Disney Cruise Line Ending Tests for Vaccinated Guests
Disney Cruise Line will soon be ending all testing requirements for fully vaccinated guests! This covers details on the dropping of health safety protocol, exceptions to the policy change, plus our commentary about this and another relaxed rule.
In a statement, Disney Cruise Line prefaced its announcement by offering a reminder that beginning on September 2, 2022, for sailings departing U.S. and Canadian ports, Disney Cruise Line will only require Guests ages 12 and older to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 at the time of sailing, as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
This comes about one month after the CDC ended its COVID-19 Program for Cruise Ships. In their place, there’s new CDC Guidance for Cruise ships on the Mitigation and Management of COVID-19. The key distinction between the two is that the latter is exactly what the name suggests–guidelines, rather than binding rules. This means that cruise operators like DCL are free to create their own policies.
With that in mind, beginning September 23, 2022, for Disney Wonder, Disney Dream, Disney Fantasy, and Disney Wish sailings departing the U.S., fully vaccinated Guests are no longer required to participate in COVID-19 testing. November 7, 2022 is the end date for fully vaccinated guests sailing aboard the Disney Magic.
Unvaccinated Guests (ages 11 and younger) will need to submit proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken 1-3 days before the sail date. Unvaccinated Guests will no longer be required to complete a second COVID-19 test at the terminal on embarkation day.
Here’s a handy chart from DCL that breaks it down:
Here’s the rest of the email we received for an upcoming sailing aboard Disney Cruise Line (note that *several* emails have gone out this morning–this is the final and official information):
Upload Proof of Vaccination and/or COVID-19 Test Results
In order to sail, all guests 12 and older (who are required to be vaccinated), plus those under 12 that are vaccinated, must upload their proof of vaccination to the Inspire Diagnostics Safe Passage website by midnight prior to embarkation day. Unvaccinated Guests must upload a negative COVID-19 test result to the Inspire Diagnostics Safe Passage website by midnight prior to embarkation day. Uploading these documents is a requirement for adults and children, regardless of age. A parent or legal guardian will need to use their own account to provide this information on behalf of minors. To learn more about how to provide proof of your negative COVID-19 test result, please visit Before Leaving Home: Know Before You Go.
After appropriate documents have been uploaded and reviewed by Inspire, Guests should see the words “Clear to Arrive” or “Clear to Sail” in the Pre-Sail Screening section when they log into their Safe Passage account before arriving at the port.
It is also recommended that Guests bring a copy of their proof of vaccination or negative COVID- test result with them to the port. Guests who fail to upload proof of vaccination and/or COVID-19 test results may be delayed or denied boarding. If you have any questions about your Safe Passage registration or status, please contact Inspire Diagnostics at 877-250-5132.
Back-to-Back Sailings
Guests who are not fully vaccinated and traveling on back-to-back sailings will be required to complete a COVID-19 test between sailings, paid for by Disney Cruise Line.
Guests Recently Recovered from COVID-19
In some cases, people who have recently recovered from COVID-19 may still test positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. If Guests have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 within 11 to 90 days of their sail date, they may qualify to be considered as “90-Day-Recovered,” with the appropriate documentation and subsequent approval. Not-fully vaccinated Guests who are considered “90-Day-Recovered” are not required to participate in COVID-19 testing during the pre-embarkation phase of their voyage. For details on what documentation is required, please visit Disney Cruise Line’s Know Before You Go page.
Online Check-in
You must complete Online Check-in beginning 30 days prior to your sailing. You will need to submit the required documents as well as select a Port Arrival Time. All Guests, including Platinum Castaway Club Guests, will need to select a Port Arrival Time. Please be aware that Guests will not be permitted at the terminal or in parking areas before their scheduled arrival time.
Guests who arrive early will be asked to return at their scheduled arrival time, and Guests arriving after their scheduled time may be delayed and asked to wait behind those arriving at their scheduled time. Online Check-in can be completed or modified up to one day prior to sailing. After completing Online Check-in, you will receive a Port Arrival Form by email. Bring this with you to the port to expedite your arrival.
Guests booked on the Disney Wonder, Disney Dream, Disney Fantasy or Disney Wish September 23, 2022, through December 31, 2022 may modify or cancel their sailing by September 12, 2022 without any Disney-imposed cancellation fees. Please contact your travel agent for details on how to cancel or modify your booking.
Please note that change fees and cancellation fees imposed by third-party suppliers, such as airlines and hotels, as well as travel insurance, are not refundable. Refunds will be processed back to the original form of payment. Standard cancellation policies and terms and conditions apply for any cancellation or modification requests received on or after September 13, 2022.
In other good news, traditional character greetings will return to all ships in the Disney Cruise Line fleet starting today (August 29, 2022). These meet and greets have been physically-distanced up until now–it has also been hit or miss as to whether character attendants would take photos or you’d need to take a selfie.
According to Disney Cruise Line, this is “in consideration of guidance from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and due to proven success in our theme parks surrounding returning to traditional character greetings, up-close character greetings, including autographs, are now in the process of resuming across our entire Disney Cruise Line fleet!”
In terms of commentary, I am very happy to see these changes finally being made–especially the end of testing. It’s been a while since we have covered health safety protocol aboard DCL (or anywhere, thankfully), but you might recall that I groused about all of this last year and said I was in “wait and see” mode when it came to cruising. There were too many hoops to jump through, compromises to the on-board experience, and the potential risk of being denied boarding erroneously.
Since then, some of that has been dropped and I’ve cruised aboard the new Disney Wish. I didn’t discuss it in any of our posts about that, but I found the pre-departure testing to be nerve-racking. I essentially didn’t engage in any indoor activities for nearly two weeks beforehand and even then was worried about testing positive.
This may sound excessive–and maybe it was–but I really didn’t want to be denied boarding. I’m not exactly the type of person who is still fixated on COVID, either. By and large, it does not impact my day-to-day life much at all anymore. It’s endemic, so my view is that whatever measures I take today would realistically need to be maintained from here to eternity. To each their own, but I’m not going to rearrange my life for something that, statistically speaking, poses little risk to me at this point.
In other words, my pre-cruise worries and behavioral changes revolved not around COVID, but testing for COVID. I enjoy cruising, but not enough to go through that repeatedly. Given the degree of discounting for cruises even as every other segment of the travel industry has been red hot, I cannot be alone in that sentiment.
The logical next step is dropping the distinction between vaccinated and unvaccinated guests. Not to open this can of worms, but it seems like Disney Cruise Line’s policy is stuck in Summer 2021 when making that distinction. A lot has changed since then.
Most critically, there have been a few huge waves of infections and the overwhelming majority of Americans now have some degree of protection against severe disease due to durable immune memory of B and T cells as a result of prior infection, vaccination, or both. With that said, it’s possible that DCL is maintaining this policy to reduce liability (or as a requirement of its insurer), rather than as a mitigation measure. At some point, it would seem that this is doing more harm–in terms of lost bookings–than good.
(Selfishly, I should want this policy to remain in place as someone who is fully vaccinated and boosted–the longer the distinction is maintained, the greater the likelihood for discounted sailings and ships that aren’t full to capacity. That’s one way of looking at it, but saving money on a cruise is not my paramount concern in life. More importantly, I want to move on with life and eliminate one element of our unnecessarily polarized society.)
Ultimately, it’s good to see Disney Cruise Line taking another step to get back to normal. This is a big one for me, as it’s the last thing that was preventing me from taking advantage of those deeply-discounted rates. (The me v. we distinction is significant here–Sarah has been unfazed by these policies, doing multiple cruises with girlfriends since the ships resumed sailing.)
Planning to set sail aboard one of the DCL ships? Read our comprehensive Disney Cruise Line Guide to prepare for your voyage, plus plan entertainment, activities & excursions, and learn what to expect from your Disney cruise! For personalized planning & recommendations, click here to get a cruise quote from a no-fee Authorized Disney Vacation Planner. They can find you all of the current discounts, and help you plan the details of your cruise.
YOUR THOUGHTS
Have you sailed aboard Disney Cruise Line since they resumed operations? Did you find the testing policies nerve-racking, or were you unfazed? Agree or disagree with my perspective? Any questions? Hearing feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments! (Just please keep the comments civil, as this is not the place for politically-charged arguing, antagonism, personal attacks, or cheap shots. We will be heavy-handed in deleting comments that cross the line, even if it’s only a single sentence. You are not going to change anyone’s mind via the comments section on this blog, nor are you going to change DCL’s rules or public policy. If you wish to shout conspiracy theories into the internet abyss, that’s why Facebook was invented.)
These cruise prices are deeply discounted? I shudder at the thought of regular price.
Interestingly in my daily emails I receive one from a company that offers discounts on all cruise lines. In addition to Norwegian, Oceania and Regent no longer requiring vaccinations for passengers, now Carnival, Celebrity, Holland America, Princess, Royal Caribbean and Seabourn NO LONGER REQUIRE VACCINATIONS FOR PASSENGERS
I can’t imagine Disney will continue to lose $ to these cruise lines much longer.
Get rid of vaccinations policy!!
Just got back from a cruise Aug 15-20 and the most nerve wracking part of the trip was the covid testing. I didn’t mind the testing 2 days before for vaccinated guests as if we tested positive we could still cancel the flights and hotels and get a refund on the cruise. The worse part was the requirement for out 2 year old who wasn’t vaccinated yet. They had to do a PCR test 3 days before but then had to be tested a second time at the port. My biggest fear was testing negative initially flying all the way there and spending 2 nights only to test positive at the port and be denied and then scrambling to find a place to quarantine. Luckily it all worked out and we were all negative but I’m more likely to book another cruise for next year knowing that we don’t have to deal with that stress again.
So tired of different rules for unvaccinated people. Seriously… both catch and spread it so why have one group test but not the other? Dumb.
There is no reason beyond feelings. People want to feel like being vaxxed matters.
Same. With official guidelines now saying that everyone is to be treated equally, Disney is walking a fine line between “guidelines” and discrimination. What is the justification for discrimination against the naturally immune? People might be uncomfortable? You know, same reasons why history shows one group or another not letting another group in the club, the school, the lunch counter, whatever. I’m sick of it.
Vaccine mandates need to end. Period. It doesn’t matter! I ‘caught’ COVID from a co-worker in June 2022. 2 1/2 years into this madness. She was vaccinated AND double boosted. I am neither. If your going to test, EVERYONE needs to be tested. Vaccines do not prevent one from acquiring any disease nor does it prevent the spread. Let’s get back to science.
Soo happy to see this. I have been freaking out the last week when I found out I needed to test 2 days before the cruise. I mistakenly scheduled 5 days at DisneyWorld parks before getting on the Disney Wish in October. I had no idea that instead of going to Disney Studios, I would have to get family together in hotel room to do tele-medicine session for someone to watch family take tests, send it and record everything while we are at the Disney Parks. This is just great news to hear, as this is my first cruise and I have no idea how this all works.
why a later date for the Magic?
I assume because the Magic is currently in Europe and is subject to local laws at those ports. (I don’t know if that’s the actual reason, but I can’t think of any other that makes sense.)
but unless i have my boats/ships confused, the Magic is leaving from NYC during Sept/October mostly to Bermuda but also to Maine/Canada with Halloween sails (not sales) one of which we have booked. I have an official Mr. Incredible costume all ready to compress into my laptop bag,..
Agree with you completely Tom. We just sailed on the Wish (Aug. 8) and everyone tested before. Lots of guests got covid coming off the ship (we know this from our cruise FB site). They simply can’t control it.
Also, I asked a cast member and they are required to mask in indoor areas, but NOT in the crew quarters! How dumb! We had a hard time hearing/understanding our wonderful cast members and they need to make masks optional for all now.
We sail on 9/17 and I am so stressed about the test itself. I will cry after rescheduling this cruise 5 times since may 2020 for a variety of family reasons. Glad for the people going after us though!
Hallelujah! Going to Europe for a cruise this past June also made us shelter so we don’t get denied boarding after traveling to other side of globe! But I will say it was our best cruise, they really put in a lot effort, so we booked a placeholder So happy, was never worried about Covid to begin with
This is good news. It helps relieve some of our stress, but not all. We are sailing on the Wish on 19Sept, and then the Dream on the 26th. I was a bit worried that we might catch covid on the first cruise and be denied boarding on the next. We’re vaxed & boosted & even had covid (only noticeable for a day) a couple of months ago, but just outside of the 90 day period that would have excluded us from testing. So we’ll still have to test for the first cruise, but at least we can do so before we fly from the west coast. We booked early enough that our airfare is refundable if we cancel (airlines in Canada are no longer offering that option, but we got in on it). We obviously don’t want to have to cancel, and so we will also be extra vigilant in the couple of weeks leading up to our departure, but… I have been optimistic for a while now that the cruise restrictions would be loosened before our sailings, but turns only one of them. Oh well, we are looking forward to our vacay, thinking positive, and going to enjoy every minute!
At least you can control your fate, to some degree, prior to leaving home and will know you’re good to go before boarding the plane. Once you’re on the ship, all bets are off based simply on the sheer number of densely-populated and long-duration indoor events.
(To be clear, I say that not to scare you, but to agree–I also would’ve been very worried about testing positive prior to the second cruise.)
@Tom Bricker
Yes, agreed. The biggest fear I had was not being able to board the second cruise, which was the first one we booked & the one I was most keen on! It’s an extra night, 2 visits to Castaway Cay, and a sailing that was cancelled in 2020 (it was out of Port Canaveral then, vs Miami now). The Wish was a bonus, since we were already going to be in Florida. I figured we might as well avoid another airfare & just get all the ships completed in this one holiday. But if the Wish had stopped my Dream cruise, I would have been really bummed. This turn of events, while not quite as ideal as not having to test at all for either sailing, is certainly better than before. We feel very optimistic that all will be fine now. Thanks for being the bearer of good news for us today. 🙂
And take your own cold medicines with you, and if you feel a sniffle, don’t go ask for cold medicine unless you feel really sick! A friend was on an Alaskan cruise a few months ago and felt a minor cough and went and asked for some cough drops or something. Well, they said oh you need to go to this room for that. Gave him a test, and he was quarantined on the boat the entire cruise! He’s had all the shots and had it already, but… Funny thing is a guy from our office was on the same boat the week before.
“To each their own, but I’m not going to rearrange my life for something that, statistically speaking, poses little risk to me at this point.”
Well said, Tom. I feel the same way, and unfortunately a cruise isn’t an option for our family since my fully healthy 12-year old isn’t vaccinated and we won’t push the vaccine on our kids.
Crazy that Disney still requires a vaccine at all given other cruise lines have dropped it completely. No use arguing – just taking our business elsewhere!
We had a cruise booked for May of 2020, we rescheduled it twice but ultimately had to cancel as we are not a vaxxed family. We are dying to give DCL our money, but they currently won’t accept our dirty unvaxxed money. The first cruise line that eliminates all vaccine requirements for all ages will get our $$$.
There’s 9 cruise lines currently with no vaccine requirement
RCL
Carnival
Norwegian and others
The e-mail communication this morning was ridiculous and awful. “Please disregard prior e-mail” — but what e-mail?? So will there be testing required or no? So much confusion and even looking back, I can’t even figure out a reason why so many e-mails would have been sent out, even erroneously. But Disney IT continues to surprise and outdo itself in terrible-ness.
Yes, we had the same thing. An email telling us they sent us an incorrect email earlier, but we didn’t receive anything other than the email correction. And we have two cruises booked, one before & one after the testing changes date. We didn’t even receive an email about the cruise that we no longer have to test for. I didn’t realize that anything had changed until I saw this article. So thanks for that Tom! Good thing someone is on the ball. lol.
The only testing that would have any value or meaning would be instant testing of all crew and passengers immediately before boarding, with all parties segregated until test results are complete. A test only means you weren’t positive at the instant of the test not three days later, and distinguishing between those who have had shots or not is absurd, since the shots do not prevent an infected person from carrying or transmitting the virus. Have we not learned anything in the last two years?
Agree with MrNico 100%. If it isn’t actually helpful, then move on. Disney cruise is actually pushing out a very blunt survey (I got two while just surfing the website) asking point blank if their mandates are the reason you are sailing or the reason you aren’t so I’m guessing they are finally acknowledging that most people have moved on. We won’t even consider sailing until all mandates are gone. Coming from the west coast there’s no way I’d pay that kind of money for the stress Tom talked about. I’m glad Disney is starting to get the memo
where did you find a survey?? I need to fill one out..lol
Kathy, I was just on the Disney cruise website looking at lounges and it popped up! Had several write in areas too so I was able to be clear and blunt about what it would take for me to sail with them again (and the fact that we were looking at other cruise lines). But one question said “In order to sail with Disney Cruise Line, all Guests ages 5 and older must be fully vaccinated. Based on this requirement, which of the following describes your interest in a Disney Cruise Line vacation?” The answer options were equally as blunt including the one I chose “I had not yet booked a Disney Cruise Line vacation, and after learning about the sailing requirements, I am no longer interested in sailing on a Disney Cruise Line vacation”. I got one survey while on my phone and another while on my computer. Go surf for a survey 😉
Exactly, and why test unvaccinated people? Especially children
keep watching and waiting for DCL to do away with vaccine mandate all together. We are now looking at other cruise lines..we are tired of waiting….it is evident the vaccines do not work
This makes no sense as most vaccinated people still get Covid. Ask my husband. I am not vaccinated and got mild case. Cocos is here to stay and let people make decision about whether they want or not. Bahamas is not requiring vaccine for tourists.
Several cruise lines are dropping that mandate DCL is offering huge discounts to get people to sail.
Aw man! I’m sailing on 9/9. It would have been great to avoid the hassle.