We were on Holland America Eurodam from Barcelona to Fort Lauderdale from October 30 to November 14, 2021. In Barcelona, even though we were fully vaccinated with Moderna (and already had received the booster), we were tested in terminal before boarding and had to have a negative result to board. On board, masks were required for everyone in any public space, whether vaccinated or not, unless eating or drinking - a few people had a drink with them at all times to excuse less than regular mask wearing. We also had a test on board before disembarking in Fort Lauderdale. I would hope, if not assume, that you are fully vaccinated and boosted - if not, get it done.
Capacity was about 60% and as Tom references above, a low capacity can help balance the annoyance of having to wear a mask all the time, and it does permit more spacing from other passengers. It also was the case that every passenger with whom we talked was (or at least claimed to be) fully vaccinated - this was true on both our Eurodam cruise and our August cruises on Celebrity.
The biggest negative we experienced on this Eurodam transatlantic cruise was service a little less than we usually have experienced on Holland (we were in a Neptune Suite this time) primarily because of staff shortages. The crew was suffering from COVID outbreaks and various areas were short of staff as a result, especially the dining room. For the first time in decades of cruising, we had a serious chat with our head waiter about the service we were getting, and were prepared to involve the matrre d' if things dd not improve - the problems were really not all the fault of the crew working, they just could not keep up. Overall, we enjoyed the cruise but it was a little disappointing because of COVID.
On this Eurodam cruise, we were able to do what we wanted in the ports of call in Spain and Portugal. When we cruised in August on Celebrity Edge in the Caribbean our time in ports was very much affected by COVID protocols, both the ship's and the port's. We did a back to back and each 7 night cruise only had three port stops instead of a usual four because of port cancellations. In the majority of the six ports at which ship stopped, you were limited to ship excursions to leave port area. Ship itself was great and from what we experienced and what I have heard from others is that Celebrity has done a great job of keeping COVID off its ships, relative to other big ship lines.
A Royal Caribbean ship was denied disembarkation of passengers in St Lucia just the other day and it could be hard to get ashore in any of the Caribbean ports for the next few months at least, if Omicron causes the surge that is being predicted. It just is impossible to predict with any certainty what conditions will be on a sailing in the next couple weeks, let alone a couple months from now.
We have a back to back scheduled on Royal Caribbean Enchantment out of Baltimore in February and we plan to go no matter what the port situation is - on the first 12 night cruise we are traveling with two other couples and we will have a great time, even if we cannot get off the ship.
Not sure what your cancellation situation is, but in general, it is easy to cancel last minute if you are OK with taking future cruise credit and do not have the problem with unrelated air and hotel reservations which you cannot easily cancel without penalty.
