cruiseej

I believe the cost is $20 or $25 per day, but you can't purchase it by the day. You can only upgrade for the entire length of your trip, or a pro-rated cost for the number of remaining days on your cruise from the day you upgrade. So if your match is on the next-to-last day of your cruise, you could do it for two days at a nominal cost; if it's earlier in your cruise, you'll be paying a bit more. 😉

We were on the Odyssey at the beginning of March, and one of the expedition staff was onboard talking about expedition cruises. He said that the new itineraries had been scheduled to be released, but were on hold due to the world events; we all assumed they would modify the itineraries to avoid Russia. So now it's two months later, and they released the itineraries, apparently unchanged from what they had previously planned. So I'm confused why the y delayed, and still went ahead with cruises gong to Russia. And I don't think they get a pass for "not paying attention to details"; the isolation of Russia due to their war in Ukraine is not a minor detail which could have been overlooked. We were hoping they'd keep one of the expedition ships in the north Atlantic, as we'd very much like to do a cruise around the west coast of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic, similar to an itinerary they have for September of this year. They even allowed us to put a "furtureborn" deposit on such a cruise if it materialized. But now it's clear neither Venture nor Pursuit will be doing such a trip in 2023. I guess we'll sit back and wait to see if they do that itinerary in 2024.

I was looking at the 2023-24 expedition voyages Seabourn just emailed about today, and I was surprised to see they start with a September 2023 trip with 6 days in far east Russia, including a flight from Japan to Petropavlovsk to start the trip. Does Seabourn really think travel to and within Russia will be back to "normal" next year? I understand they had previously published a trip from Alaska to Japan traversing that region, but I would have expected them to figure out an alternate itinerary by now. I was surprised to see them promoting new and multiple trips in the area. Am I misreading the situation? It seems tone deaf, as well as impractical.

Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are banned from checked luggage. But this doesn’t apply to the single-use CR2023 batteries used by Apple AirTags. (In fact, it may be the reason Apple selected these batteries over rechargeable ones.) So there's no problem putting them in checked baggage. (Just be aware they may not work in certain areas, such as baggage claim belts, or if they're in a baggage storage area away from people and their iPhones.)

Just to clarify the terminology, a PCR test is a type of NAAT test — but there are other types of NAAT tests, like the Abbott test) which are not PCR. That doesn't answer your question, though; sorry!While I agree that the Abbott test is more accurate than a rapid antigen test, the rules of logic often don't apply to country entry or cruise ship boarding requirements. 😉 I'd pursue this directly with Silversea, and if you can't get a definitive answer in writing, I'd probably get an antigen test just for the peace of mind that you'd know it will be accepted.

I would check with Seabourn about how late you can board. Cruises have never been like planes, where you just need to make it before they close the door; my recollection was that you had to be aboard at least one hour — maybe 90 minutes? — before the scheduled sailing time. But with many rules and protocols having changed over the past year, I'd just go to the source and find out how late you can board without running into a problem.