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...As this is only the trip, we also purchased an annual travel medical insurance policy thru GeoBlue (blue cross blue shield company). This seems a much more economical way to go...especially if you do a lot of traveling.

Just FYI, the GeoBlue coverage will not help the OP while she is in Alaska. GeoBlue is only valid outside the United States.

Both those hotels are in the Gaslamp Quarter. I'm a local, so I don't stay in downtown hotels, but I suspect the Andaz is a bit quieter since The Hard Rock is down by the train and trolley tracks and the trains run all night. Either place is likely to have street noise and traffic on the Friday of a holiday weekend though. The Gaslamp is a place people go to party, so there will be crowds.

The Gaslamp has many restaurants. You could just walk up and down 5th Ave until you find something interesting, or if you give us some idea of cuisine and price range we can probably recommend something. Really, you can have anything there -- seafood, steak houses, diners, pubs, upscale, casual, quirky, celebrity chefs, etc. What are you interested in?

Looking at the Princess Vacation Protection brochure here: https://www.princess.com/downloads/pdf/faq_answer_legal/Princess_Vacation_Protection.pdf

I am not seeing any provision that waives the pre-existing conditions exclusion, no matter when you pay for this coverage, so it doesn't matter whether you include it at booking and pay for it then or later. Either way, it's not going to cover you for any loss that was caused by a pre-existing condition.

This might not be the exact same coverage you're looking at, so you should read the brochure that Princess provided to you.

See? Color me confused. The last time I was researching this, I came away with your definition of pre-existing relating to purchasing insurance. However, other posters see it differently. So I guess other insurers do too.:o

I'm a bit confused too. You said you live in Florida, but lots of people are describing Canadian insurance requirements in answer to your question. Are you actually a Canadian who just lives in the U.S. part-time? If not, just ignore all the posts about Canada and UK requirements. They are very different from how insurance works in the U.S.

The advice to call and speak to a real person who is familiar with the policies sold in your state is good. That will help cut through the confusion.

A pre-existing condition is whatever the insurance policy you purchase says it is. There will be a section, usually near the front, that has definitions of lots of words you think you know the meaning of, like: "Family", "Hospital", etc. Pre-existing condition will also be defined in that section. I just grabbed the definition from a Nationwide policy that someone posted a few threads down, and it says:

Pre-Existing Condition means an illness, disease, or other condition during the sixty (60) day period immediately prior to

the Effective Date for which the Insured, Traveling Companion or Family Member booked to travel with the Insured: 1)

exhibited symptoms which would have caused one to seek care or treatment; or 2) received or received a

recommendation for a test, examination, or medical treatment or 3) took or received a prescription for drugs or medicine.

Item (3) of this definition does not apply to a condition which is treated or controlled solely through the taking of

prescription drugs or medicine and remains treated or controlled without any adjustment or change in the required

prescription throughout the sixty (60) day period before the Effective Date.

The Pre-Existing Conditions exclusion is waived for You if the Insured (a) enrolls in this Policy within at the time he/she

pays the deposit required for his/her Trip (or within twenty-one (21) days of the initial deposit); (b) purchases this Policy for

the full cost of his or her Trip; and © is medically able to travel at the time the premium is paid.

So for this specific insurer, if the medications for your high blood pressure and your husband's neurosarcoidosis have been the same dosage for more than 60 days; and if you have not visited a physician who recommended any tests or treatments for these conditions during that time, then they do not count against you. If you have changed medications or had additional tests, then you can still get insurance coverage via this policy as long as you purchase it within 21 days of booking and are currently able to travel.

It's a two-week trip, and nobody can predict the movement of a storm that accurately that far in advance.

Tropical Storm Bonnie is drenching the Carolinas now, and although not a hurricane, it's strong enough that I think a cruise ship would avoid it if out at sea and might cancel a tender port that was being hit with a storm like this. It was first reported as a possibility 6 days ago.

So you might board the ship on the Nov 27th and a new storm could form on the 29th and affect your port on Dec 4. There's just no way to know in advance.

One thing you can be sure of is that the captain will reroute the ship to go around large storms as much as possible in order to keep the ship and its passengers safe.

When you get off the ship, if the cab line looks long for some reason, just cross the street and call an Uber or Lyft to pick you up there.

You can do the same thing at the airport on embarkation day. There's a pickup area for "app enabled car services" (or some similar label) near the taxi line. If you don't see any taxis and there are lots of people waiting, then just cross over to the next island.

Hotel tax is around 25%. What percentage is the restaurant tax in San Diego?

San Diego's transient occupancy tax rate is 12%, not 25%. In restaurants, you pay Sales tax, which is 8%.

Sorry to hear about your mother and hope she's doing better now.

Your trip insurance could be either primary or secondary, but it's most likely to be secondary. The only way to tell for sure is to read the policy.

You should submit your claims to both Medicare and the insurance company. As you say, Medicare may pay because you were in/near the US, and even if they don't, the travel insurance company is going to need denial to settle their part of the claim. Unfortunately, it's likely to take several months to unwind all of this.

The walk to the nearest end of the runway at Harbor Dr and Laurel is probably longer than 15 mins for the average walker, but not much ... maybe 20 mins. You could take photos from there.

If you keep walking down Harbor Blvd another 10 minutes or so, you'll reach the cell phone lot which has a view of the runway from the side.

Call the Wyndham that's across from the pier and see if they have a rental counter on site.

There's an Avis in Little Italy. You could walk there.

All the hotels around the convention center have Hertz desks on site.

Enterprise will pick you up (or so they say in their ads).

You should go on your trip and not worry about the weather. El Nino has been blown way out of proportion by the media. We've all been through this before.

Just for reference, this year's El Nino is being compared most often to the 1983/84 conditions. In that year, we had 18.5 inches of rain in San Diego; which is a bit less than double the normal rainfall.

During an average year, in November, we get about 1 inch of rain spread over 4 days. That doesn't mean it rains from dawn to dusk. Most "rainy days" are actually more dry than wet.

Suppose the worst happened during your vacation, and we had double the average for the month and it all fell during that one week. That would be 2 inches of rain. How does that compare to what the likely weather if you stay at home?

Actually there are taxes that are paid on Frequent Flyer tickets.

 

We have FF tickets to Australia for March 2016 and the taxes came to $252 for the 2 of us.

 

I would think this could be included in the cost of the trip. Right?

Government imposed taxes are generally refundable, even on non-refundable tickets, so you get those back from the airline, not the insurance. You have to ask for the refund though; the airlines just pocket the $$ if you cancel and don't ask.

Fuel surcharges and other airline imposed mandatory fees are a sneaky way for the airline to avoid commissions and taxes and they are not refundable, so you can claim those costs from your insurance. Your $252 probably includes some of both.

I will never understand why so few cruise lines use San Diego has a turnaround port. It has literally everything cruisers could want in one, right there on Harbor Drive: museums, shopping, restaurants, public transportation, HOHO trolleys, a Holiday Inn, the Coronado ferry, and more. If that is not enough, a huge mall is within walking distance of Harbor Drive and taxis regularly line up at the world-famous zoo. Hotel del Coronado is on a great beach and another beach is close. So why do all cruise lines go to spread-out, overcrowded Los Angeles instead of an extremely convenient port that cruisers can stay at without renting a car?

I've always seen people here on CC complaining that there aren't enough CBP personnel to handle the ships in San Diego. I live here (in Coronado), and the one and only time we sailed from here, it was a piece of cake. I obviously wasn't in any rush to get to the airport though.

As long as a ship goes to a foreign port such as Ensenada it's perfectly legal. I did a California coastal, this year on the Crown Princess and Ensenada was the foreign port it went to. Plus it went to SF, Santa Barbara, & San Diego and started in LA.

I don't know why more cruise companies ignore West coast departures. But I am happy Princess does do them.

As long as you disembarked in LA (same port where you started), then you just needed to visit any foreign port, which in this case was Ensenada, Mexico. The original poster asked specifically about an SF to LA itinerary. Since this itinerary would be between two different U.S. cities, it requires a visit to a "distant" foreign port, which means South America.

Well, San Francisco to LA is an illegal itinerary for a non-US flagged ship unless it also includes a distant foreign port. I believe the nearest distant foreign port in the Pacific is somewhere in South America, so it's not really practical.

Cruise lines occasionally do Vancouver to LA or San Diego during repositioning.

How would they get a new photo on the license if you renew it online? I know I can renew my car's registration online, but I must always go in to the DMV to renew my license in person. This is in Ohio though. The good thing here is that they print new license cards in the DMV office, so only need to wait a few minutes to have a new card, not 7-10 days. It seems MA is a little behind the times on this.

States that do online renewals do not put a new photo on the renewed license. They just reuse the previous one that is stored in their computers.

In California, your child must be in a car seat until he/she is 8 years old -or- 4 ft 9 inches tall.

It sounds like a resort on Mission Bay, such as Bahia, Catamaran or Paradise Point might be better suited to your needs than a downtown hotel. Since you'll be there for 3 or 4 days, it's not really necessary to stay right next to the cruise pier, and a 20 minute cab ride is not that far anyway. The resorts have beaches, boating, etc, and they'll also have concierges.

Another option for an upscale resort hotel would be the Coronado Marriott, Hotel Del Coronado, or Lowes Coronado Bay.

Unless something has changed in the past few years, the road goes very close to the sea arch. A very short, and easy, walk to the arch (one or two minutes). However, we have been on that road three times, and the last time we totally missed the sign on the road indicating where to stop. Therefore, watch carefully.

The road is now closed right at the point where you would stop to walk over to the sea arch. There's an NPS mobile building and a souvenir shop there in addition to the road blocks, so you can't miss it now. Pedestrians were not allowed along the road past the closure point last week because of construction. They're rebuilding the road where the lava previously crossed it because there is concern that the people living east of the old lava crossing will get cut off by new lava flows to their north and this rebuilt road will provide an exit route for them.

If you're going soon, and only have time to do either the Jaggar Museum or Chain of Craters, you should definitely go to the Jaggar. We just got back from a week on the Big Island, and the lava in the overlook crater is now visible from the Jaggar's observation deck for the first time. Since we left it's risen further and spilled over onto the floor of Halema'uma'u crater. Check the usgs.gov website before your trip to see if it's still active. Crater Rim Drive is definitely closed. We were told it's been closed since the overlook crater started spewing sulfur fumes in 2008.

Chain of Craters was also an excellent drive. We hiked Kilauea Iki and Mauna Ulu from stops along the road on two separate days. Each hike was about 4 miles and took 90 minutes or so, but both were very worth it. If you don't have time for one of these, then make a stop at the lava tube and then drive on down to the sea arch.

Puna'ulu is also a great stop and it seems like the sea turtles are there most sunny days. You could make this stop less than an hour if you just want to see the turtles and aren't planning to swim.

Princess only has 2 cruises going to Tahiti next spring.

April 19 - Sydney to Los Angeles - 28 days -- Golden Princess

April 10 - Sydney to Auckland - 31 days -- Sea Princess (you can also do this one as a round trip from Sydney, 35 days)

I do thank you for your reply it is RCI the Legend of the seas

( april Panama Canal )

thanks again for your time to answer

If your cruise is in April then you've already made your final payment. As others have said, if port taxes have decreased, the difference will be applied as a credit to your on-board charges. You can call RCI and ask them how much it will be, though they may not know yet. I'd be surprised if it's as much as $150 unless the ports have changed.

Hmmm. I just went on that site and I entered the same parameters that I used for our last family cruise aboard the Enchantment of the Seas and I found comprehensive policies starting at $58 TOTAL for our family of 4. Once again, I know that several factors are taken into account, but I can usually find some affordable policies.

It depends heavily on your age and where you live. For example, I just checked insuremytrip.com for an imaginary cruise to Mexico that costs $5000 leaving on June 14, 2015 and returning on June 21, 2015.

If you are a family of 4 living in AZ with ages 40, 38, 5, 3 -- the lowest comprehensive policy available is $98 total.

If you are a family of 2 living in OH with ages 70, 68 -- the lowest comprehensive policy available is $250 total.

If you walk over 2 blocks to Columbus, you can get on the 30 Stockton bus which goes right through Chinatown. Otherwise there are many small storefront restaurants in that area, but I'm not personally familiar with any of the Asian ones. Maybe a quick look at Yelp would help you find one that interests you.