Live Cruise Reports

Hi all, 
 
Boarding Allure today and figured I would do a live report for anyone who wants to follow along in these crazy times! Thankfully allure wasn't one that got canceled, as we were already in Florida when they announced the others. 
 
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There is a Covid outbreak on the ship - exact numbers are unknown ( as many as 100 plus) apparently many are asymptomatic. The ship took a number hours to clear health authorities in Genoa yesterday and walking tours were cancelled. 
 
All passengers are being given FFP2 facemasks and they are the only acceptable facemasks to wear. 

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Hello all. So looking forward to beginning our wonderful cruise together. 
We will be posting all the fun happenings and photos. Please join along, either on board or online.

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We are scheduled to board Splendor on Thursday.  First Regent cruise in over 2 1/2 years, though we had many scheduled that were cancelled due to covid.  We have done one cruise, on Silversea Galapagos back in August, which was great, but obviously a very different sort of product, and are very excited at the thought of being aboard Regent again.

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LET’S GO CRUISING… 
I’m EXCITED to announce, all things pending… that we are headed out on the beautiful Carnival Liberty THIS SATURDAY! Join me here for all of the pre-cruise shenanigans, cocktails, food, and of course beach time, as we sail from Miami on an 8 day adventure to (knock on wood) the ABCs. 

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Hi, all
Before leaving on this sailing, I really appreciated the information others had posted about holiday cruises and recent experiences onboard Silhouette. Hopefully I can also help others who have questions.
  
The ship is decorated beautifully decorated for the holidays; Celebrity always does a great job with this.

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We are driving south to San Diego in two days / this Sunday morning for Koningsdam's 7-day New Year's cruise to the three very usual Mexican Riviera ports (yes, I've read what occurred in PV with K-dam this week, we shall see how it goes there next week!)

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After much ado, embarkation day is here! The weather is warm with a few scattered showers here in Miami Beach and with negative Covid tests in hand, we are ready to go. It seems unlikely to have a perfectly light and airy trip report amid the flurry of changes, but I’d like to try to keep it more fun, tipsy, and delicious than argumentative please.

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I noticed that no one had started a thread for our voyage that starts tomorrow, probably in the rain!
 
We'll be busy with our 7 year old granddaughter, but will try to keep the thread active and hope our fellow passengers will do the same.
 
Our party of 10 all tested negative yesterday and we are all packed and ready for the hour drive to the port tomorrow morning.
 
Happy New Year!!!

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So this is our first cruise in just over 2 years, and our first during the COVID mess.  I wanted to update everyone who has not cruised on what the process is to board a NCL ship with all of the new protocols in place.  We are sailing on the 11-night Caribbean cruise on the NCL Escape out of Port Canaveral.

Life from Grand Princess - December 20 - 30th
    I booked the Grand Princess 16 days before sailing. No thought went into this except for I already had the time away from work, it was longer than 7 nights and flying West as opposed to East is easier for me time frame wise. I flew in the day of which I have only done on my very first cruise. I regret it but it all turned out.

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We have cruises with Celebrity, Royal Caribbean and NCL in the past but never on Carnival.  This will be our first experience with Carnival and we are very excited to try something new.  We are armed with reviews / suggestions from members on this board (thank you Megan and Sid) so at least we will have some ideas about the ship and things to try.  We will be residing on deck 17 in a Cloud 9 Spa interior room.
 
Day before the cruise.
We flew in a day before to spend some time in Universal to fully get into the Christmas spirit before our cruise.  Pictures from Universal Studios Orlando.
 
 

Embarking the Norwegian Bliss in a couple of hours for the 7-day Mexican Riviera itinerary (Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, Cabo san Lucas).
 
I’ll try to post 1-2 times each day with what we’re up to, though my particular focus will usually be cocktails, food, entertainment and excursion adventures. (I’ll likely also be posting lots of photos over on Instagram Stories; look for erin_braincandy if you just want all the photos and none of the chatter.)
 
A few background notes before we head over to the pier:
This is our fourth time sailing Norwegian, our first time cruising to the Mexican Riviera, and probably our eleventh or twelfth cruise together. My husband and I are both double-vaxxed with AstraZeneca. We got our required-to-fly-to-the-US COVID antigen tests done  on Friday at a nearby drive-thru site, with the results back within 40 minutes. (FYI, antigen testing for the purposes of travel is not cheap in British Columbia, especially compared to Alberta and Ontario.) We sailed on the Encore in October out of Seattle to Alaska, and loved the ship and the experience. We felt that the COVID protocols in place made us feel as safe as we could reasonably expect to be when travelling during a pandemic. We were on the last sailing of the Norwegian Epic in March 2020 when cruising was suspended – we weren’t allowed to dock in San Juan for disembarkation and spent an extra 2.5 days at sea heading to Orlando instead. So going on two cruises in just under three months feels like making up for lost time. (I wanted to make a ‘Long time, no sea’ t-shirt but got lazy…)  
We were supposed to have a relaxing flight from YVR to Orange Country airport yesterday, but our plane had a ‘systems failure’ and after circling over the Catalina Islands for 30 min we were diverted to LAX for an emergency landing. It was nerve-wracking but we landed safely. But I am going to be making good use of the drink package after all of that.

We are heading for Fort Lauderdale this weekend for the Silhouette sailing on Monday.  Ill be posting pictures of the ship, activities, menus, and others.  If anyone has any questions or want me to look into something on the ship, let me know.  We got the stream package so wifi shouldnt be a major issue.  

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Just boarded Navigator for the 3 day cruise out of LA! Check in time was 12, we are suite guests so they told us we could come an hour early. 

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Hi Everybody - first time posting here and a novice cruiser.
 
This will be our 2nd "cruise to nowhere" vacation this year, having done a similar trip on the Genting Dream in October. As you may be aware, travel into and out of Hong Kong is still quite difficult with our "zero COVID" strategy, so hotel staycations and these cruises have become very popular with both the local and expat populations.

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Hello, hope you’ll join us as we get our COVID RAT’s this Friday and hit the road for Baltimore!

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I finally got the internet working!
 
My family and I are on the Koningsdam for our cruise this week and I figured I’ll log the journey here for those interested or had any questions about what it’s like. It’s our first pandemic cruise.
 
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We are sailing this week on the CP. We took the all- inclusive package. Anyone with questions about this ship. Feel free to ask.
 
Ed and Trish

Hello from Fort Lauderdale.
 
We are staying at the Hyatt Place Cruise Port off 10th, same hotel as the last time we sailed (again on the Allure) way way back in January 2020.  

Good morning, everyone! It is time to load up the Tesla here in sunny Ohio and start the roughly 6.5 hour drive down I-68 to Baltimore. 
 
This was truly a last minute cruise for me as I still had a week of vacation time to burn before the end of the year and refuse to spend it doing all of the things that I really should be doing at home. Who wants to organize the garage or pick the dead weeds out of the landscaping when you can go on a cruise!?

I was the first new passenger to board the beautiful Caribbean Princess this morning. It's great to be back. I flew down on a direct Southwest flight from Raleigh-Durham. It landed in Fort Lauderdale a little before 10. I was at the port around 10:30. The cab ride was $17.15 before tip. Checkin was a breeze. There was no line for security. Someone checked my vaccination card and passport, then another person scanned my carry-on luggage. He alerted the wine table that I had my one bottle of wine, and they asked to see it. (I guess to make sure it really was wine.)

I’m currently sailing HOTS Dec 5-12th 2021.  Ask me any question, I’ll try to find the answer while I’m onboard.
This is our first cruise since the restart of sailing.  We are Diamond Plus staying in a Jr Suite.  We were awarded Royal Up 2 days before departure, nice surprise.  Embarkation was smooth and quick.  We were onboard and straight to our stateroom in 20 minutes.  Our boarding time was a 2pm.  The ship is currently sailing at 75% capacity.  Not too crowded anywhere EXCEPT the Diamond Lounge.  It’s been a horrible disappointment.  Too crowded to find a seat anywhere and long lines just to speak to the Diamond Concierge for assistance.  By the time we were able to speak to him all of the Aqua shows were completely sold out so we’ve been waitlisted. Same with some specialty dining due to limited capacity seating.  We have eaten at Cafe 150 and Wonderland so far.  But overall we are loving our cruise and delighted that everything is mostly back to normal!  I’ll try to post updates throughout the week!
Cheers!

I really enjoy reading live trip reports, so thought I'd try my hand at doing one for this cruise as well.
This trip is an early celebration for my big 5-0 this month.  My husband, daughter, and her boyfriend are helping me celebrate this week.
We flew out of Seattle on a red-eye Thursday night and landed in Fort Lauderdale early Friday AM.
We're currently staying at the Crowne Plaza near the port.  Early check-in wasn't available, but they let us hang out at the pool and stashed our bags.  Then the unthinkable happened (if you happen to be a twenty-something year old). Daughters boyfriend jumped in pool with phone in pocket.  And because phone already had prior drop damage, phone stopped working.  So, 3 Ubers later, a trip to T-Mobile, and a trip to the local Apple store, crisis averted.  Thank goodness he had insured the phone..

I am sitting in the Riverside Hotel and already checked out but they are letting me use this business office.  So sailing today and looking forward, after all these years of meeting Spins in person😀.....one of the kindest people on this forum.
It is noon and I will wait about 45 more minutes and then get a cab to the port.  They said 2:00 but you know they will do testing and we leave from pier 25 so there will be space to sit while waiting.
 
I arrived here yesterday afternoon and got a cab from the airport......21.00.   I ate dinner at a place called The Royal Pig........they have a large menu and I sat outside and it was probably 77 outside. (or so).....I decided on Fish and Chips and OMG......4 BIG fillets and I could not eat them all. They were very good and I decided to try a dark beer......the bartender let me have a taste first. It was a surprise......I normally NEVER like dark....porters.   This had a hint of coffee and coconut in it and I REALLY liked it!  It was not bitter or hoppy........really a nice flavor.
 
This morning I had a breakfast at a long time restaurant here on Las Olas called Bonn Crepe........it was excellent and sat outside here as well.  I highly recommend this place.