iancal

A previous poster was correct. CCL stock is down to 9.84 at the moment. This is a clear message.

A number of countries have instituted. I expect it is to speed entry, pre clear travellers, and have them absorb some of the security costs. We have been paying the $20 Australian fee for a number of years. Last time we landed at Gold Coast Airport we were through immigration in less than 10 minutes. i expect that more countries will go this route. A number are also taking digital fingerprint scans when you enter the country.

I would not have the patience for that nonsense. if you are going to get on line TA service from HAL you may as well benefit financially from dealing with an efficient and responsive on line TA/Agency.

We have had numerous first rate excursions based upon following the roll call. Two types…either someone organizing a private group tour that we have joined or someone’s first hand recommendation for a private tour that we can join or hire. This goes well beyond value for money. Cuts out the big bus tours, the trash, trinkets, leather, and carpet stops, etc. Fewer people, more customized. We also use tripadvisor forum comments and recommendations.

We certainly do not have a problem with testing. In fact, we welcome it. cannot imagine why either of us, if we tested positive, would want to pass the virus on to someone else.

That is exactly why we scheduled it for 9AM when we had an 11PM flight. We wanted to leave plenty of time for retesting just in case. And we wanted to do it in a city location where we had many options for testing pharmacies vs at the airport where we would be captive customers so to speak. Our other option was to do a $150 pp covid 19 test three days prior to our flight. We were well aware of the requirements and the risk of a positive test prior to booking air. We paid a premium for refundable air just in case. We only booked accommodation that was refundable. We had a backup plan.

We have been in Portugal for several weeks. Lots of masking indoors and on all public transportation….trains, busses, etc. There was a requirement to be vaxed and to have an antigen lab test done within 24 hours prior to the flight. Not a biggie. We had the test done the morning of our flight. Cost…..anywhere from $15-$40 CAD depending on the pharmacy. Some travellers seem to be making a big deal about it however it was hardly an onerous requirement. It took all of twenty minutes from start until we got the results paperwork.

No sense of pricing at the moment. We are travelling independently now. Our pre covid custom is to snag a last minute, well priced cruise during land travel. We are not even considering,let alone pricing cruises at the moment. We are sitting on our hotel balcony in Lagos, Portugal wistfully watching a cruise ship sail by. Hopefully we will be on one sometime next year. The same goes for our tentative Greece trip in Sept/Oct. Typically we would be viewing Athens, Istanbul, Rome, or even Southampton departures. Neither of us can get our heads around being quarantined on a ship. Nor are the close quarters of a cruise ship appealing to us at the moment. That is even before we shop. So we will stick to land vacations until at least next spring.

In our opinion, on the value for money scale ES FLL rates extremely low. Poor value. Run down past their prime rooms screaming renovate me with comparatively high prices. A lemon. Hard to believe people actually stay there because of free breakfast and the complementary nachos and watery beer in the early evening. Go figure!

We use a Capital one world elite travel cash back card. grandfathered. Not certain they offer this card any more. This replaced our former CIBC Aeroplan card We use an Amex Marriott Bonvoy card which gives us one free night per year. We use a no fee Home Trust Visa card for all foreign transactions. It does nor charge the 2.5 percent admin fee on FX transactions like our previous CIBC Aeroplan card. This saves us anywhere from $300-$600 per year in fx bank admin fees depending on our travel expenses and our FX purchases. ……plus a few other no fee backup cards. few others

Most of our post retirement air is international. Very little Canada or US unless it is a stop to change aircraft. Europe, SE Asia, Mexico, or Central America. That may be the difference. We now use remaining Aeroplan our points for the grossly overpriced fares to places like Ft. Mac. No more Florida or California air since retiring.

Could not agree more. The very last straw for us came when we needed two one way reward tickets to Bangkok. We both have Delta and Aeroplan points. The Delta reward tickets cost us thousands of points less (as I recall about half) and $75 in fees pp vs $350 pp fees for the Aeroplan ticket. Plus we got to travel on KAL vs United/ANA. Better airline in our experience, not to mention a better connection. We also found that when attempting to book business class reward flights on Aeroplan we invariably got offered a mixed flight option at the higher price. More than a few times it was business class to Toronto or Montreal but economy for the LHR, CDG etc, leg. No sale!

I was a long time CP and then Aeroplan member. Lots of business travel. we gave up on Aeroplan. It was no longer worthwhile so we switched to another travel card. We did try a few things first. We started to fly on Aeroplan partner instead OS AC because the add on fees we so much less. the final straw came when the fees for a points ticket to LHR was about $80 less than the Transat fare. Same for a AC reward flight to BA. Fees were only slightly less than the AC advanced ticket purchase price. We chose an Aeroplan United flight and saved $600. Each over the AC reward fee. These we’re the final straws for us. I still have some points left. Since retiring 12 years ago I can only think of one international flight of mant that have been in AC. We dropped the card and we joined the United plan. This is where any points now accumulate for us.

This is certainly the case where we are…in Portugal. Everyone is wearing masks indoors and in public transport.

There are scads of very subjective opinions on everything from food to entertainment. There is no best. Just one that ticks most or all of your personal preferences. Every sailing on each ship can be a little different based upon crew and on board management team. You really need to sift through the complaints. Some are legitimate, some could be minor issues of a few entitled cruisers.

We would not like it. But..we had a choice so we took the least expensive and fastest. We could have paid $200. For the three day test. We also did our research and did not get stuck paying for last minute in airport tests. Both were offered in most places where we live. We know people who opted for the $200 option when both we offered. For some reason they complained even though the choice was theirs. the thing is we knew the requirements for Portugal. We made the decision knowing that. We were also considering Greece with no test. We know that, at the present time, if we want to travel to the US we will need test. for us it is a travel cost. No different than the cost of a visa to enter Turkey, Cambodia, Thailand, etc.

We had to have an Antigen lab test 24 hours or less prior to boarding our TAP flight to Lisbon in late May. Hardly a big deal. We went to the pharmacy and had the test the morning of our flight. Prices for the test ranged from $15-30 USD pp depending on the the pharmacy. We had no issue with it whatsoever. Portugal is wise to insist on this. Same for when we fly to the US. We do not view it as particularly onerous.

LIS was a zoo when we flew in. 2.5-3 hour wait time. Checked bags are a huge issue. Lots of lost bags. So very thankful that we only do carry on.

We have the same. We are travelling in Portugal at the moment. We use credit card tap or pin for almost all purchases. Card issuer is sending us notices every second or third day to check on a posting. A number of hotels do not take credit cards on their web site. Instead, you are forwarded a secure Visa (RedunIQ) site on which to make the transaction, with a two step authentication process. I prefer this for advance payments. One thing though….you need to pay close attention to the amount on the terminal prior to tapping or hitting the accept button. Get a receipt and agree it with your statements. We do this every few days. We had a dynamic currency offer come up at a restaurant yesterday. Oddly enough it displayed a conversion rate of 1.41 ( our experience is that the conversion rate is seldom displayed) We are paying 1.352 this week. We also noticed far more if those rip off Eurobank ATMs than we have seen during our pre covid travels.

Not all ships within the same cruise line are equal. We pay attention to the ship. A number of cruise lines that we prefer have one or two ships in their respective fleet that we would not consider.

My navy cotton shorts are faded. Four or five winters on beaches in SE Asia and Australia have robbed them of some of their color. Do I care? No. But both pairs are so comfortable and I hate shopping. They are on duty now in Portugal and may make it on a last minute Med cruise in Oct if we snag one while on our land travels. Some people need to relax, chill out, accept others as they find them rather than judging them. And get on with focusing on their own enjoyment and their own business instead of being aged busybodies.

We gave up on dragging along formal clothing years ago. In our view the our effort was non commensurate with the declining formal night festivities onvarious mass market cruise lines. On the likes of Celebrity (one of our favs), Princess, RCI, NCL, HAL, etc we have worn shorts to the MDR at breakfast and at lunch. No issue whatsoever. At dinner I wear casual slacks and a collared shirt. But… I only wear collared shirts anyway. On so called formal nights we hit the buffet or specialty restaurants. Do we actually care if some on this forum implies that we are slobs because of this or because we only travel with carry on? Absolutely not. Their opinions are completely meaningless and without substance to us. We are not about to live our lives for others nor do we shrink like a couple of violets just because of some ill informed criticism on this forum.

My perspective is that the cruise line sets the dress rules. Cruise line staff implement the rules. These are the people ultimately responsible for who gains entry to the MDR. The rest is noise level.

I think that ‘gala’ is a bit of a stretch and has been for quite a few years.

We do the same. We each pack for 6-7 days. It does not matter if we are travelling for a week or for eight weeks. And it typically adds up to 8-9kg. As it does on our current land trip to Portugal.