Welcome to the Royal Crime blog podcast, your week of look into the world of Royal Caribbean cruising.

I'm your host, Matt Hodgeberg, and this is episode number 455.

You know, COVID testing and all the protocols have their place in terms of what the cruise lines are doing,

but certainly the European cruise market right now is facing a little bit of a different challenge.

And to talk about how testing and cruises in Europe are going to be impacted this year,

I've invited one of my good friends, Chris Greyfoust from cruiscritic.com, to talk to me about

what she's seeing after going over to Europe for a couple of cruises already in the early European season

and how it might impact if you have a cruise coming up for this year.

Here we go.

Perhaps no COVID-19 protocol that's revolving around a cruise ship these days is as highly,

not anticipated, but certainly thought about as I think COVID testing is.

And it's a big cornerstone of the cruise industry right now as it relates to their COVID-19 protocols.

And things are changing.

A lot of things are changing with protocols.

But this is one that's still here.

But yet, I think the industry is starting to look at this a little bit more.

And today I wanted to talk more about this with a good friend of mine, Chris Graefaust,

who's the managing editor of cruis critic.com. Chris, welcome back to the Royal Cream Block podcast. Thanks, Matt. It's always great to be here.

Absolutely. Glad to have you here. And you know, Chris, I was reading your work. Of course,

I follow your stuff all the time. And you're at a really interesting piece called COVID-19

testing anxiety. The fear is real and it's hurting cruises. And this really caught my attention.

And I say this because you and I have been cruising since the get-go of cruising back last summer,

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