leck57

That is a domestic flight? Perhaps they have domestic departures under control but it's a different story at terminal 2. Just Google it if you want to read what is happening.

We had a great time on this little jaunt, although we froze. How Alex does this a couple of times a day is beyond me. As you say, our trip was after yours and apparently we had slightly better conditions. A couple had canceled so our trip was not going ahead....until another couple from the ship wandered past and decided to sign up on the spot. We loved the cows and saw some seals at a distance. Hope I'm allowed to add photos to your thread?

Monday late morning. Just Google Heathrow chaos and you'll get an idea of what things are like. Seems like any day is a problem.

I'd caution you about doing this at Heathrow. When we departed Heathrow terminal 2 last Monday it was chaos. Took us three hours to check in and there were queues going everywhere. I noticed the testing centre signs but I would do as least as possible at Heathrow. Probably the worst airport I have been through and locals in the queue with us said there had been stories about short staffing for quite a while.

Haven't some of the ports in French Polynesia limited the size of cruise ships that can dock? I'm interested in this cruise as well but I recall reading something about cruise ship passenger limits.

@ROWSE Glad you found the entrance to the Guinness Storehouse. We went right around this area and even though there were street signs, none seemed to get us there. As I detest Guinness I lost interest as we wanted to see the castle. It was a long walk though and I easily hit my 10,000 steps target that day. By the way we also found and took pics of the Molly Malone statue. I did not do any polishing!

I was also on this cruise. The passport collection and return worked well. Receipts were given and the return arrangements were done well. Many Asian cruises, your passports are handed over on boarding due to the number of countries visited.

We were on the same cruise and I think most of the stress is caused by US Govt requirements. Yes it was a little stressful ensuring we were negative before the cruise (and because we left Australia early, we had to find somewhere in Southampton to do the test if we wanted to avoid the test at the pier) but it was strange to see Brits and Aussies without a care when it came to returning or flying home. We don't need a test to fly home and we flew back last night after 9 days in London after the cruise. In London you wouldn't have known that the virus exists and we didn't need to worry about returning home positive or negative. It was obvious that some people on the cruise, particularly towards the end, were not wanting to risk it, and understandably so if quarantining was a possibility. Unfortunately most stress is now down to your Government regulations which seem to be out of step with the way the world is going.

I have been on the Emerald the past 12 days and my report (without reading the recent posts above) is that the App worked great on board except for trying to book dinner. If I tried I got a black screen and my device would freeze. I had to restart it to clear the screen. It worked perfectly for me ordering drinks to our cabin or on the ship, although if staff noticed me about to order they would just come over. I didn't use the App for tracking people and a few other things so can't comment but overall it was fine. The medallion was fine for door opening etc.