck multiple times. Before we go we'll all be on our best carefulling behavior and trust that we've done all we can. If it goes bad, we might spend a day at the beach and then head home.
 
I'm sailing solo next month. I'm not particularly worried because the surge has gone way down, and it's just me, which obviously gives a much slimmer chance of a positive case occurring in my travel party than if I were traveling as part of a family of 4 or 5. I'm renting a car for the entire trip, and bringing a carry-on bag only onboard, so that if I were to test positive, I wouldn't be stuck at port for hours as I've read about happening to others as transportation was arranged and checked luggage located. I'd just turn around and drive away. Sad, but at least not forced to endure DCL prison.

Aside from that, I don't really have a specific back-up plan, I'll admit. Any solid plan (like renting a beach cottage for the week) would require a financial deposit (which would be nonrefundable by the day of), and I'm not going to spend money for something that's unlikely to occur. I'm a grown woman and would be able to work out what to do on the spot. As an American in Florida with a rental car and credit cards, I know I'd manage just fine.
 
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No plans set in stone, but as we have 3 weeks off, I’m thinking after we quarantine for required days and have no symptoms I might look into an all-inclusive in Mexico. Thought about WDW/Universal but wow sky high pricing for everything.
 
I have a backup car reservation through Costco for our trip in May. We’ll drive to our son’s place in Texas and then fly home after finishing quarantine.
 
Drive home. Our next cruise is Alaska and we live 45 minutes from the port of Vancouver.

Drive to BCwife's house and camp on their lawn. :rolleyes1 Honestly, I wasn't worried in Florida. I have lots of friends in the Orlando/Tampa area where I knew we could hide out in a room for a week. In Vancouver, we're double stuck, so I'll just have to get us a reasonably priced hotel room outside the city (only one night at the Pacific Rim thank you). I know we have to have a 'plan' in the ArriveCan app, so just waiting until we get closer and more details emerge.
 
We moved our cruise from the SD repo to Vancouver in April to Alaska in July. Just in case we would rather test positive in Canada. We've been to Vancouver and have no reason to stay there. We can q for 5 days and then fly home. I'm pushing to drive home but DSis won't do it. We would have rather q in California but this makes less stress for us as Canadians. I dont believe they'll be testing in July just everyone vaxxed.
 
We are flying in 3 days before our cruise and will hold onto our rental car for the duration (park at the port). I have a backup hotel reservation for days 2+ that can be canceled when we board (made this reservation almost a year ago when Hilton cancellation policies were still relaxed). Will find something for night 1 - hopefully at same resort. And have trip insurance with quarantine coverage from Allianz.
 
Great to see everyone’s responses…definitely gives me some things to think about and consider. We are cruising out of Port Canaveral…so we will most likely rent a home in Orlando with a pool and make the best of it!
 
No way are we flying back home. We are a family of 5 going on my daughters college break. My two older kids are now in the working world and get a crappy 2-3 weeks off a year so this is it. We will drive to Miami Beach or another destination that we all agree on. My one saving grace is that my daughter has a letter of recovery and test results. My son who had it the same time has now tested PCR negative so no luck there. It cleared from his system within a month but not hers. Unfortunately when they both had it in Jan a PCR test appt was no where to be found so we just did rapid at home antigens. I was never so disappointed to see a negative Covid test. And he was symptomatic and she had no symptoms. So I feel pretty confident he will test neg at port. The rest of us have tested PCR negative 11 days before. So hopefully we don't contract it in the next 10 days.
 
We live in Delaware. For this reason, rather than fly, we're driving down so we have our car and can just drive home. I'm starting to wonder whether there's somewhere we could rent at Cocoa Beach with access to the beach but where we could avoid people and isolate (get no contact DoorDash delivery, etc.) so the kids could at least get some time at a nicer beach and we can relax, at least for a few days. Of course, if we were to develop symptoms a couple days later, I'd probably wished we'd have driven home at that point.
 
Glad to see that more people are thinking about backup plans! We were set to cruise on 1/22/22 and I asked back in November about what people were doing for a backup. I had a couple people respond that if I was that concerned, I should reschedule my cruise.

I ended up reserving a rental car through Avis, mapped out a drive down to Key West, marked a few resorts we would be interested in staying at, and researched activities in that area to do. That was Plan B and we would have done that if everyone felt good. We also had a Plan C which was to drive back to PA and I had a road trip mapped out to get us home.

We ended up using Plan D as my DH got a positive hit on an at home test the night before we were supposed to leave. His Covid was confirmed by a PCR test and we had to reschedule everything. He had no symptoms and honestly never felt like he had more than a mild cold. He did drive us crazy having to quarantine for 5 days and if looks could kill, he would have been dead the day we got dumped on with snow when I should have been floating somewhere in the Caribbean.

So I suggest having a few backup plans and make the best out of the situation.
 

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