ALD18

For those who get the voice feature, can you call forward your Canadian home/cell # to the temporary phone # on the SIM card? Wondering if that would work.

A good portion of the travel to Volunteer Point is pretty much open, very rough fields. We went via Land Rover and needed the 4x4 feature a couple of times. I'd save your money, enjoy the scenery, watch out for sheep, and HANG ON:) Volunteer Point is one of my favourite shore excursions EVER. Enjoy it:)

Find it intriguing to hear the various scenarios other use. Our process is sort of a hybrid of all of it. I think we are going to continue "doing it ourselves" instead of employing a TA. I actually went in and "interviewed" an agent the other day with the "we find everything and you book it for us" and she answered all the questions ok, except the $113 per person per booking part. I questioned that since we had done ALL the legwork in the research field if those fees could/would be waived and she said no. Asked if she/they had 24/7 phone support in the event of issues and she said no to that too. Only support was 9:00-17:00 EST time in Canada on weekdays. We have an issue outside of that we were on our own until that time frame opened up. I think we are going to continue on our own, but start leaning more on the actual cruise line contacts we have established. They have always been helpful and respond quickly to questions we have. Guess we may give up some "perks" that TA may provide, but $226 per booking for a $10-100 perk doesn't work for us. Thanks to all for your experiences and advise, appreciate it.

Historically we have always did all of the legwork and booked our travels directly with the providers. We enjoy doing it this way and its part of the adventure. With all of the current bureaucratic changes (Egypt/India/Brazil and apparently more to come visas, upcoming ETIAS, closure of Norwegian Fjords) we are seriously thinking of starting to use a travel agent to help us avoid or assist in the underlying pitfalls we may miss in the details. We would like to still do all of the research and basically drop where/when/who we want to go with on an agents desk and have them book it all. Then utilize their knowledge to insure we don't miss any of the details such as above before we go. I recently stopped by a local travel agent and they were move than willing to assist in such a fashion, but also added they charge an additional $113 per person, per booking to do so. I found that rather odd. So putting out my feelers to see what others do. Do you use local agents, would me nice for face to face discussions? Online or US based agents, seems to be high turnover personnel wise? Or do rely on the providers booking/service agents to provide you with the details? Understand you cannot name names or discuss details about actual travel agents on this forum, but just getting a feel on how you prefer to do it. Thanks🙂

With current situation get the visa however you can. If you can't physically go to the consulate do the process and fire everything too and from via expedited courier. Or look into the various Visa acquisition agencies (our tour agency recommended CIBT Visas Canada) who can do it for you for a fee. We have the luxury of not going until February, but as soon as we are within the 90 day window will be getting it. We also have to get a Jordanian Visa, which appears to be quite simple, but I would hate to get there and get rejected because somebody, somewhere gave you the wrong information. Kind of the same scenario as travel or health insurance. Err on the side of caution. Good luck, hopefully you can get things ironed out to relieve the anxiety and duress.

THANK YOU SO MUCH for your update and glad too hear everything fell into place. Huge load off of your minds I'm sure. Eagerly awaiting some official updates from governments and travel industry on any possible streamlining process such as online applications. Now get back to being excited about your trip😃

Wow, harsh indeed. We were wondering how the cruise lines would handle this. Apparently it is business as usual for the cruise lines as per their established guidelines. Luckily you have a bit of wiggle room, not much, before you go. We started exploring some of the online agencies that get Visa's for you and they appeared to be willing to do it. I started to fill out the forms on one to see what costings were and initial, fast turn around, with phone support was about $350cdn per visa. Some appeared to be cheaper, but not sure on their reputations or speed. Bit of an unexpected additional cost, but would get you going. Otherwise, I would try and contact your local federal elected official and deal with them directly. See what they can/will do for you. Best of luck regardless.

There apparently is some updated information from Egyptian embassy on their Facebook page. Find it strange they are updating via it as some people, including me, does not have Facebook access. One glaring tidbit was apparently you could get the visa either in Ottawa or Montreal satellite building but their business hours were only 9:30-12-30 am Monday thru Friday. Our tour operator has suggested waiting a bit longer and utilizing one of the visa application services, but previous looks at those services were fast/efficient but some are pretty expensive for the service. This whole mess is causing us to seriously consider cancelling our February trip. This whole thing is a mess and we're really concerned everything will be ironed out by then. I truly feel sorry for you fellow CC'ers who are scheduled in October and such. Best of luck and hopefully it works out for you.

WOW!!!!! Short notice and harsh:(

Question for me is how long has the implementation dates been known? By our research it sounds like about month, month and a half. It apparently is a political retribution by Egypt on our visa requirements on their people. Did Egypt just make a snap, fast tracked decision to implement it. It appears to be having a serious affect on dual citizen Egyptians nationals travelling on Canadian passports. Compounded by the lack of knowledge and confusion by the tourism industry, who one would think would have been very proactive finding out what was happening, and lack of reactions from the Egyptian agencies here in Canada. Their inability or refusal to interact with the public seems strange unless they are short staffed and are being swamped with requests. Something looks fishy here. Hmmmmmmmm.

Thank you Gnome12, we will sit tight and see what the tour operator directions are as the dust settles. Appreciate it:)

Our tour operator has informed us to hold tight on applying and are apparently going to try and do a bulk order of visa requests for us. However, some people have already gone ahead and utilized the current e-application method. It is still working apparently. They filled it out, input the February 2024 dates of arrival and departure, paid $90 US, got confirmation of success, and have visa and receipt of payment. Sounds like they are good to go. My concern, even though it sounds solid, is whether it would still be valid after the changes are applied. Sounds like they are good to go, but still a bit cautious of going down that path as things appear to be changing fast and furious.

We were in contact with the tour organizer last night and she has been aware of the upcoming changes for a couple of weeks. She in turn has been in contact with the tour company itself and is still awaiting what their recommended procedure is. We are going to dig into it further today, but it appears as if you can still apply electronically for it. My main concern then is how long will processing times be, how much it will cost, and how long is it good for. Hopefully the application process has a quick turn around time and cost is minimal. Will see.................

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm, we're scheduled to go there in February. Hopefully it is a straight forward process, not to time consuming, and easy to do. We're going as part of a group tour so hopefully they can streamline things. PITA.

We've used smaller US regional airports for flights down there several times. Syracuse NY airport is about the same distance for us as Toronto, about 1.5 hours. Flights are usually a LOT cheaper, airport is a snap to get too, local hotels offer very attractive parking options, and getting around inside the airport is VERY easy. Only problem is you may have a layover to get to long distance destinations. However, we flew to San Diego once upon a time and our total cost for both of us was cheaper than a single fare out of Toronto. We had a 2 hour layover in Chicago, but it $ in our pockets. Not sure what your choices would be, but an option you could also explore.

Another one. https://www.cntraveler.com/story/americans-will-need-visa-for-the-eu?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Saw this in The Star today. Need some more documentation to go to Europe starting in 2024. Not sure how this will affect the cruise industry or flight layovers, but required none the less. https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/canadians-will-soon-need-a-permit-to-enter-europe-heres-what-you-need-to-know/article_34e56068-4adf-55bd-a315-9bc7187e8f0c.html As well, saw the other day Amsterdam is closing their cruise terminal, but timing is some time off. Amsterdam addressing various over tourism issues. Pity, we love sailing from there.

In the process of retiring and just went through the adventure of acquiring my own cell phone, as opposed to the company one I had. Was really surprised about the cost, across the board, for everything cell phone related in Canada. For the daily fee of roaming, anywhere, with Canadian cell companies I'll be going the travel sim route. The phone package I got doesn't even have roaming capabilities. I'll be preordering a travel sim card, if I can, and do one of the following. If it will let me I'll call forward my normal phone # to the new travel sim and hopefully that will work. That or as airbalancer chimed in recently maybe leave the new travel sim # as part of your phone voice mail so that anyone needing to call you can. We don't rely on our cell phones when travelling anywhere near the way a lot of people do though. With the $12-16 daily Canadian charges a 30 day travel sim on one phone seems pretty obvious for us.

Perfect, thank you very much!!!!! Never thought of the unrest causing an issue. Assumed it was closest to the monument so they would be there. Will look around some more in that direction. Thanks again😃

Anyone know if you can get a replica of the Cape Horn Albatross Memorial Statue? Something small enough to put on a mantle or table top? Looked around Ushuaia prior to sailing past the Horn and memorial, but none of the shops I visited had any. Been searching the net and can find lots of pictures or tee shirts etc., but haven't found what I want yet. Thanks.

Ditch the web page or app and head to your travel agent or Air Transat directly via phone. This is starting to sound like what we went through with them, total PITA. With 2 hour layover you will probably have to exit the plane for security reasons, but will stay in general area of the gate if it is the same plane. Suspect you will not have to mess with security or customs until you physically leave the terminal in Toronto. We have a similar flight layover issue upcoming, but we leave one country, layover in another, and end up in Toronto We were told that as long as we stay in secured area of first layover we did not have to mess with immigration or customs there. Good luck figuring it out😀

We have found Air Transat to have VERY poor communication and interaction with passengers. Agree their prices from that area were very attractive, but the overall experience with them kind of turned us off of using them in the future. But as you stated the flight cost may draw us back some day.

Likely improve landing and take off wait times when you are on the plane, but my opinion is all delays are related to in or directly around the terminals. Check in is relatively smooth, but getting off was/is/always will be a pita until they figure out how to move passengers more efficiently.

Alas our needs for internet connectivity are a necessary evil in some cases. Unfortunately with all the hype about internet connectivity speeds on the ships there is only so much they can accommodate at the end of the day. Their marketing is no where near reality. If you take into consideration the ship is utilizing some type of "over the air" technology to get the ship connected to the land based internet those types of connections come usually significantly slower than land based lines. Add on to that you are probably fighting against MANY other passengers utilizing the bandwidth available and the speeds are going to get clobbered by usage alone. It may be fine to check email and such, but any type of application that requires that added bandwidth (VPN, access work servers, etc) just are not going to work acceptably. You may see some better speeds if you can access the ship internet REALLY early or late at night when other passengers are sleeping. I would be confident using name brand VPN software from anywhere, but if you want the speeds you are probably going to have to wait until you are onshore to get acceptable performance in those cases. Dependant where you are you may also utilize your cell phone data package via making your cell phone a wifi hotspot. I have used this before with mixed results, but way better than ship wifi/internet for sure. Just make sure your cell plan can accommodate your needs and roaming charges. Hopefully you can find an acceptable solution.

Exactly what we are seeing today Mom Says. We've been fiddling with menus with both Google Translate and Apple translate apps. We found a menu with both English and Spanish on the line item. We put the English into translate and we do not get the Spanish line item words out, super confusing. We've played around with the voice features and get Spanish output, just hope what comes out is not something rude:) Will keep playing with both apps and get more comfortable with them. Thanks for the advise.