BJHeard549

Hi Don, We took a Victory Cruise Line St. Lawrence Seaway and a couple of Great Lakes cruise in August 2019. The whole experience was really great. That was such a great trip that’s why we signed up for this one. We’ve been on Grand Circle Travel, RCCL, and. Princess eons ago 😉. We’ve never been on an ‘expedition’ cruise before. The crew was really great on this trip. It seems like everyone really enjoys their jobs. We were just expecting the food to be ‘all glorious and special’ like food has been on every other cruise we’ve been on. We didn’t know it would be any different on this trip. And I suppose the fact that we contracted COVID19 on July 5th may have dulled our excitement about the trip a bit. Our paperwork that the doctor and his nurse brought in to our cabin when they checked on us had “#23” and “#24” written on them so we’re assuming we were #23 & #24 COVID cases on board.

It’s really interesting to see the difference in opinions about the food on the cruise. Other people on the cruise with us thought the food was good, yet we were both very disappointed with it. It got boring very quickly. 🤷‍♀️

I haven’t checked with them, but I doubt it. We all know we are taking the risk of getting COVID by going on a cruise. We took the risk and lost. It was a very expensive cruise to have ruined the way it was.

On about day 4 or 5, Peter, an Expedition leader reported during the evening presentation at there was a group of 10 people traveling together who were all infected and they were quarantined. A couple of days later they reported another 3 cases. Then another 3 cases. Then we got sick and didn’t hear any more about it because we were in our cabin. I wonder if there is any way to find out how many cases there ended up being?

We tested positive on day #6. We were immediately confined to our cabin. The doctor and nurse came to visit us once or twice a day. Our cabin didn’t get cleaned once we were diagnosed. That’s not a surprise, nor a criticism, just a statement. We chose to stay on the cruise and not disembark in Ketchikan, as some others did. All non-ill passengers disembarked in Vancouver first, then about 11:30am they gathered us “sickies 😉” and sent us off in taxi cabs to our next stop. In our case that was the Hyatt Regency just a couple of blocks from the port, where we stayed for 2 more days to meet the BC governmental quarantine requirement of 5 days. Then we flew home on Monday, 7/11 after meeting their 5 days quarantine rules.

The ship is very nice. The crew is great. Olga at the bar on 5 forward (as well as lots of other places on the ship) is a hoot and a lot of fun. We went on a Victory Cruise Lines cruise in August of 2019 and this cruise was no where near as nice. The company’s policies seem to have changed since then. In 2019 we cruised part of the St. Lawrence Seaway and on 2 Great Lakes. EVERYTHING was included, even all the land tours. Not anymore. The ‘included’ tours on this Alaska cruise were very basic. We bought the $79/person spirit of Sitka tour and it was NOT worth it. There were LOTS of ‘premium’ tours available, many of them costing hundreds of dollars per person. The food was also no where near as good as the food was on our 2019 cruise. Breakfast and lunch were both buffets. You could not order off of a menu. Only dinner offered a menu to choose from. The variety of foods offered over the length of the cruise was pretty boring. One of the usual great treats of a cruise is the great food. It isn’t that way on this cruise. The food was pretty disappointing.

We start our Sitka to Vancouver tomorrow, June 27!!! Of course we don’t board the ship until the afternoon of the 28th, but we are really excited for this trip. All we need now is for Delta Airlines to NOT cancel our flights!!! 🤞🤞🤞🤞