kristapb

Some credit cards do offer trip insurance. You can cancel for covered reasons only (illness, etc.) They also have PP limits which may not be very high. Chase Sapphire has about the best one I have found. AmEx no longer includes trip insurance (at least not my Delta AmEx). You can find the specifics online or call them and they will mail you a brochure explaining their benefits, including trip ins. Anecdotally, I have heard they can be pretty tough to deal with when making a claim, but it's sure better than nothing.

There are desks at the airport that will sell you a voucher for your trip. I can't remember any of their names; there are more than one. They are very reliable and a bit less expensive than cabs.

They're actually pretty hard to find. You have to be logged in and I always have trouble finding the gift cards, although I eventually do. Sorry to not be of more help. But the main thing is you need to be logged in.

I used some AARP gift cards to book a Celebrity cruise; it was really convoluted and convinced me I never want to buy them again. As opposed to HAL gift cards, which you can apply easily online to any cruise booking. I really hope they loosen the crazy requirements for the AARP ones, which seemed to be more restrictive than the ones you buy direct from Royal.

Hi - have you gone to Ana's yet? If so, how was it? If not, when are you going? It looks very nice

I googled scam pulse and read their reviews on trustpilot (which I have used before). Personally, I think I'd take whet I read on scampulse with a grain of salt

Haha - Luckily we found a great deal on the Reflection, so the price made that decision.

Could you possibly try out an E class ship for a shorter, cheaper itinerary before commiting to a 20+ day cruise? We cruised on the Beyond with another couple, in Infinite Veranda cabins next to each other. Although I loved most things about the Beyond, especially the four main dining rooms, I would not cruise on an E class ship again because I really missed having a traditional balcony. My friend, however, loved it and the E class became her first choice of ship for future cruises. So people have definite, but differing opinions. There is no one right answer.

Gratuities on extras like massages are not included in the "All Included" package. Enjoy the Apex! We loved having the four different main dining rooms.

We were on the 7 day sailing on the 16th, and really had a great time. There were a few glitches - the late arrival at Ocean Cay, although since it was an overnight, we had plenty of island time. They oddly ran out of eggs for breakfast for a day or two, but it seems they resupplied in Costa Maya. No idea how they managed that. Our room steward was just adequate, but I think he was overworked, and wasn't terrible. BUT - The ship is beautiful. The public areas were all very clean and well kept. I thought the shows were great (except for a very lame magician/comedian). We had a standard balcony cabin that had a very comfortable bed. And we thought the food in the main dining room was very good. Maybe not as good as Celebrity, but very good and the wait staff was excellent. Always kept our wine glasses full. It's funny how different individual experiences can be on the same cruise!

most definitely Colon, Panama. We took an excursion to see the locks from the land side (very interesting), and the driver threw in a free drive through the city. It was the most dirty and grim place I've ever seen. I would never walk outside the port area there. And we tend to wander around the cruise port areas most everywhere.

Thanks GA Dave and coscab. And we'll do our best to dodge that nasty virus when we're on the Meraviglia in a couple weeks!

Sorry if this has already been discussed; I did search but had no luck in finding an answer to this. The MSC websire says: Fully vaccinated guests must present their original vaccination card or certificate reflecting all required doses at embarkation prior to boarding. The vaccination card/certificate must be valid for the duration of the entire cruise. (bolded by me) Does anyone know what they mean by the second sentence? How would you know if your vaccination card is "valid" for the duration of the cruise? Thanks to anyone who can shed some light on this! Kristin

Madera and Kobra - was this a case of the airlines cancelling the flights, or HAL flight ease just somehow cancelling the itinerary?

We are flying to Athens before our Oosterdam Venice cruise on June 13. Specifically, we had booked our flights for today (May 31) through Flight Ease. SAS, through Copenhagen. These flights were mysteriously cancelled once before (a couple of weeks ago) but after several hours on hold, a very nice Flight Ease agent reinstated them and ticketed them. Theory was that FE had missed paying for them, but at that point, it all looked good and we got ticket numbers. Yesterday we were driving to New Jersey from VT to catch our flight out of Newark the next evening. Suddenly I get a notification from the SAS app that our itinerary has been cancelled. Not the flight - that was still showing as going. Just our itinerary. The short story is, that FE answered the phone relatively quickly (10-15 minutes) and eventually sorted it our. We are now on a Delta direct to Athens, which is great (no connections to worry about), but have to fly out of JFK instead of Newark. So it all worked out ok, but I really wonder what is going on with Flight Ease. Moral of the story is - keep an eye on your reservations, so if anything happens, you can address it timely.