World Dream Cruise Travel Restrictions from 7 to 19 May 2021 (Phase 3 Heightened Alert)

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World Dream Cruise To Nowhere Travel Restrictions (7 – 19 May 2021)

Dream Cruises has released information on tightened safety measures on board World Dream for the sailing dates between 7 and 19 May 2021 during Phase Three Heightened Alert. Passengers who meet these conditions are NOT allowed to sail on board World Dream between 7 and 19 May 2021 during Phase Three Heightened Alert.

Guests who have been in close contact with COVID-19 individuals and served the Stay Home Notice (SHN) or Quarantine Order (QO).

This is quite clear – if you are issued with a Stay Home Notice (SHN) or Quarantine Order (QO), you shouldn’t even be leaving your place of residence.

Guests who were at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) from 18 April 2021 onwards.

UPDATE (7 May 2021 3pm): Dream Cruises has updated their advisory to as follows: “We would also highly encourage guests that were at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) from 18 April 2021 onwards or have been notified via the TraceTogether App of a possible exposure to COVID-19 individuals to postpone their sailing dates beyond 19 May 2021. Guests choosing to postpone their cruise dates may contact your original booking source for further arrangements on future cruise credits. Kindly be advised all guests proceeding with their cruise are subject to the mandatory health screenings and pre-boarding COVID-19 test at the terminal.”

The Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) cluster is currently the largest active COVID-19 cluster and also Singapore’s first hospital COVID-19 cluster.

This move seems to follow hospitals’ restrictions of similar restrictions for visitors who have been admitted to or visited TTSH wards on or after 18 April 2021 who will not be allowed to enter patient care areas.

All 1,100 patients and 4,500 hospital staff of TTSH would have been swabbed to test for Covid-19 by 2 May 2021, and all who have been to TTSH or visited public places visited by those who have been to TTSH from 18 April onwards may book an appointment for a COVID-19 Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test at any of the “Swab and Send Home” (SASH) PHPCs, or walk in to one of the following four Regional Screening Centres (RSCs) from 3 to 16 May 2021.

Meanwhile, fellow railway fan Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has described the discrimination against TTSH staff as “distressing”.

Hopefully this TTSH group of people will be allowed to sail from 20 May 2021 onwards once they’ve tested negative.

Guests that have been notified via the TraceTogether App of a possible exposure to COVID-19 individuals.

UPDATE (7 May 2021 3pm): Dream Cruises has updated their advisory to as follows: “We would also highly encourage guests that were at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) from 18 April 2021 onwards or have been notified via the TraceTogether App of a possible exposure to COVID-19 individuals to postpone their sailing dates beyond 19 May 2021. Guests choosing to postpone their cruise dates may contact your original booking source for further arrangements on future cruise credits. Kindly be advised all guests proceeding with their cruise are subject to the mandatory health screenings and pre-boarding COVID-19 test at the terminal.”

This notice was updated on 6 May 2021 at 5.33pm based on the email I received.

Dream Cruises is not the first to restrict visitors using the TraceTogether App to see if there has been a possible exposure to COVID-19 individuals. This information is on https://wereyouthere.safeentry.gov.sg/. This issue first blew up from ComfortDelGro Driving Centre (CDC) who turned students away as their TraceTogether app showed that they had been in close proximity to Covid-19 cases.

The Government has since clarified in the interim here on 6 May 2021 that the Were You There feature on the TraceTogether App are intended for personal reference and care.

If the risk of infection is assessed to be relatively low: Users are informed via the Possible exposure feature in their TT App, or they can login to wereyouthere.safeentry.gov.sg to check for Possible exposure.

Possible exposures are currently determined by one’s SafeEntry location check-in/-out records from the past 14 days. A Possible exposure happens when a user’s SafeEntry records overlaps with a COVID-19 case’s visit to a place. The matching is done at postal code level, and any contact with the COVID-19 case could be transient. Hence, the Possible exposure feature is intended for user’s self-reference, and not to determine if a person should be granted/denied access to premises.

MOH’s advice for users who see Possible exposure records is to monitor their health closely for 14 days from their date of visit for precaution, and see a doctor promptly if they develop symptoms of acute respiratory infection. Depending on the type of venue visited and the current COVID-19 situation in Singapore, MOH may send SMS alerts and/or advise users to take a swab test.

TL;DR: If you had close contact with a COVID-19 case, you would have gotten a call from MOH.

Source: TraceTogether FAQs

I have another cruise booked on 12 May 2021, which is why I got the alert email…

… and I’ve also been flagged for a possible exposure on 27 April 2021 because I didn’t check out after my visit, and I was well and truly at home by the time the COVID-19 case visited the building I was at. I wasn’t shopping for Tomica at Let’s Play for 23 hours.

Thankfully, this should expire just 1 day before my cruise, unless the Government extends the warning period from 14 to 21 days, of which I will be screwed.

This method of checking location history is unfair as there is privacy concerns whereby a third party is able to see where you have been despite SafeEntry’s purpose being for preventing and controlling the transmission of COVID-19 through contact tracing. Furthermore, the Government has since clarified that “the Possible exposure feature is intended for user’s self-reference, and not to determine if a person should be granted/denied access to premises.”.

In the short term, this will in fact discourage users from checking in properly with SafeEntry or TraceTogether in order to avoid this issue, especially with TraceTogether Tokens as TraceTogether Tokens do not have a check-out function, meaning you will be registered at the postal code for the whole day.

To explain it easier, if you check-in with a TraceTogether Token at 1pm, leave at 2pm with no check-out option, and a COVID-19 case checks-in at 8pm, you WILL be marked as at a place visited by a COVID-19 case, even though both have not even been in the same place for a whole 6 hours.

Hopefully, this will be made clearer by the Government very soon on this decision by businesses to use Were You There as the original TraceTogether function of contact tracing is slowly but surely being made use differently by businesses.

UPDATE (7 May 2021): The Ministry of Health and the Smart Nation and Digital Government Office in a joint statement have clarified that “Businesses should not use the exposure alert information of persons using the TraceTogether App to grant or deny access to premises.”.

Declaration of notification via the TraceTogether App of a possible exposure to COVID-19 individuals

At the health declaration before the boarding COVID-19 Antigen Rapid Test (ART) while in the queue at Level 2, ground staff check your TraceTogether App of a possible exposure to COVID-19 individuals. If you catch SBS Transit Bus Service 400 to Marina Bay Cruise Centre, you will need to proceed to Level 2 first – no heading straight up for the swab test.

As mentioned above, with my warning which did not disappear in time, the ground staff marked “Yes” on the health declaration for me, but I was allowed to board normally when I truthfully declared “No” to the rest of the questions.

The rest of the manual form is filled up at the health declaration area at Level 3. No QR code forms this time.

Reduced Show Seating Capacity

At the Zodiac Theatre, shows run at a capacity of 250 passengers as per new normal on the first day of the cruise, and 100 passengers on the second day of the cruise.

The boarding COVID-19 Antigen Rapid Test (ART) acts as the Pre-Event Testing (PET) for the 250 passenger limit for shows, which expires on the next day, hence the new restrictions. More shows have been added on boarding day to allow for more passengers to watch a show.

Passengers, however, are limited to booking one (1) show per cruise, most likely to allow for more people to watch a show.

During the show in Zodiac Theatre, staff also walk around the aisles to check that everyone is wearing their mask correctly.

Enhanced TraceTogether and TRACEY Checks

TraceTogether and TRACEY tokens are now checked aggressively around the ship at all tapping checkpoints. For passengers using the TraceTogether App, the App must be opened to show the staff that Bluetooth is on and TraceTogether is working properly.

For convenience sake, use the TraceTogether Token so that you needn’t fumble with your phone at every checkpoint.

If you’re not a lanyard person like me, you can use the clip of the lanyard to clip the 3 items together for easy scanning and checking by the ship crew each time you tap your card.

5-Person Limit for Dining

Just like restaurants in Singapore, there is now a limit of a maximum of 5 passengers per table at all on-board restaurants.

World Dream Refund Procedures

Affected passengers should contact your original booking source for further arrangements on future cruise credits. This is part of the Cruise As You Wish policy for sailings from Singapore prior to or on 30 March 2022, allowing guests to cancel their cruise bookings up to 48 hours prior to sailing and receive a 100% Future Cruise Credit, redeemable for sailing from Singapore on or before 30 September 2022.

Do note that the Future Cruise Credit is not cash, but stored value for use in booking your next cruise.

World Dream Super Seacation Cruise To Nowhere

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