Trip report from perspective of a Canadian - Carnival Mardi Gras 11/27-12/4

[jason013]

Got back on Sunday night from a successful trip on the Carnival Mardi Gras 11/27-12/4 sailing, thought I'd briefly share my experience for others since I got a bunch of helpful info from this forum prior to the trip.

 

Departure & Testing

We booked our pre-departure rapid antigen tests for 11/25, which satisfied the testing requirement for both the flight and the cruise. Two of us got it done at Walmart, and the other two were done at a Switch Health testing clinic. Results were very fast, all of us had our negative results within the hour.

 

Flight was YYZ-MCO on the evening of 11/26 with Air Canada. Clearing US customs at YYZ was pretty smooth, waited in line for no longer than 15 minutes. US immigration officer did not even ask for proof of vaccination, nor proof of negative test - only asked the usual questions such as purpose of travel, length of trip, anything to declare etc.

 

Embarkation

After staying the night at a hotel near MCO, we took an Uber to the cruise terminal at Port Canaveral the next morning. There were four of us, so this was the cheapest and most efficient way to get to the port from the Orlando airport area. The cost of the ~45 minute Uber ride was approximately USD $75, whereas the cruise lines and private shuttle companies charge on a per-person basis, likely running over $100-120 for a party of 4.

 

Once we arrived at the port, we dropped our luggage and went straight to check-in, which took about 30-45 minutes (including the line-ups). At check-in, they asked for our proof of vaccination and negative test result. We showed both the enhanced vaccine certificates (Ontario) as well as the negative test reports on our phones and it was fine, no issues or questions.

 

Cruise

I won't write much about the cruise itself, but overall experience was very enjoyable. The service from the crew was excellent and onboard activities were great. Although masks are required to be worn indoors according to Carnival's policy, probably only around half of the passengers followed this rule. There wasn't much enforcement by the crew either - the only place I saw the mask rule being enforced was at the buffet on Lido.

 

Disembarkation

Disembarkation process was done very well on this ship - one of the most efficient I have experienced. We carried our own luggage off so we were able to disembark at 8:30am, and by 9am we were done with customs and out of the terminal.

 

We had booked an overnight stay in Orlando post-cruise, so we took an Uber again, this time back to the Orlando area. The cost of the Uber this time was approximately USD $150, but with the craziness at the port during disembarkation it was well worth it.

 

Return to Canada & Testing

At our first port of call in Cozumel, I was able to book free ID-now NAAT tests with a Walgreens near our hotel for the four of us on the day of disembarkation. Their appointments are in 15-minute timeslots, so we had 9:45am, 10am, 10:15am, and 10:30am test times. After dropping off our luggage at the hotel, we made our way to the Walgreens a little late, but we had no issues getting our tests done. When they asked for ID, we all showed our Canadian DLs.

 

Within a couple hours of us getting our tests done, we received our test reports in an email link with PDF that had our negative results (thankfully). We spent the rest of the day at Universal and smoothly caught our flight back to Toronto the next day.

 

Upon return at YYZ, there was a long line at customs, so it took us about 45min-1hr to deplane and get our luggage. At customs, we showed our arriveCAN receipt and negative test reports, and they let us through without hassle.

 

 

 

Overall, everything went very smoothly for us on this trip, and it should be for anyone that plans the logistics of COVID testing and flights properly. However, it looks like with the new variant, we may see sudden changes to the border and travel restrictions, so it's best to keep up-to-date on those.

 

[K_e_short]

Thank you for posting this.

 

I am booked to go on the Mardi Gras Dec 26th - January 2nd.

 

I plan to test at the airport but am happy to hear as a fellow Ontarian that they are used to our documentation and that part will go smoothly.

 

In regards to masks it sounds like the expectation is similar to what is currently happening in Ontario, so not much change there.