lx200gps

This question was raised weeks ago and was in regard to filling in the OLD ArriveCan submission for entering Canada by cruise ship. At the time, entering Canada by cruise ship, which we were all doing, the correct selection in the ArriveCan app for the first port of entry for our specific cruise was "Saint John Marine Terminal"

Montrealer here. I very highly doubt you will have any trouble finding a cab, even at 10PM. There are usually long lines of cabs waiting in a queue near the terminal buildings to pick up fares. There's even a fresh new stretch of highway linking the airport with downtown and Old Montreal with a huge dedicated taxi/bus lane. If you decide to Uber, they are also an alternative, but the taxis, with a giant BONJOUR on their sides, are ubiquitous. BTW, Old Montreal where you are staying is great.

Princess insurance is available for all Canadians except those of us in Quebec. Talk to Princess or your travel agent, We bought it for every one of our trips until it stopped being sold here in Quebec a few years ago due to changes in Quebec's insurance laws. Princess's CFAR coverage, at 100%, is pretty much the best such coverage you can find as other CFAR plans max out at 75%. There are better travel insurance products out there, but the CFAR clause is tremendous. You can cancel for absolutely any reason and they will give you 100% of your non-refundable costs as an FCC.

We were on the same sailing and agree that the internet was poor when compared to the other MedallionNet cruises we've been on. That being said, I rarely had full blown lack of connection, my Email worked fine and web browsing was mostly functional albeit very slow. In general, internet will be the worst during the day on sea days which, let's face it we had more than our share. Mitigation procedures which have worked for me in the past include trying to use the system outside of the hours when thousands of others may be trying to use it, so early morning and late evening (even around dinner time when everyone is in the restaurants) If signal strength is an issue, then if you are in your cabin some have reported that leaving their door propped open sometime helps with the signal. Also, if you cabin is simply in a bad location, try using the wifi in a public space (I spent a lot of time in the usually very quiet Take 5). But yes, there does seem to be something amiss with the system on that ship.

Thanks to comments like this, I quite agree. Let's move on.

The CBSA border "guard" would not be interested in seeing your ArriveCan receipt, they never had for any our our entries back into Canada. Assuming you had submitted ArriveCan properly, it would have been on his/her computer screen.

The other downside to cruise line transfers is the "communal" nature where you may share a ride with others, vs a dedicated shuttle/Uber/taxi. Still, it worked great for us at the time.

Interesting discussion, thanks for all the tips. We've sailed out of Galveston only once so far, but owing to the distance from airport to hotel and the fact that it was our first time out of Galveston, chose to use the cruise line (Princess) transfers to greatly simplify the process. We flew in the day before, stayed at an airport hotel, then the morning of the trip, walked to the baggage claim area and boarded a bus for the long drive. Added benefit that our bags went directly to our rooms so we didn't need to manhandle them at the pier. It was of course a bit more expensive than a DIY solution, but worth it to us at the time.

On the Enchanted last week, whatever mask mandates Princess may have had in place sure didn't apply. Well over 95% of all pax did not wear any masks, even in the theater or elevators. Crew remained uniformly masked. They held heavily attended exercise classes in the Piazza each day, with maskless people sweating and breathing heavily while literally rubbing shoulders with the people next to them. So no, you don't have to wear masks everywhere.

We tried it on our recent trip on the Enchanted. Utter and total waste of money for us. We certainly did use the 2 Specialty dining meals, which we would have paid for anyway, but everything else was a wate. The $18 drink limit was not very useful as there were very few wines more than about $12 and many of those we asked for were not available. We didn't use the photo option, and the 4 wifi wasn't overly useful as I only had one tablet with me. The "game" is simply a message that pops up on the door screen each time you enter the cabin. Usually says "Better Luck Next Time" but occasionally said I was entered in some end of cruise draw. Never heard anything so I assume we didn't win anything. If they had actually had a wide selection of better wines, we could have made it worthwhile, but since their inventories are so limited, we got little to no use out of it.

A number of people have reported here on CC that they, or people they knew, were in fact being allowed to quarantine in their cabins. If I had to guess, I'd imagine that those balcony cabins on Dolphin deck (as we saw on the Enchanted last week) would probably be used to quarantine pax from inside cabins, and also quite probably crew members. With the tight quarters the crew must endure, quarantining them in the lower decks could be problematic.

Yes, you did say it would stick to steel. Our old Medallions and our latest ones hold just fine to our non-stainless steel surfaces, but have absolutely no hold on our stainless steel fridges. From what I can see, the newer, fatter Medallions, despite the bulge, actually seem to hold better than the thinner, flatter old models, mabe due to a stronger magnet? They just don't hold to Stainless.

This was from last year, but I would imagine that it should reflect this year's schedules as well. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/what-s-closed-and-open-on-thanksgiving-1.6206363

Not if it's a stainless steel surface. We can't use the Medallions as fridge magnets as they won't stick at all.

We just disembarked from the Enchanted, and were given the new small plastic Medallion holders at checkin. They worked very well, excellent tight fit for the Medallion. We prefer to use the old style rectangular two-part plastic holders that allow insertion of customized graphics, so when we got home, I tried one of our old ones on the new Medallion. Turns out the Medallion we received on the Enchanted is significantly/visibly thicker than the last Medallion we received last November on the Sky, and doesn't properly fit the old two-part rectangular plastic holder. The holder can't snap shut properly to trap the Medallion. Any chance someone else has noticed this?

Excellent, thanks for the intel. Great to know, that confirms that all the cruise ports we use all now have it.

I'll ask others to confirm, but it's my recollection that the Princess "system" knows you have the two dinners, so when you book online, it should work through the booking but the end charge will come up zero. I can't remember whether it's immediately zero or whether the system charges you then instantly credits it back, but the one time we did it, last year on the Sky, everything was OK and our CC was not charged for two dinners. A general heads up on "free" Specialty Dining dinners. We also had two, from the Premier Beverage plan so not not comped by our TA, and had a nasty surprise on the Enchanted this past week. Our two free dinners (Sabatini's and CG) were in the system, but had been pre-assigned specific dates, times and locations, none of which agreed with what we wanted. IOW the reservation had been made without asking us, and when we went to each restaurant at embarkation, changing them was VERY difficult, as the Enchanted had serious issues with Specialty dining availability. So to your comment "But if I wait to book on board there may be no spaces left?" On EVERY other Princess trip we've ever taken, we have never had any issue walking up to each restaurant on embarkation and getting every single time and date we wanted. On the Enchanted last week, this was not possible. In fact, at the CG, we were told, on embarkation, that it was completely sold out for the week. I've seen it said here on CC a number of times that Princess always holds half of all SD slots open for bookings DURING the sailing, but on the Enchanted last week, that was absolutely not the case.

Same here. On the Enchanted last week, we were among the very first to board, not much after 11AM, and the cabin was available for us. Keep in mind that Stewart may not be completely finished prepping your cabin, (ours wasn't quite finished) but he/she will be nearby and allow you to drop your bags. Please do the nice thing and leave right away if they are not quite finished.

We just disembarked from the Enchanted a few days ago, Canada/New England to/from Brooklyn. A few days before entering Canadian waters, Stewart left two copies of the Canadian Customs forms as mentioned above (the same ones used on airplanes entering Canada). We filled them out and handed them back to him and that was it. On returning to Brooklyn, absolutely nothing to do but walk up to a camera, let it take your picture and when the light turns green, away you go. Never needed to speak with anyone. As to the Princess disembarkation form, it will probably vary from ship to ship, sailing to sailing as was mentioned above. The first timeslots for us were self-walkoff, which we did, starting at 7AM, though we were actually at our car in the parking lot by 6:50AM. They go all the way to the last disembarkations with collecting bags, at 9:30 by which time everyone was expected to be off the ship. Keep in mid that if the time slot and baggage tags they give you don't work for you, just head down to Guest Services and ask for your desired disembarkation time and a new set of tags.

Great to hear that facial recognition is there as well. Did you disembark from SP or Long Beach?

It's been available at some cruise ports much earlier than that. Last November in Port Everglades, this past June in Manhattan and this past Saturday in Brooklyn, we breezed through facial recognition in seconds without having to show anything, not even our passports. A GREAT system

How can they try it if they are not yet on board on the ship's wifi? Just because it works on land is no guarantee that it would work on a cruise ship with today's spotty Princess wifi. On the Enchanted this past week Wifi was dreadful.

Excellent, thanks for the info.

Quite the week for Princess and her passengers. Just off the Enchanted and we, too, lost 3 of our 5 port days, two due to local winds in Newport and Bar Harbor, and one, Halifax, due to the imminent arrival of Fiona.

The cabanas have a sofa, maybe a chair or two, a TV, fridge and the 2 loungers and could in theory hold more than two. Not sure whether you are permitted more than the two people though. The layout and look of Sanctuaries varies from ship to ship, but here's what they look like on the Royal https://www.beyondships2.com/royal-princess-sanctuary.html