cangelmd

Thanks everyone for the hints and reminders. We have a B3B booked for 2023, which is our first real test of this system. He has done autopay for many years, and gradually switched to online banking. Gus biggest concern was security of the actual house, but now our son can check on one property and our daughter the other.

And that’s why it’s silly and perhaps more about legal CYA than health and safety. pits an interim step that hopefully won’t last long.

Ooh, I can answer this one. We own 3 homes (don’t ask, we know we’re crazy). DH has worked diligently to get us set up for extended travel as I wind down from my working life. We have automatic withdrawal for bill pay for all utilities. That was the biggest hurdle, and the last one only switched over during Covid, prior to that we had to prepay this bill, requiring a phone call to get them to apply a credit. He has a chart of other expenses and events like insurance, my Sep-Ira managers bill, pest control and HVAC service, etc. Our other big concern was security. He set up a Ring security system at home and at our townhouse. Our 3rd house is a rental in a rural vacation area, and we have a management company that kind of looks after that. The Ring system at the townhouse will unlock one door for service people who need access. We were prepared to set up our home with that, but our son and family just moved back to our city, so if we are gone they will be able to let someone in the house in an emergency. Our daughter could do that if needed at the townhouse. My answer is online bill pay, Ring security and develop a relationship with someone who can access your home in an emergency if necessary. Change your smoke alarm batteries!

I don’t think they would ever be on a port day. My question is how many chic nights, used to be 3 I think, but now down to 2?

You are going to be waiting to cruise a very long time. Do you really think there will be a large influx of unvaccinated persons onto Celebrity? And I actually favor keeping vax requirements and dropping testing, but I can see the logic in doing otherwise.

Oh silly me! Why bother swabbing your nose at all. Just run the control! This is nuts, CYA.

This is absolutely the opposite of what I was hoping they would do. I am extremely disappointed in this truly nonsensical result. Let me run take some negative tests and save them to screenshot the night before boarding!

I thought the same thing about the prime rib, and I prefer mine pretty rare, but that one’s blue! Making a note about Wolfville. We are going on 2 cruises in 2023 that cover different parts of Jim and Iain itinerary and sadly, I think we will miss Nova Scotia - road trip!

OK so let’s cut to the selfish Karenoid question I have. The policy on Monday only changed for US departures, is there any possibility that Europe departures, particularly TAs won’t eventually be included? For the record, I think Celeb should adopt the 80% vaccinated policy and drop the testing piece. I also think they should move toward UptoDate, when and if CDC changes the definition to include the Omicron specific vaccine. Given that we’ve gone about 4 months with BA-5 rampaging through some of the lowest vaccinated rate states in the US, and no new more evolutionarily fit variants have arisen, I’m cautiously optimistic that we are reaching some sort of equilibrium. The way things have gone around here this summer would portend a huge spike of cases in the cold weather states later this year, but much fewer hospitalization and deaths, thank heavens.

I want to apologize for posting what seems to be erroneous info- and I get a resident discount, who knew?! Mea culpa.

Don’t resident rates apply for anyone living in a state having any Celebrity departures? We always think about Florida, but I think NJ, Alaska and CA may qualify too?

Maybe a US website thing. Here, when you are trying to do a booking yourself, or even if you are checking cabin availability, you click through a series of screens asking about various things that would affect the quoted price, including military discount. The way the screens are set up, it’s real easy to accidentally click a discount.

It will be in the shore excursions. They only happen at certain ports, although I think our upcoming TA has one in each of 2 ports.

Not having to fly is a big part of this. My answer is that it depends. I see it as a matter of what will make you feel that your trip was ruined and how can you protect other people. If this was a Caribbean cruise where I wasn’t planning on leaving the ship very much, I would go and use Ag test every 24-36 hours and follow isolation precautions until I had 2 more negative tests. If this was a port intensive cruise or if I was a person who felt that the flu or a cold would ruin my trip - then Covid will likely ruin your trip and perhaps you should try to get compensated, whether it’s by showing up and telling them you are feeling bad just this morning or touching it out and going later. But what if med makes you quarantine? Well, I think by October there will be no testing for Caribbean cruises. I do think isolation and quarantine will still be a thing - just like for Noro - but you will likely stay in your cabin. I’ll be totally honest, pre-Covid, if I had been absolutely honest, proactively honest, I would never have cruised, because I went for years with a runny nose and cough- kids and grandkids. I also came back from a lot of airplane flights with a stuffy head - blamed the dry recirculating air, now I’m not so sure!

LOL! It’s still going through most of football season! Although I will admit Celeb tends to show at least some of playoffs and World Series.

All I can say is I feel your pain, we did, too, and for 2023 as well. The good thing for us is that I live in a house divided, and the game we will miss is the annual AL-LSU, which just leads to hard feelings, so maybe it’s better to be in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, you know? RTR.

We have taken a 12 pack of soft drinks on before without problems.

Another vote for DIY. The ferry schedule is available online, just be sure to allow enough time.

I will probably never seriously do carryon only, except for a weekend at our second home which I keep stocked with underwear, lol! But if I ever did seriously try it for a longer trip, it would be our upcoming cruise in October. Transatlantic, out of a foreign port, with a connection on the inbound flight that has already been changed plus all the chaos at airports. I’m spooked enough to at least consider the idea, and that’s why I’m hanging around even though I know this topic is a dead horse one!

I’ve only been on one TA, doing my second this fall, but based on a mistake we made - don’t overdo sightseeing before the cruise. We spent 3 days in London going full out, made a lifetime of memories saw Duchess Kate, attended a Requiem Mass at Westminster Abbey for All Souls Day in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Armistice, saw Hamilton, ate some killer Indian food- you get the idea. My feet were so swollen I could barely get my shoes on and walk on the first morning after embarkation. Also, especially a point since you are leaving from Southampton, some of the roughest seas you may encounter will be at the mouth of the English Channel, and your sea legs will be the least developed. We just did another cruise in May that went through the mouth of the English Channel and rougher seas must be fairly common. I recommend using your seasickness remedy of choice for the first 24 hours and see how you do. And I am not at all prone to seasickness

You may want to reconsider, all Celeb casinos are smoke free and they are very serious about that, comped or not

Definitely… although I wear them less if it’s cold outside.

Absolutely and every time it moves - but only in the outer third or half of the cabin - I couldn’t hear the neighbors blind by the bathroom door for instance. I will also say that the bathrooms in the IVs are huge - I don’t understand what the guy in the video is whining about the sink, his wife must have done all the washing of undies! Yeah it loses some counter space that would be useful, but on a longer trip where I had to wash several items, it was great - I was even able to wash a small stain out a shirt without getting the tail of the shirt wet or wrinkled - dried much quicker.

Definitely think you should because if it saves fuel, it may be the way of the future. A lot of the negatives depend on the climate that you’re cruising in and how you use your cabin, so you won’t know until you stay in an IV - it may be fine or even great for you!

We were on Apex in May. I left with mixed feelings about IV, DH would be happy to not have one again. First time we tried to move the blind (which is quite noisy, you know exactly when your neighbors move theirs unless you are in the bathroom or by the door), one side got stuck about halfway - you know when you pull a little too hard on one side of regular blinds how you get a fan - yep. Entire blind was replaced. They did it pretty fast, next day, but we learned that the slightest bit of light makes the frosted glass doors glow quite brightly, which makes it hard to sleep, especially around the UK where it isn’t dark until late! The mechanisms are aging fast! on this trip I enjoyed sitting in comfort and looking out the window, but it was cool to slightly chilly or pleasant - I can’t imagine sitting there in the Caribbean! Also the blinds are fairly stiff, and it’s hard to even peek out to check for rain in the early am without waking a partner. We have begun selecting cabins based on a combo of cost and what we want to do onboard or portside. I can see us forgoing the UV for an Oceanview and use savings for upgrades and dining. We’ve done an inside on Edge and DH thought it was too small, I didn’t think it was that much smaller even.