California Restart Thread - Panorama Departing 8/21/21

[CharmedLifer]

@Wennfredi sail 9/18 and 25. Also watching closely…..is there a thread for those cruise dates I ha e not found it. 

[ScottsSweetie]

9 minutes ago, CharmedLifer said:

Did you all see this re Covid cases on board 8/21 cruise?

 

https://www.cruiselawnews.com/2021/08/articles/disease/carnival-panorama-the-latest-fun-ship-with-covid-19-aboard/

A. Consider the source.

 

B. THIS IS NOT NEWSWORTHY! Every single ship will have positive cases of Covid.

 

C. There are so many inaccuracies and distortions in this article it would be laughable except that there will be people who believe every word. The most egregious is leaving a passenger alone "in a sub-standard hospital in Belize and sailing on to the next port". So they should have kept the passenger on the ship even though they required more medical intervention that the ship's doctors can handle? And everyone knows Belize is not going to have hospitals like ours. He also says 42 crew tested positive over 2 weeks on Vista?? That was addressed by Carnival - and I believe it was 27.

 

D. Consider the source.

[mkcurran]

On 8/28/2021 at 7:50 PM, rj59 said:

A big bottleneck in disembarkation are the slow, deliberate customs agents in LA, who sit in booths and run everyone's passports through computers, as opposed to Seattle and San Diego, where they usually just do a visual scan. I've been pulled into a back room for secondary screening several times, despite having Global Entry. Other ports also have visual scanners that take a few seconds per passenger, but LA doesn't have that.  I have a theory that the customs agents there have to justify their cushy jobs inspecting Carnival returnees every few days, trying to catch ***** smugglers or something, so they don't get sent to Mexican border duty. Regardless, it always makes a stressful and slow end to a cruise ending in Long Beach or LA, especially if you have to get to LAX. 

There are two ways to get out quickly. 

1. Have a person with a wheel chair---we darn near got pushed out through customs

2. Pay the porters. $20 and you are whisked through like a VIP.

[Wennfred]

33 minutes ago, CharmedLifer said:

@Wennfredi sail 9/18 and 25. Also watching closely…..is there a thread for those cruise dates I ha e not found it. 

Here’s the 9/18 cruise.

 

 

[rtdiva]

On 6/17/2021 at 6:41 PM, Wanna_Cruize said:

I wanted to add some notes about what we decided on Travel Insurance. Perhaps it might be useful information for someone. 

 

Pre-Covid, we had been traveling under an annual medical travel policy through GeoBlue - Trekker Choice. I wanted to have medical care/evacuation coverage and wasn't so concerned about trip interruption/cancellation insurance. As I said, we're in our early 60's DH, is retired and I work from home, so we would rarely need to cancel our trip, and we were concentrating on small 3-4 cruises exclusively out of CA that were pretty cheap. 

 

Now, with the restart, we are splurging for the first time, trying out Havana Cabana cabins on multiple cruises. Some are covered in large part by FCC, but some are not, like this August one; we are paying pretty much full freight on this one. I had purchased a one-trip insurance plan for it a week or so ago. DH has a health condition that could go south unexpectedly that could put a major crimp in our travel plans, and I wanted to have a little more protection. 

 

However, I also started researching more about new annual plans I heard about that have both trip cancellation and medical expense/evacuation, and also would cover expenses relate to Covid if it becomes an issue. We actually have a total of 5 cruises already scheduled between now and February '22, with more to come once they restart the weekend cruises at a cheap price, so buying a separate policy each time becomes pricey. 

 

Also, another wrinkle is that family members/friends are going along with us on some of these trips On those, we have two cabins booked, one under my husband's name and one under mine. We're platinum (almost diamond) and this way our family members can share in our perks, such as priority boarding, laundry, in room amenities, etc. I know Carnival doesn't care/need to know where we sleep at night, but I wondered if that could cause issues with travel insurance coverage in the event we had a claim. Would a normal single-trip plan cover both of us on each trip in that instance; would it matter if we are not 'in' the same cabin? 

 

I actually decided on RoamRight’s Multi-Trip Annual Trip Cancellation Insurance plan referenced on the Trip Insurance Store website. The plan seems to meet our needs, and I was able to confirm that we both would be covered individually, even in separate cabins, since the policy was purchased individually. It covers all pre-existing conditions, as long as the insured is medically able to travel at the time the policy is purchased. It even can be purchased AFTER the final payment, and you decide when you want it to become effective, anytime within 30 days of purchase.

 

It also covers Covid quarantine expenses if doctor-ordered. We had a range of choices of the trip cancellation annual limits for coverage, and the costs is dependent on that level. I think it is a good choice for us, and I got coverage for both of us with $5000 trip/cancellation annual limit for just over $600 for the year. I was still within my 10 day review time for the individual trip insurance policy I had purchased for our August trip, and got a refund of the $200 cost of that.  Yes the medical expense limit for the year is not that high ($25,000) but we have excellent medical insurance that covers us completely while traveling internationally, and if we end up using it all, I would consider it a great benefit, and re-purchase another annual plan when we could travel again. 

 

If anyone has any questions, feel free to post them here. 

We’ve never purchased trip insurance for our 30 cruises, one of which was a World Cruise. We too have health insurance, however, my question is: when an incident occurs do we pay upfront then get reimbursed? This is the method we use with our medical insurance. If so,

do you have multiple credit cards, bring checks?

Thanks  for your informative post,

Ann

[Shayhooper]

I was on this sailing and was in the medical center Friday morning for a non Covid related issue.  While there I asked the Dr if they had any positive cases and he said they hadn’t.  He mentioned that 10% - 20% of the crew are tested daily depending on their department along with random passenger testing.  So far no positives.

 

Take that for what it is worth.  I’m not sure that he would have actually told me if they did have positive cases but who knows.  I’ll also point out while there, I didn’t see or hear any other patients.

[JMG1973]

I will say, I was on the 8/21 sailing. I did not hear of any cases and am in a group of over 400 on a different board, and not a single member is reporting a positive either. I do not know obviously 100% but I am still talking to a bunch of folks and nothing. 

[lancemcd]

What nights were formal nights?  Trying to book specialty dining

 

[tallnthensome]

1 hour ago, lancemcd said:

What nights were formal nights?  Trying to book specialty dining

 

Monday and Thursday