Disney Cruise Lines to require COVID vaccines for kids 5 and up starting in January
Disney Cruise Line announced on Wednesday that it will require all passengers ages 5 and up to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to travel on their ships starting Jan. 13, 2022.
Disney said in a statement that the company is continuing its policy of mandating vaccines for all vaccine-eligible guests, based on U.S. eligibility requirements. Federal regulators announced that children 5 and over were authorized to receive the Pfizer vaccine earlier this month.
Previously, children between the ages of 5-11 were exempt from Disney’s vaccine requirement. Passengers on Disney cruises who are not vaccine-eligible because of their age still need to show a negative COVID-19 test done within 24 to 72 hours before boarding. Before the requirement for children ages 5 and up goes into effect, passengers ages of 5-11 can provide either proof of vaccination or a negative test.
Disney said in the announcement that it does not accept rapid antigen tests and the negative test must be a NAAT test, a rapid PCR test or a lab PCR test.
As the cruise industry has been slowly restarting after over a year of shutdowns, children posed a challenge for family-centric cruise liners like Disney, since children under 12 were not vaccine eligible. At the onset of the pandemic, the close quarters of a cruise ship were a hotbed for COVID-19 spread. Since restarting, cruises have relied heavily on vaccine requirements in order to keep COVID-19 spread at bay.
This story was originally published November 17, 2021 at 5:13 PM.
