weatherboy80

Was also on the March 4th sailing - hopefully we left the ship in good shape :) Can't believe it's already been 3 weeks since boarding day :(

Enjoy!!

Extremely jealous right now! Have a great trip!

Didn't want to start a new thread, but if anyone is interested I put together a quick video montage of our recent Equinox Eastern Caribbean cruise :)

Just came across this old thread. I'm assuming table 230 is still against the wine tower? Asking because we found out we have this table for 2 on our upcoming Equinox sailing :)

Thanks - looking forward to it!

Thanks again Anne - think we will just stick with the do it yourself taxi and ferry and then ask for the typical 2 hour taxi tour. Sounds very nice!

Do they rotate the same menus fleet wide?

Silly question :). Does anybody have a very recent MDR menu listing for the 10 night eastern sailing on Equinox? I'm looking into the 3 night speciality restaurant package and can't decide between reserving the first or second overall night for our first night (guessing Tuscon grille?) at a specialty restaurant. The 2nd night is a formal night and was wondering if the the MDR might have a better selection then? Plus knowing the MDR "themes" each night would be a big help in planning the rest of the week as well.

Anne - thanks so much for the detailed response. This sounds like the better option to us especially with the shorter and faster crossing!

So Im assuming we just tell one of the taxi operators that we are interested in doing a general island tour without beach stop? Im assuming these island tours wil stop at the sugar plantation and various overlooks similar to the cruise line excursions?

I also wonder how much a several hour jeep rental would be from Cruz bay?

Certainly depends on the weather conditions of the day, but a similar question on the roughness of the seas on the longer ferry ride from the cruise dock (Havensight dock) to Cruz Bay in St John? My wife had a very bad experience in Alaska on a 6 hour glacier excursion where we had to cross some open water so she is very nervous about repeating any part of that experience, but wants to get back to and see St John while we are docked in St Thomas. She is fine on the big boats but tends to get seasick (fast) in the smaller crafts.

Actually we are not interested in staying at a beach this time (visited only Trunk Bay several years ago) around, but instead interested in having a general island tour to see some overlooks and the various sites along the way. Are there generic island tours available (on your own) from Cruz Bay? For example, I was thinking of just taking a taxi from the cruise dock to Red Hook and then taking the shorter 15 min ferry ride over versus the excursion (from Celebrity) that includes the longer 45 minute ride in choppy water then a drive around the island to minimize the time on the water. Does this sound doable?

Ordered mine several weeks ago and haven't received them either. I've had success in the past with printing them and using clear packing tape to laminate them.

Thanks - actually we missed the deadline according to Celebrity and its now cancel for 50% of the full payment at this point.

If my MIL gets through the risky spleen removal in 2-3 weeks she stands a reasonable chance at being fairly stable for months to over a year so we are somewhat hopeful at this point.

Good point/question - we are cruising with Celebrity on a 10 day sailing. Although I believe our initial payment was close to $1000 - do they consider that entire payment the deposit amount?

Well in our case I would gladly take a $200 penalty or change in fare to be able to move or postpone our cruise. The doctors are now considering removal of her enlarged spleen for quality of life improvements supposedly in early Feb. With her myleofibrosis and now pending removal of the spleen that carries a pretty high risk! The planned cruise is not until March 4th so that still leaves a lot of time for things, both good and bad, to change.

Good luck! In our case we made the final payment (12/17/2015) a week before we knew the seriousness of my mother-in-law. Honestly, we still don't know how far along the cancer is or what the most likely prognosis is at this point either which still makes all of this very difficult. I guess If we would have known we would have canceled our simply moved the date, but right now just continuing to plan to go on our March cruise is our best bet. We are planning to travel to visit with her a couple times beforehand though and maybe get some more straightforward answers.

Underwatr is correct - so far in my case, which is very similar to yours (prayers to you and your family), the only company that said they will cover death no matter what is TravelGuard. I'm still trying to find out from CSA if they will cover death due to a prolonged illness for a family member - their language is certainly vague ...

Talked again with the folks at insuremytrip. Their suggestion, in our case, is to stick with TravelGuard if our primary concern is with death alone before or during our trip. As I pointed out TravelGuard will not cover us if we cancel to simply be by her side if her condition worsens. CSA, however, may be a better option if death is not the primary concern here, but we still maybe caught by the "The Sickness or Injury must first commence while your Trip Interruption coverage is in effect under the Policy" within the CSA cancellation section. So for example if she were relatively stable with her condition (remember the non pre-existing conditions for non-traveling family members), but caught phenomena or some other new grave illness we would likely be covered. If she were to pass related to the cancer alone then we would not. As per always, it a case by case review either way :confused:

It's hard to tell as well - here is the response I got my a CSA Rep today:

Thank you for your email. Unfortunately, we are unable to make any type of determination of coverage at this time. Many details affect the outcome of a claim, so a Claims Representative always makes the final determination of coverage of all claim situations after a review of completed claim forms and supporting documentation. If you have any further questions, please contact our Customer Service Department at 800-348-9505, and a representative will be happy to assist you.

Regards,

CSA Travel Protection

Seems like a typical cut and paste email response.

Right now I've actually got 2 policies for our upcoming March cruise. I need to get rid of one of them :rolleyes: First is from TravelGuard and the other is now from CSA. I have ~11 days to cancel the first one and 8 more to cancel the CSA policy. My guess is either would be sufficient for all general cases, except that TravelGuard phone rep told me explicitly that death is always considered an unforeseen condition no matter what the cause, but that general illness (no matter how grave) would not.

I wonder if csa would consider death to be unforeseen like travel guard does?

Curious what they would consider a long term illness like cancer that suddenly takes a turn for the worse or having various complications then? When I talked to TravelGuard they said something like cancer would not be coved since we were less than the 180 day look back period for that non traveling family member and they consider a worsening cancer a non stable condition. *Travelguard would cover us In the event of death though. *However, when I talked with CSA they said they would not look at those pre existing conditions ... But any foreseen worsening condition would be examined.

The biggest challenge for us has been extracting relevant information from my inlaws family on the true state of my mother in law. *We are out of town and unfortunately they aren't very open regarding their health so that makes it extremely diffulcult as well.

I guess worse case scenario is that god forbid we would have to cancel last minute and eat the cost of the cruise and travel insurance premium. *I also wonder if the cruise companies (Celebrity in this case) would ever allow us to exchange to a different cruise in this scenario by pleading our case? *

I know hindsight be what it is at this point - buy the insurance as soon as you make an initial deposit!

Maybe I'll answer my own question?

The more I read about this the more I think CSA might be our better option going forward - noting the discussion about half way down in reference to a non traveling family member illness:

https://www.insuremytrip.com/learn/getting-help/index.html

I'm a bit confused now. I called CSA and they said they do not look at the non traveling family members to issue the policy but if we had to make a claim they would look at the "worsening" of a condition regarding that family member :confused:

Anyone have a similar experience with CSA?

We just purchased trip insurance through AIG (travel guard) for our 10 night cruise in early March for DW and I. We made the final payment 2 weeks ago though.

We also found during the holidays (of course) that my mother-in-law now has a kidney infection and we are not entirely sure how serious it is at this point. It is related to a form of blood cancer that she has been battling for several years (successfully to this point anyways), but are not certain how that will progress in the near future and certainly the next few months.

Anyways, I was reading through the travel insurance waiver and noted a section discussing prw-exsisting conditions regarding non-traveling "family" members within a 180 day look back period so I was then curious to know if this would impact our policy? I then called TravelGuard and they will not cover her conditions unless she passes away :mad: It is really hard to predict what will happen in the next 2 weeks let alone 2 months from now, especially with long term illnesses like these ...

However, I have noted that CSA insurance does not look at the non-traveling family members for coverage. Should I look to them instead? I have a 15 day review period on the TravelGuard either way ...

https://www.squaremouth.com/travel-advice/travel-insurance-for-pre-existing-medical-conditions/

Thanks for the advice!

Strange question - does anyone actually have a MDR floor plan with table numbers etc ... for Equinox or similar Solstice class ship?