Freckles1983

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 ☺️ 

Locoloco1 & Gray Lady

i will keep you all posted.  Just at the airport now waiting for our flight to Vancouver.  Got our covid negative test results 5 mins before we left our house.  
 

airport service at west jet has been trash so far.  Rude and not helpful.  
 

hopefully it’s all up from here but I won’t lie, I’m not feeling too positive at the moment.  
 

again so sorry to hear about all the terrible situations with peoples trips getting canceled/rescheduled over and over again.  I can’t imagine the stress that would cause and vacations are supposed to be a time to destress.

 My heart really goes out to you all 

I’ll update as I can.  
 

Wow we are supposed to be sailing out on Sunday on the nieuw Amsterdam to Alaska Yukon and triple Denali.  They offered us a lot to voluntarily drop out.  I’m so sorry you’re going thru this and I would be devastated if the same thing happened to us.  But now I’m wondering if I should have just taken the offer after reading this post.  Good luck on your future trip planning and again I’m sorry for the cancellation 😔

Thanks for all the responses.  I just always like to make sure I cross all my t’s and dot all the i’s  🙂

Thanks for all the responses.  I always get nervous when a “you may be denied boarding” msg pops up.  I appreciate the help

I guess obviously they accepted that lol.  K that puts my mind at ease , thank you!  I was thinking we were going to have to scramble around and find this piece of paper before we left 😓 

Yes!  So we have that exact info that you showed in your picture but it doesn’t state where and who administered the shots (which HALs website says you have to show) and they accepted that okay when you sailed ??

So we have those certificates from the government downloaded but they don’t state where and who administered the shots on them.  It said that HAL requires that info too so I was wondering if anyone who had gone on a trip already was only required to show the gov issued QR code ?

I just did the online health check in for my upcoming cruise and have a few questions for Canadian citizens - specifically ontarians that have sailed with HAL recently…

when you are at the pier do they accept the government issued Ontario vaccine QR code online form?  
I noticed that it doesn’t say on that page the where and who administered the vaccines.  It has all the other pertinent info.  I have all my paper copies of reciepts from when I had my shots but my husband is missing one of his paper copies.  On these paper copies it states where and who administered the dose.  
 

is the online government issued pdf with QR code acceptable or is there a chance we will be denied boarding due to this?  
 

anyone else been thru this before and have any answers??  Just trying to figure out if we need to attempt to get this piece of paper reprinted from the pharmacy that gave my husband that dose.  
 

thanks for any help!

10 hours ago, Expo67 said:

In the same boat here (no pun intended). As we have FCC $$$ due to expire this year associated with the cruise and plans already on the books for the rest of this summer and next we declined as well. Offered to take the offer for a full refund of this cruise and 100% FCC that w3 could apply for one of the other HAL cruise we have booked. They replied …. Sorry no deviations as it had to be for an exact replacement of the Alaska 18 night cruise tour this year or next and the 100% FCC. I also looked at the pricing for any of the 18 night replacement cruises and the cost on almost all of them was about 50% higher than the price we paid. While they would not confirm nor deny they also could not discuss the move out of the FCC we have on the current cruise due to expire by year end so obviously we declined. 

Thank you Expo67

that made me feel better. 

Okay so I just got off the phone with HAL and it turns out that they would rebook me on another cruise at a later date at no charge and then also give me a FCC for the amount I paid for my booked cruise.  I would be out for the flights/hotel/car rental and the FCC would be good for one year.  So it’s actually a really good offer considering we paid almost 15k for the two of us to sail.  Which is why I don’t know if I’m going to regret not taking it but I need this time away and have decided to pass on the offer.  Thanks again for all the input and I hope I don’t regret the choice I made.  They did also say on the phone that not a lot of people have taken them up on this offer but they have had a lot of ppl calling for more info.  I just don’t have it in me to cancel this last minute after the time and energy I’ve put into making this trip happen.  I guess my mental health is worth more than $15,000.  🤷🏻‍♀️ 😂😢

3 hours ago, broberts said:

 

Presuming a round trip cruise from Vancouver:

 

• Primary reason: Canadian citizen etc. (presuming you qualify, otherwise Discretionary etc.)
• Country of original departure: Canada
• Port of entry: Vancouver

• Date of arrival: date of cruise termination
• Are you travelling on a cruise ship? Yes
• Is the cruise terminating in Canada? Yes

It’s not round trip cruise per se because we do 7days out of Vancouver up to Alaska and then we get off and do a land tour through Alaska and Yukon.  Eventually flying back to Vancouver.  Would that information change anything?  
thanks for your response.

I’ve just read through all 11 pages of this topic and I apologize if I missed the answer to this but here is my scenario…

I am Canadian flying from Ontario to British Columbia to embark on a cruise leaving Vancouver on sun June 5th.

could someone please confirm or correct the following answers to the arrivecan app for me ?

for the primary reason for entering Canada - would I choose : Canadian citizens and others with a right of entry ?

how are you entering Canada?

Would i choose marine ?

country of original departure

this I think I know which would be canada

date of embarkation?

2022 06 05 ?

time of embarkation?

we have a boarding time of 12:20pm so would 1:00pm be an appropriate time?

port of entry?

Vancouver cruise ship operations? 

date of arrival?

this I’m not sure what I should put in here.  Our embarkation date again?

time of arrival?

again uncertain about this, maybe the time the ship gets into port?  7am ?

Thanks so much 🙂

Does this apply to cruise first land tours as well?  Like when we get off the ship (or before) we need to test negative to continue on the land portion?

also I hope you are having a great trip!

Wow, so many lovely responses.  Thank you all for the great advice.  I will try the upsell department out of curiosity but I think this close out from the trip I have to go.  Unless they offer me something I can’t refuse.  But after a long shift on my feet I think there’s not much that could talk me out of some time away from work.

The info in this topic is very interesting so thanks again for the people who shared .  I’ll see what happens on tues when I call them and keep you all posted 🙂

27 minutes ago, julia said:

Ok, makes sense. But not sure why anyone would take this offer then....

yes so it turns out that it would just be them moving my cruise to a future date.  And using the fcc to pay for that cruise.  Absolutely no incentive for me and the lady I spoke to on the phone laughed when I asked if it would be like getting two cruises.  Even putting this most recent phone call aside the customer service line at HAL really has some work to do since I last sailed with them.

we've paid full pop for this trip and already so many things have been reduced/altered/cancelled that I’m beginning to wonder if we are getting a subpar trip for what we paid.  Sorry to sound negative but it’s hard not to question it when almost every week I’m getting an email from them about something being changed or cancelled.  I cringe now every time I see an email from HAL in my inbox.  That being said I realize the industry is going thru the wringer but I had to vent. 
 

thanks again for everyone’s responses 

I just got the email yesterday, on hold with them now.  This hold music is driving me nuts 😂