new_cruiser

We have a cruise in late October and we are waiting for the new booster. However, we received our last booster in the spring so either way we will have had a fairly recent booster. I went on a cruise with family in June and everyone in our party except me tested positive either during the cruise or the day after we debarked. I had similar symptoms after the cruise but never tested positive - possibly the booster kept my viral count lower than what the antigen rest can detect.

On many cruised, single occupancy in a cabin costs double or nearly double the per person double occupancy price - the dreaded "solo supplement". That is, your mother-in-law's cabin would cost about the same as the cabin you and your spouse share if they are the same category. However, there are cruises with a reduced solo supplement or a zero solo supplement. There is a thread on the solo board here where people post solo bargain cruises. Some cruise lines almost always have cruises with zero or reduced solo supplement. For example Windstar has a specials page listing the reduced/zero solo supplement cruises Star Clippers also always has quite a few. (I mainly like small ships carrying about 300 or fewer so those are the lines I'm most familiar with.)

You might reconsider filling every port day with an excursion. I usually book excursions for about half the port days at most. On our first cruise when cruising restarted after COVID, it wasn't clear whether ports would still be requiring a ship excursion to leave the ship so we booked excursions for every port. By the time our cruise started, all but our 3 port stops in Italy had opened up to allow passengers to leave the ship normally. I found having a ship excursion every day to be constraining so ended up canceling some of them. It was much more enjoyable to just explore on our own in some of the ports. You could go to the port of call board(s) for your ports and see which ports have things you would want to do on your own instead of on an excursion.

There is a difference between passport renewal and global entry renewal. When you renew your passport, you have no passport until the new one comes. When you renew Global Entry, you can keep using it. If you renew before the expiration date, you get a grace period where you can keep using it after the expiration date. The grace period was 6 months but currently it's 24 months. https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler-programs/global-entry/frequently-asked-questions

It is worth watching the cruise price too. I upgraded when there was a price drop. The price difference was less than the Royal up minimum for the category and a sure thing instead of unlikely. The moderators will probably move your post to the Royal board.

I think that's the case. I submitted the renewal about 2 months ahead. I wasn't suggesting waiting until after expiry - just that doing it a year ahead seems unnecessary. BtW, like driver's licenses (at least in my state), Global-entry expires on your birthday. The new one covers 5 years from my birthday even though the renewal completed about a month before the birthday. Unlike a passport, you don't lose any of the duration by renewing early. The renewal notice email was sent 6 months before mine expired.

Email reminders to renew from Global Entry included: Due to a significant increase in application volume, U.S. Customs and Border Protection is extending the grace period from 6 months to 1 year for any Trusted Traveler member who has a valid membership and who has submitted a renewal application. This means you will continue to receive full benefits for 1 year while U.S. Customs and Border Protection is finalizing your renewal application. So, I don't think one has to plan on renewing extra early. BTW, my husband and I both renewed this year and, despite that notice, the renewal was processed in about a month. My husband's renewal required an interview but he got a renewal appointment at the closest site pretty quickly.

And ot doesn't always work depending on the airport. When my husband planned to do that for his renewal interview, we got to the CBP checkpoint on the way home and we're told they didn't do interviews at that terminal- the airport had two terminals for international arrivals and only one of them had the office for interviews. I've renewed twice so far and got the card in the mail. My husband has renewed once and got a letter saying he had to interview to complete the renewal process. I don't know what causes the difference, it may be random or may be because he has a common name.

I've used these ones in many EU countries (and some cruise ships) without issues: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09T1FYBM4?th=1 The two holes in the socket are always the same but in some sockets, they are recessed in a circular or squashed hexagon recess. Some adapters don't work when their case is larger than the recess accommodates - this shape has fit the sockets in a wide variety of EU countries.

It is similar in California. If you are over 70, you can be excused to serve based on having a medical condition that interferes with serving without any documentation. I guess they figure that enough people over that age have medical reasons that sitting on a jury is a hardship that they just take you word for it. Like others here, I've often had to request postponement to a different date, usually due to work commitments and it has never been an issue. As I was typing this my husband walked in with a jury summons that arrived for me today and the date is a problem. Following the instructions to go online to request a postponement took about 5 minutes. In the past, you would tell them other dates you are available and get a notice in the mail that your date has changed. Now, they have a new web interface for jurors so it just asked me to select a week and changed it to that date. None of the specific reasons offered fit (the original week included Yom Kippur and they didn't have conflict with a religious holiday) so I selected "other reason" and it doesn't even ask for what the other reason is. Conflict with a vacation is one of the options.

Apparently in part because they want to offload some customer services like handling final payment reminders. 🤷‍♀️ More seriously, it may allow them to have fewer phone and on-line staff to handle booking and payment processing.

Anyway, in this case the TA didn't lose out on the commission because the passenger rebooked. As a matter of fact, they may have benefited because the rebooking was at a higher cost so probably their commission went up.

If the cruise is in early November than final payment is already due or will be due soon If your cruise is a closed loop cruise where you can use your birth certificate and ID instead of a passport, you would have that as back-up. If your cruise requires a passport and the passport doesn't arrive in time (e.g. not closed loop from the US or goes to a port that requires a passport even on closed loop cruises). then you won't be able to sail if the passport doesn't arrive in time. Did you submit for routine or expedited processing? Travel.State.Gov says that routine processing time is currently running 10-13 weeks not including mailing time. Most people seem to be getting their passports back within that time but occasionally it takes longer. The beginning of November is currently 13 weeks away. If you mailed it 2 weeks ago, that's around 15 weeks which is kind of tight. I'd be uncomfortable with that timing. You could the passport office to change it to expedited processing which is running 7-9 weeks. The fee for that is $60. You can also add 1-2 day delivery instead of standard mailing. I was in a similar situation except that I was just about to submit my passport when the cruise came up and the timing was even tighter. There is an Urgent passport process that you can use to get your passport with an in person visit to a passport agency office. You have within 14 days of travel to use the process if you haven't submitted the application yet and within 5 days if you have. If you are in Northern California, the closest Passport Agency is probably San Francisco. That's a more risky route if you have already submitted your passport application because there may not be appointments available. I had no trouble getting an appointment but I was calling 14-days in advance. Info on the Urgent process is here: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/get-fast.html

It is your responsibility and you shouldn't expect anyone else to make you whole. On the other hand, a good TA should remind you that the payment date is approaching as a backstop. I'd probably change TAs.

To define "ALOT" more quantitatively, it takes something over 5 drinks a day to break even. Obviously the exact number depends on what you drink. 5 would be if you are tending toward the higher priced items. The wine and beer package is $55 per person per day and the higher priced wines on the menu have been about $11 per glass. Lower priced ones are about $8. The math is similar for the package that adds cocktails and other spirits.

But on many ships, the balcony cabins are on the higher decks so you can't do both lower deck and balcony. If you have to choose, I think lower is more important.

Some lines adjust prices often depending how a cruise is booking up. I had a cruise where I had booked for 23 days with a very good sale price on the cruise with a waived solo supplement. The cruise had a 13-day ocean crossing and a 10-day Lisbon round trip. By the time we sailed, the per person double occupancy price for the 10-day segment was more than I was paying as a solo for 23 days. It sounds like the 7-day segment is booking up well - the 9-day doesn't overlap the 7-day so that may be why it has better pricing than the 11 day. Not clear why the 7-day would be priced higher than the 11-day that includes it, but pricing anomalies do occur due to sales or because they figure they will get more revenue from people buying extras on board for the longer cruise - or just because pricing can be weird. One time my son was booking flights to Seattle and found that First Class was priced lower than Coach.

Windstar is the line I've sailed on most. Having sailed with them at least once you get 5% off future bookings and a Yacht club cocktail party (they have wine ready but you can get a cocktail if you ask for it) on each cruise. Also 5% off on laundry and wifi. Higher levels add some OBC and discounts on beverage packages and shore excursions. 4-star gets free wifi and laundry (but everyone gets free laundry on cruises longer than 14 days). 4-star is 90 points - 1 point per night for regular staterooms, 2 for premium suites.

Have you read the rest of this thread? Registering will be an online process and should be no big deal. The similar processes for Australia and New Zealand take about 10 minutes to complete online. Authorization normally takes less than 3 days - Ours arrived in a few hours of submitting online.

It isn't really a visa, it is a visa waiver program. It's all done on-line. New Zealand and Australia already have similar programs. For those, you use their app to submit an application and an email with the approval normally comes within 3 days. Ours came a few hours after we submitted them. The Europe version (ETIAS) has been 6 months to a year away for the past few years. Roll out continues to be delayed. So it happening in 2024 is possible but not a sure thing.

The two on Deck 6 have connecting doors to the owner's suites next to them. They can be booked with the owner's suite and the Star Balcony Suite next to it as a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom Grand Owner's Suite.

I agree with capriccio: It says in process so they must have received it but perhaps they sent notification that there was a problem with the picture and it went astray or perhaps their process has lost your application. 5 months is about 21 weeks which is approaching twice the 10-13 weeks that they are predicting for processing. With that length of time, there is a chance that something is broken and the passport will never appear without some intervention. Time to call and ask what's going on. Edited to add: This page has instructions for calling to get your passport in time for travel: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/get-fast.html This trip provides a reason to call and if it doesn't hurry the passport up enough, you have a work around but hopefully will get it in time for the next ones.

I've only done one cruise on Star Clippers so far (Thailand), but it was pretty stable. I didn't feel uncomfortable with the motion at any time. They have a lot of no solo supplement cruises which would be nice if your adult son wants to join you. Windstar's ships are a bit larger and their motor yachts have stabilizers so you could try those first to work your way to smaller ships. I've been on their sail ships multiple times and haven't had motion issues on them either.

Another advantage of sailing out of San Juan or other Caribbean ports like Saint Martin or Barbados is that they usually stop at the heavily visited ports on light days. You aren't in ports inundated by hoardes off multiple mega-ships coming from Florida. Some of these are on small ships so there aren't diversions like ice rinks or flow riders on board, but they usually have just one sea day and plenty of time in ports so you get your activity on shore.

10 days isn't long enough for a full transit departing from an returning to the US. 7 days is long enough for a full transit on itineraries that terminate closer to the Canal. For example, Windstar has 7 to 11 day itineraries that go from Aruba to Balboa Fuentes (Pacific end of the canal) or from Colon (Atlantic end of the canal) to Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica. I think Star Clippers has some too.