Well, listen, I'm going to say this. I'm going to hope I'm wrong. And I'm going to hope you're right.

Well, there you have it.

Welcome back, everybody to a special bonus edition of the DCL Duo podcast.

And as we've been doing with these weekly bonus editions, we've just been kind of taking some time out to talk about things that are of interest to Sam and I, since we have shows chocked full of guests.

Sometimes we don't always get to talk about the things we want to talk about or just take a moment to ourselves.

Or offer as much of our opinion on something. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'll be up front and say when I edit the shows, a lot of the editing is me taking us out of the show to make the guests the center of it. So, you know, to the extent you're interested in hearing our opinions. This is a place for us to do that. And today we thought we talked about kind of what's going to make us feel safe cruising again.

We are avid cruise enthusiasts and we do love cruising, but, you know, there's

been a lot of talk out there. I know Scott Sanders over at his blog has been diligently cataloging

each and every one of the comments that are being referred to the CDC as a part of their rulemaking

for lifting the or not lifting the no sale order. I know the no sale order has been extended out until October 31st, which is causing a lot of speculation in the community. And there's been a lot of reports that the White House is really pushing to get the cruise industry back up and running by November one. You know, but look, European cruise lines are already sailing. There's reports out of Europe of what MSC cruises has been up to and they've had several successful sailings. There was a little blip last week where there was a cruise that had a little bit of an outbreak, but then it turned out there was not the case. It turned out that, in fact, it was all false positives aboard ship. So, you know, they've got some successful cruises under their belt with the restrictions they have. I know Clea released their recommendations to the CDC over what will get them sailing again. And, you know, there's some differences between what Europe has been up to and what Clea is recommending, I think. Most notably, I think that in Europe, they're doing a lot of pre-boarding rapid testing. It's not clear to me exactly where the cruise industry here in the U.S. is coming down on sort of rapid tests.

There's a, I think, the U.S. is coming down on sort of rapid tests. There's, I think, U.S. has had its own challenges in terms of availability of testing, although I've heard from listeners and others on social

media that, you know, their kids are at schools and colleges where they are doing lots of testing

every week. I think one of the key differences is the U.S.

cruise lines are saying you have to have a COVID test within the last 72 hours before you can board. Like a negative COVID test list, I think it's 48 or 72 hours where you can board. Whereas in Europe, I think what they're saying is take a test when you get to the port and we're going to tell you whether you can get on the ship. And there's been kind of reports of people waiting to board watching people plucked out of their boarding group who've you know

presumably not passed the test or going in for a second round of testing. But I don't know. Let me just stop there and see, Sam, what's going to make you feel comfortable sailing again? Like, let's start with comfort versus what's going to, like, are you going to sail? Like, what would make you comfortable if someone said, you're going on a cruise vacation, and Here's what they're going to do for you. I want the rapid test before you get on the ship.

I'm not sure that I, well, one, we know that it, that it takes time for a test to be positive. So even

that's not 100% protecting. But the 72 hour, you know, if you sort of say, oh, it needs to be, you have to have a test in the last 72 hours, that, that seems, you know, at a higher level of risk. So either, either that or widely available vaccine and anyone who's getting on the ship has to have been vaccinated, unless they have some, you know, like a medical exception to the,

to being vaccinated. And then if they have a medical exception to being vaccinated, I want a

negative COVID test. So yeah, I mean, I think sort of the, the vaccine or or the test,

to me would make me feel comfortable right now. I'm not sure I would feel comfortable

without those things because,

you know, the numbers almost everywhere are up, you know, in the U.S. and now the numbers are on the

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