KWong

But anyway, I did a 3 Gorges Dam river cruise. And outside of an understandably partisan narrative during tours (mainland China, what are you gonna do?), it was a pretty enjoyable time, although it took a while to adjust to the idea of mostly sitting down and enjoying the trip.

On 9/19/2020 at 9:47 AM, HeWhoWaits said:

Windsor would be perfect - it would allow folks who want to go to Detroit (why, I don't really know unless your favorite sports team is playing there) easy access and meet the requirement.

I read the first four words out of context and had a good laugh. But outside of that, you make a good point. 

Sounds dangerous. Sake is the most dangerous thing you can have at a sushi restaurant. Unless they serve fugu. 
 

id be in. 

20 minutes ago, Jolly Ogre said:

Just make sure to do your due diligence  clean your surfaces, don't cough on folks, and please please wash your hands. It's just that simple.

Agreed with this. Everyone does their part, and the cumulative efforts will help minimize the chances of getting sick from COVID or other viruses.

14 minutes ago, CruisinForABruisin said:

To that point, these may be off limits, as they are not RCL offered excursions 

Yeah agreed. If It's just Royal-offered excursions, this is a moo point

1 hour ago, DandA said:

Labadee, Haiti and Falmouth, Jamaica were two of our first cruise ports also.  As has been said, Labadee is Royal's private resort, we went hog wild and booked the Dragons Breath Zip line and a parasailing excursion.  I highly recommend both it was a great experience.  One word of caution, there is an artesian village market that has various types of souvenirs, the vendors are pretty aggressive and if you’re not used to high pressure and intimidating salesmen it can be a very unpleasant experience.

At the time of our visit, Jamaica was experiencing a lot of crime involving rival gangs and the drug trade so we didn’t venture from the port.  There was one excursion we were looking at that visited several sites, we decided not to go as two of the neighborhoods that were on the list to avoid was right in the middle of a couple historic buildings that were on the tour.  The port itself is pretty nice so we just visited the shops and had lunch at the Margaritaville.

With the market I found it best to keep walking and give calm but firm "no thank yous" from time to time. Some of the vendors DO feel aggressive but they will back off if they see that you're just passing through.

Forgot to note that there is a walking trail in Labadee. Was planning to go along it on my canceled August cruise.

Falmouth is kind of tricky, since there isn't enough in the surrounding area to interest me. I've done Dunns Falls a couple of times (only once while cruising), and it's fine, but it does take some time to do because of the distance. Mostly we stayed in the port area and had a ship day.

10 hours ago, JLMoran said:

Pane E Vino in New Brunswick. Picked the place at random after my daughter finished a performance there with the chorus she was in during high school.

Expensive place, didn't realize until after we'd been seated but I just figured, "YOLO!" Man, was it worth it! Daughter and I agreed it was the best meal we'd ever had, can't say it's been topped yet.

I think some of the best (also worst) experiences have come from randomly going "hey let's try this place." We've found places such as Pho Xyclo in Niagara Falls, a street festival in Sand City, CA, and Pie in Barrie, ON.
 

But we've also found some pretty meh places like some pub in Stratford-upon-Avon and a paella place in Barcelona. No regrets though - nothing ventured, nothing gained. 

For Grand Cayman I'd look at doing a stingray excursion. Hopefully you'll have options on picking an operator in June. 

In the current environment I think folks would be more comfortable with less people around. So if we only go by this criteria, the choice is clear. 
 

but, if people are still looking for more amenities, then you'll likely need to look at Sanchos. 

I believe there are a couple of companies that have "port of Miami" locations that provide shuttles to the terminal?

I wonder if they're taking measures to prevent the usual "kid soup" situation in the pools.

8 hours ago, Marga said:

I live in Europe and have cruised several times in the Med. Although I highly recommend these sailings I do want to say that you won't really see Europe this way. 

If you want to cruise I would recommend Barcelona to Civitavecchia (Rome) and adding days in front and back of the cruise.

If you have time, take a train from either city to Paris. High speed trains are not very expensive if you book in advance. First class one way costs about 100 euro per person. Stay a few days in Paris, take the train to London and visit there a few days and fly back. 

All depends on time and budget of course. 

 

Have a great time with your daughter, sounds like a lovely plan! 

I think I like this idea. Barcelona is a lovely city (unless you're Lionel Messi in 2020), lots to explore in and around that you might not get to on a cruise. 

I've not been to Rome, but it's on my list.

I just realized that RBC is effectively using "Royal Bank of Canada Royal Bank" in Canada...

48 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

Land vacations...over-rated lol

Some truth to that. But there's no cruise excursion that can get me to Alberta and back in time, so...

(also, I've been rewatching TAR Canada, and it does a pretty good job of highlighting many, many places I've never been to in this country)

2 hours ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

^^^This right here is what some people don't realize.  Also why we always pay in USD for our vacations.  Unless we are vacationing in Canada, which never happens lol.

This reminds me that I really need to go back to Calgary/Banff/Jasper at some point. 

4 hours ago, Rene Desmarais said:

Hi folks

 

I currently work with a Flightcenter Travel Agent,   She's great, but the company had a major temp layoff and store closures across Canada. She was affected.  

I was working with the agent on my Nov 2nd Miami sailing (now cancelled) I was trying to get the agent to do a Lift and shift.

I also have a Mediterranean cruise in May 2021.  

We don't know her future with the company, so I'm asking any RC Canadian members here, who they  love to work with for Cruising vacations.  (as a backup)

I've booked mainly with a local GTA chain called Cruise Holidays. They're pretty good. But they also mainly cater to Hong Kongers and mainland Chinese, so a lot of discussion is in Cantonese or Mandarin. 

Didn't realize they did Geoblocking.

They might have it on Smithsonian Channel in the US.

On 8/24/2020 at 7:13 AM, HeWhoWaits said:

Watched it once. Two hours I'll never get back.

Much better use of time is to watch various YouTube videos of people's time onboard various ships.

In fairness, you can say this about the majority of Hallmark movies. It's best to watch it:

- as a drinking game

- in MST3K style

- both

Ahem. Anyways, the thread title works whether you're talking about the ship or the movie. And if you really need to watch some cruising, watch Mighty Cruise Ships.

I think a lot of people know, and personally I'd been looking at possibly going to Hawaii at the end of year (changed mind and it will likely be a Caribbean resort if we go). And because many of us are not working or working from home, I think that the self-isolation period becomes less of an impediment.

But I think that many Canadians are still wary of going to the US because of the numbers there. If the numbers start going down and stay down in the US, then we'll see an upswing in southbound travel.

I think the airlines do have some strong lobby groups. But also, when you fly there is a paper trail that leads to your theoretical end point. I think it's still a little weak, but at least there's something to go on if contact tracing is required. 
 

The land border would have far too many people  crossing to make this possible without tracking the car or something of that nature. And I'm pretty certain that this would not go over well. 

1 hour ago, LandstromCruise said:

I wouldn’t care if nobody was tested. I don’t believe any company should be able to force any person to do any type of medical test or procedure. If there was cruising this entire time and no test being done I would still be on the ship. I believe if you are the one that is afraid and wants everyone else to be tested, maybe you shouldn’t be on the ship to begin with. Besides, someone could test negative to get on and the next day have it, so what good does the test do anyways???  

I think you have this backwards. If you're so selfish that you refuse to get tested when everyone else is required to, then maybe you shouldn't be on the ship to begin with. 

I can only imagine how dead the Windsor bar scene is without 19 and 20yo Michigan kids going over on weekends. 

9 hours ago, twangster said:

I don't recall large volumes of splash liquid occuring at the machines up to this point.  There is some I suppose but with clean liquid going in would need to be mixed with a lot of virus in a cup to reach the point of concern.  In the interim they could simply close the machines and only use bar glasses/cups to dispense beverages at bars.  Bring your souvenir cup home unused - it's a souvenir.  Honestly I'm more worried about elevator buttons and railings in the stairwells.  

When cruising first restarts I might even ask my cabin attendant to just drop off towels and skip the daily room refresh.  A cabin attendant moving from cabin to cabin to cabin is more likely to spread a virus than splash from a cup IMO. 

Yeah I don't think it's a huge amount of splash from the dispenser. But all the same, you could have respiratory droplets on your cup and not know it, so probably an easy ask (although perhaps not an easy task) to switch from the chipped cups to a paper or plastic cup. Even if it makes zero effective difference from a health standpoint, it might be a good psychological move.

13 hours ago, twangster said:

As far as the Freestyle machines I guess they could have a crew member wipe down the Freestyle touch screen and cup base between guests much like a big box retailer that does at the self check out registers.

The cups themselves are somewhat contact-less in that you just sit the cup in the machine, only the bottom touches anything.   The points of contact are the touch screen and the place where you sit the cup. 

Think of this like a self checkout machine at Walmart or a grocery store.  If staff wipe down the scanner area and touchpad it seems to work at home so this approach should work at a Freestyle machine.

With the cup I think the concern is more about the splash when you're filling it up. 

It's a good question. I don't partake in the soda package, but I liked the souvenir cups from the "reusable" standpoint. Clearly we're going to pivot away from that.

I'm sure that to start with, the freestyle machines will be off limits, and you'll only get the fizzy stuff from the bars. Inconvenient, but not a big deal in the long run.

What comes next will be interesting, and it's probably predicated on what advances Coke puts into the freestyle machines. I'm reading that they're trying to add bluetooth/mobile app  support for the next gen machines, so that might work. 

But from a cruiser's standpoint - and I realize that this is easier said than done - it might be best to transfer the freestyle activation chip to a card (or maybe even the Seapass card) and the scanning location to the front of the machine. Again, easier said than done, since I'm sure that on the inside there are circuits and wires running everywhere to make a simple drink dispensing operation work.