njhorseman

If it were me, I'd consider flying into LGA, staying in Manhattan for several days pre cruise and flying home from EWR on the disembarkation day.

If you're planning to spend most of your time in Manhattan, then you should consider staying in Manhattan, but it does mean more traveling on the day you arrive and on the day of your cruise . A reasonable alternative would be to stay in Jersey City, which gives you good mass transit access to Manhattan and isn't all that far from EWR and Cape Liberty.

Does Toscana still have Dover Sole on their menu? If so, since Polo and Toscana share a galley if you were to ask Polo's maitre d' perhaps they would be willing to serve it Polo.

You need to read the "fine print" above that table, specifically "Azamara does not require a negative COVID-19 test prior to boarding unless this is required by local country regulations." The above statement is important because the CDC recently eliminated all COVID protocol requirements, including testing requirements, and these regulations are being replaced by recommendations so per their written statement Azamara will not require testing for US cruises. As I said, Azamara currently has no US homeport cruises and will not cruise from Miami until December so the fact that their written requirements as quoted above conflict with the table below it is moot as of the moment. Presumably between now and December someone at Azamara will notice they conflict and resolve the inconsistency. In any case no knows what Azamara, NCL, or any other cruise line will be requiring in December but it's a pretty good bet that they'll change more than once in the intervening months.

Absolutely. You will have your choice of New Jersey Transit trains or PATH to get to Manhattan. The choice depends on where in Manhattan you wish to go. For midtown Manhattan use New Jersey Transit to New York Penn Station. For downtown Manhattan use PATH to the World Trade Center. Just go to the NJ Transit and PATH websites for schedules and related information.

The cruise line won't know about your history because they don't have access to the NCIC database, which is where that information is recorded so you won't be prevented from boarding. Canadian authorities, the CBSA, will receive the passenger manifest from the cruise line when the ship departs Boston and will check it against the NCIC . They will then decide whether to allow you to disembark the ship or require you to stay on board while in Canada. They may decide to interview you as part of their decision making process when the ship arrives in its first Canadian port.

Your thread title is misleading clickbait . Since this is the NCL board everyone reading the thread title will immediately assume that NCL has eliminated pre-cruise testing, which it has not. Azamara does not have any cruises departing the US until December and no cruises departing Canada at all, so in reality Azamara's rules are no different than NCL's for the ports they currently have in common until the first Azamara cruise from the US in December, and by that time one or both lines are likely to have changed their rules at least once.

I'm not familiar with the hotel, but you couldn't ask for a better neighborhood in Manhattan to do a few hours of walking around. The hotel is adjacent to Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and the heart of 5th Ave. For transportation, figure on spending about $45 for a taxi, car service or Uber from LGA to the hotel. Fare from the hotel to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal will be about the same.

NJ no longer issues replacement or renewal licenses at the MVC offices. They are mailed to you. https://www.state.nj.us/mvc/license/liclost.htm Due to a 2020 security change, Licenses/IDs are no longer printed in person. Even if you process a renewal (or a duplicate) at an agency, it will be mailed to you.

Bermuda requires testing regardless of the cruise's embarkation port so even if there were no testing requirements for cruises embarking in the US, Bermuda cruise passengers would still have to be tested. When repositioning cruises to the US originating in Europe call on Bermuda, which is quite common for NCL as well as other cruise lines, passengers have to be tested prior to embarkation. If the cruise makes port in Bermuda more than four days after embarkation, which is normally the case on a repo, the passengers have to be retested while on board no more than two days prior to arriving in Bermuda.

Immigration would be cleared at the first Canadian port, but customs would be cleared upon disembarking in Quebec City, would it not?

You were cleared by Canadian immigration authorities at your first Canadian port despite your not doing anything. As is the case in many countries port authorities clear the passengers from the information on the passenger manifest without an in person meeting . If you had shipmates with a criminal record they were likely interviewed in their cabins by CBSA officers who then determined if they would be allowed to disembark or required to be confined to the ship while in Canada. Also I believe the OP is asking about a one way cruise that ends in Canada, which would typically require more clearance from Canadian authorities than a ship that was doing a closed loop back to the USA.

Read the board for any cruise line here on Cruise Critic and you'll find passengers reporting the same thing . I'd be surprised if there has been a cruise ship that has sailed where someone has not come down with COVID. Wishing you a speedy recovery.

Taking OLife but no air does give you a credit for what O loads into the cruise fare for airfare. If you're going to take at least the number of Oceania excursions that are included in OLife then the best way to book from a financial perspective is the excursion option of OLife without air, as the retail value of your included excursions will far exceed the credit you would have gotten by not taking OLife. The included OLife excursions also count toward the number of excursions needed to qualify for the YWYW excursion discount if you are planning to take more O excursions than the number included in your OLife fare. The problem is that O's website doesn't tell that you can take OLife without air so inexperienced Oceania cruisers without a good travel agent who will be taking O excursions can easily miss out on the financial benefits of keeping the excursion OLife option but without air.

The ship was built specifically to sail from ports in China but eventually pulled from China and put into service in the USA when it apparently became clear it would not be a profitable operation homeporting the ship in China. We're talking about it being built for Chinese passengers, not Chinese American passengers. But, if we were to assume that the thermal spa would also not be popular among Americans of Chinese heritage (and I have no idea whether that is true or not) then would it not be logical to homeport the ship in a city with a large population of people of Chinese heritage?

They used to take credit cards but I can't say if they do now. Kings Wharf is part of the Royal Naval Dockyard. It is one of two cruise ships berths there, the other being Heritage Wharf.

i have the feeling that you may mistakenly believe that Kings Wharf is in Hamilton. It isn't, it's in the Royal Naval Dockyard. Of the three pubs you've named, only Hog Penny is in Hamilton. It also happens to be our favorite lunch spot and pub in Bermuda. To get there take the Blue Route ferry from the Dockyard to Hamilton and then it's a short walk to the Hog Penny, although you have to walk up a steep but short incline at the end. The Frog and Onion is in the Royal Naval Dockyard , where you'll be docked. It's also a good pub and lunch spot. It's a short walk from Kings Wharf. Hammerheads is part of the Snorkel Park beach complex that is also located in the Dockyard, but it's not someplace you would go unless you were going to Snorkel park beach, which has an admission fee.

No, there is not. The ship was built for the Chinese market and apparently a thermal suite is not something that would be popular for that passenger demographic.

Actually the PVSA regulations no longer allow a technical stop to satisfy the foreign port requirement. That change was made a number of years ago. The ship now has to make an actual port call with passengers being allowed to disembark. You no longer see the old "sail by" at Ensenada on West Coast cruises or the cruises from the West Coast to Hawaii and back.

LGA has been rebuilt and its gone from the worst airport in NY to the best. It's also the closest to the Manhattan Cruise Terminal and the least expensive to get to by taxi, Uber or car service. Assuming there's a flight from LGA that meets your schedule and price needs by all means fly from LGA.

When is your cruise? They try to process the applications in embarkation date order so if yours is a couple of weeks away you're probably going to be waiting a bit longer. If you don't get the approvals by 7 days prior to embarkation then call their toll free number . By the way they don't say processing is 24 hours, they say you have to apply at least 24 hours in advance.

No one's asking you to do any research. But anyone who makes a broad generalization by citing their personal and possibly limited experience runs a substantial risk of being wrong, and you are just that...wrong.

Yes, the GW or one of the tunnels to Manhattan are the best ways to go. Going via Staten Island when you're starting in northern NJ takes you far out of your way.

Yes, taking the Harlem River Drive and the FDR does keep you on limited access highways, but I usually find the driving conditions on 12th Ave . to be good, despite the traffic lights....but I was born and raised in NY City and used to driving in Manhattan. In the end it's going to depend on traffic conditions that day so you should check for delays . 880 and 1010 on the AM dial give traffic reports every 10 minutes. The WAZE app helps...as an example right now it shows the west side route as being faster than the FDR route. If you're coming from the Ridgefield Park area sometimes taking the NJ Turnpike and the Lincoln Tunnel will be the quickest.

I agree.