ninefishes

We got an Upsell offer yesterday morning for our Rotterdam sailing May 8. So it’s 12 days for us. 

Very sad. Condolences to the passenger’s family. Hopefully the death was not caused by COVID-19. Stay healthy, everyone!

How about airfare or pre/post- cruise hotel stay booked independently?  Some folks might have booked these with non-refundable term.  Would HAL compensate these?

7 minutes ago, yvrcruzer said:

This move by the Canadian government doesn't make a lot of sense considering they allow 1000's of people a day to fly into Canadian airports from all around the world with little or no screening. Packed airports waiting rooms and waiting around luggage carousels seems just as likely to spread the virus. All just for show. 

Agreed. Cruise season for Vancouver or Victoria ports is in another 5 or 6 weeks' time. It'd be more sensible to stop airplane coming in if they must stop something.

Thank you MISTER67.  We were supposed to set sail tomorrow with Sapphire Princess, but it was cancelled a few weeks ago. We have another one with HAL in May, fingers crossed it’s a GO.

38 minutes ago, MISTER 67 said:

I'm not going to mention what line but yesterday I called my PCC and asked what the cost would be to go from an inside cabin to a verandah on our upcoming cruise in case we were quarantined for 2 weeks on the ship. She told me to give it a few more days to maybe receive an upgrade and lo and behold at 9PM last night we were upgraded to a Deluxe Verandah cabin.

Congrats! This is a very nice upgrade.  Do you mind sharing when this sailing is? Is it in March? 

18 minutes ago, larrywizzit said:

 

Does this mean if we need to visit doctor/hospital due to coronavirus while traveling, we won't be allowed to claim from medical care?

I had mine renewed early last year: No interview, applied online, and received the new card through mail within a month. At the same time, DD was called in for an interview at YVR office and we were told it's because she's a minor (teenager).  A few years ago we were told at Vancouver port that they didn't accept NEXUS, another time was in LA port. So we only use passports at cruise terminal since then, and save our NEXUS for flying and driving.

Thanks everyone for your quick response!

Final solution: Bring some wipes and small bottles in my/DH's/DD's Ziploc bags. I'm a mosquito magnet and this time we are going zip lining in one of the ports, so I think it's just safe to spray some repellent. Actually the only place I ever used bug spray was in Indonesia (also with Volendam) and still got bitten when using a local washroom. 😞  Amazingly got bite free in India which was quite out of our expectation.

Can anyone tell me whether mosquito repellent (OFF! or other brands) is to be found in the shops on board? We are doing Panama Canal this holiday season on Volendam and don't want to check in luggage (after a couple of times our bags didn't show up at the airport carousel). Due to all these liquid carry-on restriction, we decide to buy some while on board. We were on Volendam in August, but don't remember whether I saw any bug spray (mostly I didn't pay attention).

Thanks in advance!

I have posted our experience regarding this whole changed itinerary ordeal. Although we did received two emails as mentioned in my previous post, I wonder whether for some people the first one ended up in their Spam folder? I just realized the first email we received on May 23, which served as a notice of the coming up changes, shows No Sender, No Subject in my mailbox. Depending on what email server one uses, it's likely that it arrives in the Spam folder. That's why some of the above posts saying they only received the revised confirmation email (which is a normal one).

Just a thought, could be wrong.

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This is our story:

We booked Dec 22 14-day Caribbean cruise while we were on the Indonesian cruise last Dec. HAL sent an email to us on May 23 regarding the coming up change and another email the next day with a rescheduled booking confirmation attached. Lucky we have not booked air tickets yet. The new booking confirmation indicates that visa is needed to visit Cuba. I phoned HAL to let them know that as Canadians, we don't need visa to visit Cuba as tourists. And their reply: Non-US citizens need to contact Cuban embassy on the visa matter.

We are still contemplating whether we'll accept this changed itinerary.

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I called HAL today asking about the visa. We were rescheduled to the 12-day on Dec 22 (originally 14-day Caribbean). We are Canadians and no visa is required for visiting Cuba as tourists. The HAL agent told me that "Visa required" on every booking confirmation is by default, and non-US citizens should contact Cuban embassy to clarify whether a visa is needed.

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Thank you, 138east! [emoji3]

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I'm staying there in Monday night for my Anthem cruise on Tuesday. I'll post about my experience when I get back.

 

If you take a red eye to Newark and get in at 7 am, you will probably have to wait around until 11 am for the Celebrity port transfers to start. That's a long time to hang out if you've had little sleep.

Red eye to Newark arrives at 10:20am (7am was the direct flight to JFK). Do you know how much the cab fare could be from Newark to Cape Liberty? Celebrity charges $76 per person for a round trip.

Thanks, Carol. We'll look into it. :)

Thank you, mjkamom and 138east!

Yes, we are taking a red-eye. The returning flight is at around 10pm, I think.

And flying to JFK is a direct flight with free luggage check-in (that's another $100 for two saved).

If we choose flying to Newark, both red-eye and direct are $250 more and direct also involves hotel stay for a night. And we will book Celebrity transfer, that's $140 total for both of us round-trip.

Just did some quick math while typing my reply here, (if I did it correctly :rolleyes:), Flying to JFK would save us $200.

Money wise, JFK is cheaper. Hassle wise, it's not worth it... I'd be freaking out if we were stuck on the way from JFK to port in order to save $200...

We are going with Newark. Thank you!!!!!!

Hello,

We need some help on this. We are planning a Celebrity cruise July 7-16, 2017. Flying into JFK is much cheaper than Newark. For 2 of us it's around a bit over $250 saving on airfare. The flight we are looking at arrives JFK at 7am, and I suppose we should be out of the airport no later than 8:30am. Would that leave us enough time to the port? What would be the quickest way to go to the port? (Apparently Celebrity only provide transfer from Newark.)

Thank you!

I used to live in Singapore for several years, I remember the duty free at Changi airport was much cheaper than shops inside the city. Of course it may have changed now - I left there 15 years ago.

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If you fly into Singapore, then buy duty free at airport.

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We stayed in this cabin (1058) last month on Eurodam in Mediterranean. I usually sleep like logs, so it didn't bother me at all. But DH couldn't sleep until 2am whenever the band was playing (that meant most of nights during the cruise).

I think you should change room if you can.

Canadian custom clearance at the port is usually quick. For domestic flight, check-in/luggage drop-off ends 45 minutes before departure. A cab ride from the port to airport takes about 30 minutes depending on which day of the week you arrive. Skytrain takes pretty much the same amount of time, but involves some walking.

Skytrain from Waterfront to Airport is $9.00 per person. Taxi fare is around $40. (Both prices are in Canadian Dollars)

If you can walk off the ship as the first group, I would think 11:30am flight is doable. See if you can check-in online while on board, it would save you some time.

We live in Vancouver and have taken Alaska cruise a few times in summer. Hope this helps.

Have a great trip.

Thanks everyone for the quick response. :)

We are taking a HAL Mediterranean 12-day cruise round trip Venice. DH and DD have never been to Italy (I went there long time ago when they were still using Lira as currency), so we decided to go to Rome and Florence 8 days pre-cruise. We redeemed our airline points for tickets and somehow they couldn't book us in/out Italy from different airports this time.

That's why we can't fly into Rome directly...

I will look into Maestro station for a change. Thank you again for all the help!

Hi,

Wonder if anyone has done this. We are going to arrive in Venice airport at 7:30am, then take a train from Venezia Santa Lucia to Rome. Could anyone tell me how long it takes from airport to the train station? I can't decide whether to book the train ticket at 9:23am or 10:23am.

Thank you!

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