Freckles1983

Can you do this on the emerald princess?  I can’t seem to find an option on the app

On 5/19/2024 at 8:59 AM, nbsjcruiser said:

Looking for a spot for one night in FLL area. Doesn't need to be near the port. Rodeway Inn seems to be ok - price is nice. Anyone stay here before? Would you recommend?

 

tks in advance

I’d read the reviews.  Izzy or whoever used to manage the place was quite a character.  I’ve stayed here before and it was fine for an overnight with a shuttle to the ship.  Not sure if they still offer that though as it’s been years since we stayed. 

10 minutes ago, princeton123211 said:

They’re giving you very general advice that I would guess is not specific to Boston. Or it relates only to the cruise line run transfers which are totally unnecessary in Boston.
 

An 11am domestic flight would be quite easy to make at Boston Logan on your own. 

That’s what I thought too but they insisted that it would be a bad idea for me to keep with that flight time 🤷🏻‍♀️. Either way it’s what you’re comfortable with.  Personally I can’t risk missing my flight so I opted to reschedule 

18 hours ago, prekteacher1 said:

We will be coming into port on Sunday. Would taking an 11:35 am flight be cutting it too close? We plan on carrying our luggage off the ship.

I had an 11am flight booked and they told me to rebook it for later.  Apparently international flights you need to book at least 6 hrs after 7am (back at pier time) and 5 hrs after 7am if it’s within the country .  I figured getting off the boat by 8am and getting to the airport would leave me enough time but according to the call centre If there’s any delays you could have an issue so they told me to rebook.  

Just now, Outerdog said:

OP: consume freely. Return to the ship. It's that simple.

 

Thank you 😊 

I figured as much but just thought I’d reach out and see if anyone had info I didn’t really consider 

Just now, d9704011 said:

Princess isn't going to tell you where you can find and smoke weed legally.

No I didn’t think they would.  I don’t need to know where to get it as you said there’s a store on pretty much every street corner here now.  

3 minutes ago, MacMadame said:

Since you can't have marijuana on the ship, where would someone get the weed to smoke? (Or gummies to eat)

They sell it legally in Canada 

I guess I’m more so thinking about consuming on shore and had no intention of bringing on board.  As I said I just can’t find any info about that on the princess website or in the contract.  But I wouldn’t imagine bringing it on board would be okay.  

Not trying to start a debate about anything regarding this, just wanting factual info if anyone has it.

if I’m going on a Canada New England cruise during the Canadian portion is it okay to use marijuana products while on shore and then come aboard the ship?  Weed is legal in Canada but I can’t seem to find any info on princess cruises take on it. 
 

again not trying to start any arguments just curious about the rules regarding this if anyone has any information.  

I’m sailing out of Quebec to Boston on sept 7th on the emerald princess and was wondering how much time I should give myself to get from the Boston cruise port to the Boston airport by taxi?  Anyone who has done this I would appreciate your info.  Thanks!

2 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

Which casual dining venues are available depends on the ship. Which ship are you looking to sail on?

 Sorry I should have mentioned that.  I’ll be sailing on the emerald princess 

In the princess plus package it includes two casual dining meals that are prix fixe.  What does this mean?  What restaurants can you use it at and what does it include?  

18 minutes ago, Valentina69 said:

That is exactly what happened to me.   I filled in all my details and ordered the medallion on the 'web version' as though I didn't have a comparable phone.      I deleted the app from my phone and left it a couple of days.   I reinstalled it today and my cruise is now on the app.

 

Okay thanks , good to know.  I’ll try deleting and reinstalling in a couple days and see what happens.  Maybe it just needs some time to get into the system 

Every time I try to enter my booking number into the app it declines and says “internal server error” .  Is anyone else having this issue or know a way to bypass it?

6 hours ago, arzz said:

Test positive and then just fly home?  What ever happened to consideration for others?

 

One thing to choose risk for yourself. Another thing to impose your risk decision on others!  Wow …

Not even nearly the most selfish of behaviours I saw both on the ship and on land.  We are on our second last night of our trip and it has been a good trip but I will never do another land tour again (for more than just covid reasons).  And we probably won’t be cruising/vacationing again any time soon just due to the increased unpredictability now.  I know that travel always comes with risk but it’s gonna be a bit before I’m willing to put up  with all the extra BS that goes along with it nowadays.

again sending well wishes for a speedy recovery of health and money to CafeBruno

3 hours ago, CafeBruno said:

I wanted to let others know about our experience with Covid on our Alaska Cruise Tour. In summary, we enjoyed our trip a lot, but we learned a couple of important lessons that may be of value to others. First, that the land tour Covid protocols were nonexistent, increasing your risk of Covid, and second, if you do catch Covid on the land portion of the tour like us, be prepared to figure things out completely by yourself, with no help from HAL or others. I had my laptop with me and we were able to figure out what to do on our own - how long to quarantine, change our flights, extend our hotel stay, get more tests and medications, etc., so for us it was just an inconvenience, extra expense, and disappointment at not being able to complete the trip as planned. But if you are not computer savvy or expect assistance from HAL or others, you need to know that you might not get any assistance at all and be stuck completely on your own in Fairbanks or Denali.

 

For those interested in the details of our experience:

We sailed on the Nieuw Amsterdam, leaving Vancouver June 5, ending in Whittier, where we started our 6 day land portion to Anchorage, Denali, and Fairbanks. On the ship, we had a great time, with great weather in all the ports. We are very risk averse and wore masks constantly and avoided crowds on the ship, which was actually easier to do than on land. On the land portion, there were many more crowded situations, like on the busses and trains, on the 26 Glacier boat tour, the Denali Tundra Wilderness tour, and the other included land excursions. Both on the ship and on the land tour, very few people wore masks, maybe 10% at most.

 

We are double vaxxed and double boosted, and we’ve managed to avoid Covid until now. From my understanding the incubation period for Covid is typically from 2 to 10 days after exposure, but for the most prevalent Omicron variant, it is typically 3 days. So we could possibly have caught it on the ship, but most likely, it was during the land tour, which is logical based on what we experienced – close quarters, no masking, and increasing amounts of coughing as the land tour progressed.

 

My wife started feeling sick on our last night in Denali, on Wednesday last week, but she tested negative. When we got to the hotel in Fairbanks on Thursday, she tested positive, and I immediately contacted the HAL Tour Desk and the hotel front desk and informed them. They gave me a letter from HAL and one from the hotel, advising us that we needed to remain isolated and that we would be contacted by our Tour Director/HAL, and Beacon Health, who would “be contacting you periodically to test you and check on you”. Spoiler alert – no one from HAL or Beacon ever contacted us. I tried contacting Beacon myself on Friday; I called about 6 numbers and got shuffled around and sent to several voicemails. I left voicemails, but no one ever called us back. I also tested positive Friday.

Long story short, we figured out that we should quarantine 5 days, so instead of flying out of Fairbanks Saturday the 18^th,  we’d need to stay in quarantine at the hotel until Wednesday the 22^nd. I was able to change our HAL flights myself on Saturday morning (at increased fare), to avoid losing flight credit for our original flight.

 

Some may say, “You knew the risk when you booked the trip, and if you were not comfortable with the risks you shouldn’t have cruised”. I totally agree with that – we completely understood the risks and are fine with them. This was our 4^th cruise since October 2020, and we have several more booked that we are looking forward to. It was just our turn to get Covid, despite our precautions. But it is very disappointing to see so many people unmasked, in close quarters, especially while coughing and hacking. I just wish people had more consideration for others and take the small steps of wearing masks around others, especially if they have cold/covid symptoms. And even more disappointing that we got zero assistance from HAL, Beacon, or anyone else. At this point I am hoping HAL will reimburse us for the additional hotel nights, meals, and airfare increase. Time will tell.

 

There’s a lot more to the story, so if anyone has questions, let me know.

I was on this exact same trip as you and I’m so sorry to hear you’ve been left in the lurch like that.  Our tour continues to dwindle as more people who tested positive today (on their home brought testing kits) just decided to leave early and fly home.  We are about to head to the airport for our flight to Whitehorse so I’m curious about how many more we lost.  Yes cruising and travelling is a choice associated with risks but a little bit of concern for your fellow travellers goes a long way.  Sorry again to hear your trip ended this way and I hope HAL comes right for you even if it’s a bit late.

2 hours ago, Gray Lady said:

We are going to. Too much at stake. Thank you, we are going to have a good time while being safe and controlling what we can.

That was exactly my thought.  Maybe to some it’s just another affordable vacation but for my husband and I it was a considerable amount of money and quite a splurge for us that would have been really upsetting if we lost that money over something we could prevent.  After talking to many of the people on our tour group we did seem to be less well off than most financially.  We did our cruise first. 
 

another update, I spoke with a couple last night that had said a family on the parallel tour to us said that (the mother was on the trip but her daughter and their family tested positive and she didn’t) HAL was giving each person a $100 a day to pay for food etc.  putting them up in a hotel and paying for flights home as well as refunding the money for the days missed on their trip due to having to quarantine.  Now that’s just hearsay from one person to another but If HAL is doing that I’m glad to hear so.  I feel for the tour director who lost 29 out of her 32 person group because I imagine she won’t be getting her gratuity from those people.  I realize gratuity isn’t guaranteed but I imagine they rely on that much like other people working in the service industry. 

1 hour ago, LJProk said:

I will say, they did not tell us masks were required when we left Anchorage on June 2 to go to Denali by bus, or on the train to Whittier on June 5. However, 95% of people were wearing masks. I think everyone realized they really wanted to go on this trip and would protect themselves. The bus is a little more crowded in terms of seats being closer together. The train is a bit more spaced out.

I’m glad to hear most people on your trip were masking.  I was shocked at the lack of it even from the get go on the ship to start and then on the land tour.  As time went on less and less seemed to bother wearing them.

1 hour ago, Actorjim said:

Does HAL still supply masks?

HAL supplied 2 n95 masks in our stateroom upon embarking and I imagine they would have resupplied them if asked.  I brought packs of my own masks though.  Also they were available for free at the denali lodge in almost every shop and in the main lobby. 

3 hours ago, ldtr said:

Considering that the people on the tours are vaccinated and as such the odds of them needing medical intervention (serious cases) is quite low, it is unlikely that medical services is the reason.

 

Many businesses in Alaska are very short staffed. They are dependent on seasonal workers from out of state to fill many of the tourism related jobs.

 

Many of those jobs are going unfilled. If they do not have the staff to fully open and operate the lodges and transportation, they do not have much choice but to limit the numbers of customers.

Still completing the tail end of our Alaska / Yukon land tour and most windows of stores had “hiring now” signs in place.  So there is a ton of work available.  It has impacted service and timing but you can tell everyone is working hard and trying their best.

42 minutes ago, ewildcat7 said:

I started my own thread a few days ago, but nobody has replied, so I figured I would post it here to see if anybody can help:

 

My family and I are scheduled for the 17 July Triple Denali on the Nieuw Amsterdam and we are trying to anticipate if we will get the cancelation notice from HAL.  My wife is monitoring a different cruise board and, between the two of us, we are very surprised at how few people are posting about cancelations.  Does that mean that it is not happening to very many people?  I know these message boards are only as good as the people who choose to write on them, so it is hard to figure out how widespread these cancelations are or which cruises/packages are the ones being affected.  Has anybody been able to figure out the pattern?

Our tour director on our trip told us that the rest of June land tours had been cancelled.  

1 hour ago, Gray Lady said:

We arrived in Fairbanks yesterday for our cruise tour. The bus that took us to the hotel DID NOT enforce the required mask rule. Is it just a suggestion? We want to be able to enjoy our land tour, but also test negative for our actual cruise. The numbers reported here are not encouraging. 

I personally would recommend masking after seeing how many people didn’t and ended up being removed from the rest of the tour.  We all spend so much money and time on these vacations that it’s better safe than sorry.  I am still shocked at the amount of people that were left behind on our tour.  Safe travels to you 

Also to vent further.. there was one woman on our trip who was clearly very ill and not wearing a mask at all coughing up a storm on the bus yesterday afternoon.  She could barely stand and was blaming it on allergies and then used COPD as a reason when talking to someone else.  Another lady on our tour was very upset and agitated about the testing and was almost in tears during the waiting up until the swabbing.  Both were gone today along with their travel companions.  
 

Do what you need to do to keep yourself healthy because you would think people who are not well would at least have the courtesy to cover up and protect their fellow travellers but they don’t.  People are selfish and as much as I dislike wearing a mask I’m glad I did now.  For all I know I still might test positive in the coming days regardless of how careful I’ve tried to be.  But to think one tour dwindled down to 3 people out of 32 .. that’s crazy to me.  I realize not necessarily all 32 ppl tested positive but 32 peoples vacations were affected by it

Just now, ewildcat7 said:

 

where are those who tested positive being quarantined?  

We have no idea because they just weren’t in the lobby this morning to go to the airport.  Our tour director who has been awesome btw, said that once you test positive the company (Beacon I think it was called)  took over and it was out of HALs hands.  I’m really curious what happened to all those guests though and how they will get home.  
 

one odd thing I will mention was that yesterday morning we did the riverboat tour and gold dredge which was included in our vacation when we booked it.  Well after the boat ride they had a lunch that was included that was served family style at long bench/picnic style seating.  Literally crammed in there side by side like prisoners in a mess hall.  I sat down and kept my mask on and didn’t eat at all cause it seemed like a recipe for disaster.  I made a comment that I thought it was gross and my husband shhhd me but how do you stuff ppl in like that?!  Well 7 of the people directly surrounding us were not with us this morning so I wouldn’t be surprised if more people turn up sick in the following days (myself and husband included).  
 

anyway just seemed irresponsible to feed a group like that but I’m a germaphobe so you can take my opinion as you like.  I personally found it a bad idea. 
 

I’ll post more info as I get it 

Just flew into Canada (Yukon) from Fairbanks and two groups tested last night.  Our group started with 36 people and we lost between 8-10 people.  The second group had 32 people and they lost 29 people.  

Got to Fairbanks yesterday afternoon from denali (on the Y1 HAL land cruise tour) and they required us to have a covid test with a negative result to board our flight to Yukon tomorrow.  Even though us/Canada testing requirements have been lifted HAL is requiring it.  Also told masking is no longer optional on HAL travel (bus/plane/train etc) 

thankfully we tested negative but a lot of very nervous people in our group today during the testing 

On the nieuw Amsterdam rn and hardly anyone wearing masks.  I’m not sure how strictly they will enforce that on your cruise but it doesn’t seem like anyone cares here.  We are still masking but seem to be the minority 

52 minutes ago, Alphen said:

Test results negative, so we are good to go!

What a relief,  Enjoy ☺️