DJsMrs

Beauty beach views all day Never-ending sandcastles ... and swimming Isaac the Iguana making sure the boy is still alive (me calmly trying not to freak out - that was a BIG Iguana!!!) Fun in waves all day And snacks! Have you even been to the beach if you're not having a nap on your balcony afterwards?

St. Thomas Take me back Day 4 Prior to leaving Vancouver I had arranged for a van to pick us up and take us to Sapphire Beach for the day. I was trying to stay away from the busier and more popular beaches and get a bit of quiet, but still with services… and Sapphire did not disappoint. We booked with Big Love taxi (hope I’m allowed to say that?) and they were great. But we did have one slight hiccup. Ship time and St. Thomas time is different. We arrived at 9:30 ship time… which I believe was 10:30 local time, so our poor drive sat and waited

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We also took advantage of our sea days to explore food on the ship. Luciano asked us to let him know what we wanted for breakfast to be delivered - and we definitely enjoyed having breakfast in our room, on the balcony, and in bed (in some teenage cases - lol), and also loved having our Starbucks delivered to the room each morning. It was heavenly. Room service was good, food was warm/hot - and there were no complaints. Our favourite spot for lunch ended up being Izumi sushi. It was fantastic and the service was impeccable. Over the course of the week we enjoyed a meal

Wow - this cruise had a great start. We had 2 sea days to get our bearings and take advantage of all the ship board activities. My boys both brought their own skates from home and had fun on a few tips around the rink. Carousel, flow rider, climbing wall, lots of swimming, cupcake class, build a bear (penguin), ice cream machine inspections, bridge tour and we even found a new buddy in Central Park!

Boarding Day! We were finally all together - the magnificent 7 were stoked to get on board. We all gathered in the hotel, grabbed a quick bite and coffee, fired up an Uber XL (a suburban or something) and off we went. Pretty sure we got to the port at 10:45’ish. I remember we held on to our bags and wouldn’t let anyone touch them until the star class guy showed up -(a la @Lovetocruise2002) and then it was an absolute whirlwind through everything and up into the waiting area where we sat for maybe 10 minutes until Luciano popped out of his lantern. After introductions were compl

Hmmmm - in my cruise withdrawal as I peruse old blogs - I've come across my unfinished cruise blog - what a total disappointment. Makes it hard to relive when it's not all posted. So - in the interest of covid cruise and travel withdrawal I think I'll fire a bit of an update and review in here . And what I can't remember I'll just make up - at this point does it matter? I feel like I'd go somewhere in a row boat if I was offered the chance! Not sure about the public art display at FLL behind my boys - but this dude is one that we all still talk about! And my boys - both st

"should" key word in that sentence

I think the CDC has this near the bottom of their priority list - despite all of us, and the cruise lines desperately looking for a path to return to cruising. In my mind I'm holding off giving up all hope until July'ish. I think they've literally got their hands full managing the vaccinations of so many Americans and hopefully once that settles down into a more routine event they can start to look at travel again.

I just heard an interview with Barry Penner on the radio - he's a legal advisor to CLIA and he said even he doesn't expect anything to happen in this calendar year in Canada. However, there is a bill in the US senate right now that would allow ships to bypass Canada for a limited amount of time... but he's trying to work with the gov't to allow a technical stop of a 4 hour anchor drop off Victoria that would satisfy current US law requiring the foreign stop. Of course the concern is that ships may never come back to Vancouver/Victoria which would devastate those cities in terms of tourism

I wouldn't hold my breath on these being lifted if I were you. Travelers coming into Canada currently require a test before they get to the border, a test at the border, then those driving need a 14 day quarantine plan with a commitment to another test at 10 days in, and flyers are required to quarantine in a government appointed hotel for three days while they wait for the results of the test they were given at the airport when they landed - after being released if the test is negative they must finish their 14 day quarantine and must provide a plan to show authorities, they also require an

Have you paid for your cruise yet? If not they'll adjust your final payment amount.

We had a boatload (see what I did there) of OBC that we didn't use on our cruise - we had to go to (gasp) guest services, although I suppose we could have gone to the concierge in the suite lounge, and got a form that we filled out to tip our Genie. I'm betting you could do the same with your onboard account.

Yeah - this is no surprise. The slow vaccine rollout here, combined with new variants, questionable vaccine response of some of said variants (and more of this will surely come), plus Trudeau's tightening of the border... it's a hot mess. Feels like 2020 redux.

Yeah - I'm Canadian too (west coast) so have a pretty clear grasp on what's happening north of 49. And I guess short term is relative (I'm thinking short term in terms of my lifetime, not short term as in "I'm hungry" - haha) and although reduced quantities are coming in, it looks like they're going to be close to meeting the estimated 4 million received (not just Moderna) by the end of March - and that hasn't taken into account any other vaccines being approved (AstraZeneca may just be a few days shy of approval, and J&J isn't far behind). We could discuss the receipt and effica