Rose City Cruiser

Myvegas just dropped a ton of 3 nighters for January 

Something must have been broken in the game for the last week or so. Up until about an hour ago, I’ve been able to let it run on my iPad and it wasn’t maxing out daily rewards. I’ve gone from 3 million loyalty points to 4 million this week. Now just need some premium redemptions to come back. 
 
 

We have Scotiabank Ultimate package that waives the AF for our no Foreign FX fee Scotiabank Passport  Visa Infinite card.   
What works for me may not fit well with your personal situation.  It is worth looking around banks and credit unions to see what they have to offer so it fits your needs.  Others have recommended RBC.  I have friends and family who have the RBC US acocunt/RBC Visa Signature Black and are happy with it.
If you are a casual traveler and just looking for a no Foreign FX card w/ no AF, Home Trust Preferred Visa is an option for the occasional trip outside of Canada and online purchases.

We have Scotiabank Ultimate package that waives the AF for our no Foreign FX fee Scotiabank Passport  Visa Infinite card.   
What works for me may not fit well with your personal situation.  It is worth looking around banks and credit unions to see what they have to offer so it fits your needs.  Others have recommended RBC.  I have friends and family who have the RBC US acocunt/RBC Visa Signature Black and are happy with it.
If you are a casual traveler and just looking for a no Foreign FX card w/ no AF, Home Trust Preferred Visa is an option for the occasional trip outside of Canada and online purchases.

We have Scotiabank Ultimate package that waives the AF for our no Foreign FX fee Scotiabank Passport  Visa Infinite card.   
What works for me may not fit well with your personal situation.  It is worth looking around banks and credit unions to see what they have to offer so it fits your needs.  Others have recommended RBC.  I have friends and family who have the RBC US acocunt/RBC Visa Signature Black and are happy with it.
If you are a casual traveler and just looking for a no Foreign FX card w/ no AF, Home Trust Preferred Visa is an option for the occasional trip outside of Canada and online purchases.

I will explain...
If you are an RBC customer, you can apply for an RBC Bank account and RBC Bank Visa. This is different than a US dollar account.
RBC Bank is a US soil bank based in Georgia (this is legally different from RBC Royal Bank, the Canadian soil entity)
To pay your RBC Bank USD Visa...(in high level basic terms):
+ In your Canada based online banking, open a $USD savings account. (this is still in Canada)
+ Transfer CDN funds from your usual $CDN account to your fancy new $USD. Here is where the 'buy USD' exchange is done and online is your best rate.
+ Go to your RBC Bank (the US entity) and do a cross border transfer from your CDN $USD account to your US $USD checking account (or chequing for us north of 49 types)
+ Transfer from your US $USD checking account to your RBC Bank USD Visa to pay it.
+ You're done.
No ultra crappy buy/sell rate and no 2.5% foreign exchange charge. There is an annual fee for the checking account, but what you will save more than offsets it.
https://www.rbcbank.com/
Not sure what's going on these days, but you might be able to get this all setup online without having to go into the branch.

That is the savings for us right there.  We do not pay it off in Canadian currency.  We pay off our US Visa with US currency, which we exchange at our local currency exchange (or train station also offers great rates).  The local currency exchange offers rates that are considerably lower than bank rates so that is the savings.  RBC allows you to open a US bank account and we basically call our local currency exchange, tell them how much to transfer over, and they transfer the amount into our RBC US account.  From there the Visa is paid off and you are exchanging at a lower rate than the banks.  
Land vacations...over-rated lol

And the answer is....Empress has not been sold!
https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2020/08/19/no-royal-caribbean-still-has-not-sold-empress-of-the-seas

Same price for my cruises and they are both bought!  Figured I could always cancel but I have that price locked in. 
Thanks so much for sharing your passed experience and expertise.  ?

Sin City of Ontario no more!  
 

Pre-Covid, they make you go through customs and then back onboard the ship.  In my experience, it took 20 mins.  Not sure how it will work once the cruise lines are allowed to sail again.  I assume it will be much longer turnaround since they will be doing more sanitizing in the staterooms.  

Was looking for something to do for my birthday (April) and well I booked a 4 night and 3 night on the Navigator.  Have only sailed on Oasis Class ships (and all of Disney's ships) so hoping this wasn't a mistake.  Unlimited Dining Plan is a few bucks cheaper I guess since there are not all the options, but for $25/day we may just do on one cruise and not the other.  Also noticed there is not a Sorrento's on Navigator, is there pizza anywhere else?  I honestly thought that Sorrentos was on all the ships....oh I have so much to learn.  LOL
With the Unlimited dining plan looks like we get $20 for Playmakers, is that just once a day or can we eat there for lunch and dinner?  Honestly my husband would enjoy Hooked and Jaime's and I would go and sit with him but I don't eat seafood or pasta so hoping I could just slide in for a burger.
Please share tips and suggestions.  

This has taken many weeks, but my Travelex trip insurance policy that I purchased through insuremytrip.com to cover my Iceland and Greenland cruise has been canceled and the premium paid refunded to me in full. I'm guessing this is something they are doing only for cruises canceled due to Covid-19, but I wanted to relay everything I had to do in order to get this through.
First off, be very patient! Travel insurance companies are beyond swamped right now, and for requests such as this the only option being given is email. Definitely expect a long wait time. I sent my first email requesting cancellation and refund back on July 6, and didn't get an initial reply until July 28.
Second, send that initial email as much before your scheduled sail date as possible. I was sort of cutting it close in my case, because Celebrity canceled the cruise back in late May / early June, but I initially chose to do a Lift and Shift to a 2021 sailing before deciding to cancel fully at the start of July. I had deliberately held off rescheduling the insurance policy's travel window since I wasn't 100% sure if I'd be sticking with that L&S, and this was a definite risk I took. I'm sure the insurance companies are allowing for this to a degree, but it's still important to get that initial email off ASAP given the long response times.
Once I got the initial reply on July 28, things moved appreciably faster. I was given the option to either apply a one-time date transfer to be used toward a future trip (which I could have used had I kept my L&S in place), or a full premium refund. I chose the refund option, and this required me to send back every cancellation email / invoice for every part of the trip. I had booked the insurance policy for an estimated $15,000 in total costs, and sending back just the cruise cancellation confirmation from my TA didn't show that dollar amount. Here is the full list of what I had to send them before they were satisfied:
Cancellation invoice for cruise and airfare from my TA All cancellation emails from Celebrity for refunded Cruise Planner purchases (internet package, shore excursions, and Private Journey booking) Cancellation confirmation from the Dublin hotel I had booked for our extended post-cruise stay All cancellation emails from the third-party tour operators I had booked with directly. This last one was a serious pain for my Golden Circle tour, as the operator had gone bankrupt and I only got a refund via my credit card's dispute department. I ended up sending Travelex my original purchase confirmation from Saga Travel GeoIceland the bankruptcy notice from the Icelandic Tourism and Travel Bureau screen shots of the purchase and refund confirmations on my credit card's web site (with sensitive data blacked out) Even after sending all of this, I still had to make a phone call in the end to actually get the refund processed. Because I had booked through insuremytrip.com and not through Travelex directly, they didn't have my credit card information on file. So that required another roughly 45 minutes on hold, but it eventually got done without any further fuss. The refund showed up immediately as a Pending item on my card, and was processed in just a couple of days.
 
I definitely recommend trying this if you've had a trip canceled on you due to Covid, and you were able to get a full refund rather than doing L&S or taking FCC. Just be ready for the insurance company to say no. Travelex was great with me in this regard, but I can't guarantee that every insurer will be as generous.

This sunset courtesy of cruising in general.

Make sure you are using one e-mail address for each C&A number.  I usually complete the check-in for my parents and used my e-mail.  Somehow Club Royale e-mail system trips up whenever there are duplicate e-mail addresses for multiple C&A numbers.  

Sorry, I have to edit the info and close thread. There is way too high a chance this is not on the up and up (no offense to the OP, just no way to know).

My family and I really enjoyed the water slides on Navigator if that is your thing.  El Loco Fresh is located right on the pool deck so it was great for a quick bite w/o heading to The Windjammer.  

They got back to me via email and it's 100% refund since we're more than 90 days out.
They also said that the free cruise offer expires in December so can't book later. BUT they said I have another offer for beginning of 2021. Calling now!

Screw the cruise lines! Buy your own! Have the best pandemic ever here. We bought a place in the Pocono mountains last October thinking we'd be here mostly weekend and vacation week here and there. I've been working from the Poconos since 3/17 and will be until at least January! We're close to a large lake so we got our own cruiser!

The problem is they are not supposed to sail or leave port until muster is complete.  Deactivating a seapass card takes too long for people to notice and do something.  
I suspect we'll be inundated with instructions during check in.  "You MUST do e-Muster before 4pm"... "If you don't do e-Muster by 4pm this horrible thing will happen".
Then there will be paging announcements every 20 minutes from 1pm onward "Guests are reminded they must complete e-Muster before the ship will be allowed to sail".
There will be notices in the staterooms and cabin attendants will remind guests.  
It will be hard to miss.

Great innovative thinking Royal!  For this to be implemented as smoothly as possible, I think Royal should recommend their travel partners to quickly walk-through this process.  That way clients new or experienced will have an idea of what to expect.  
 

Great innovative thinking Royal!  For this to be implemented as smoothly as possible, I think Royal should recommend their travel partners to quickly walk-through this process.  That way clients new or experienced will have an idea of what to expect.  
 

Been kayaking in the Detroit River/Lake St. Clair at least once a week.  Did a weekender backpacking trip along the Bruce Trail in Ontario.  We have a cottage booked for a week next to a lake in August.  

Looks like it's official...
 

Ive done the bourbon trail....well.....a good portion of it. Woodford, Buffalo Trace, Makers, Wild Turkey, Evan Williams, Heaven Hill (makes a lot of different ones), and Willett!  LOVED IT!!!!