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“The Starry Neighbor (Neighbour?) Chronicles: Pining for the Fjords” – Anthem of the Seas, July 8th-15th, 2022


Lovetocruise2002

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“The Starry Neighbor (Neighbour?) Chronicles: Pining for the Fjords” – Anthem of the Seas, July 8th-15th, 2022

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PININ' for the FJORDS?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that?

This cruise…long awaited, cancelled, booked again, wasn’t sure if was going to happen, now it looks like it might.  That’s definitely the definition of “pining”!

We started this journey pre-pandemic when @Matt announced the Anthem Group Cruise to Norway for July 2021. We had never entertained sailing to the Fjords prior to that but could not pass on the opportunity to sail with friends and sail an itinerary that is out of the norm for us. We all know what happened after that. Pandemic came, GC was cancelled, goodbye Norway sailing.

When European sailings were released for Summer 2022, we discussed in detail what we would want to do.  At the time (it was December 2020), we were still in the height of the pandemic, and it seemed crazy to even thinking about travelling internationally. It was a toss up between a Greek Isle sailing or try again for Norway. We let the kids decide. One kid loves nature and the other loves big cities, neither one has even been to Europe. It was an easy decision to try again for Norway, which would have us sailing out of Southampton. That checks off nature (the Fjords) for one, and the big city (London) for the other.

After we decided on the itinerary, the next part was deciding how big we would go for this sailing. I promise that I have always had in my mind that we would do a smaller, older ship for Europe. It was beyond my control that the only ship offering this sailing (in July 2022 which we needed) is Anthem of the Seas. It is also beyond my control that Anthem’s only suites with aft views (which I really wanted for the Fjords) are the Star Class lofts. I was good, I held several cabin categories and waited for Hubby to come home.  Then I sent a message to @GregD telling him of our plans. We (Hubby, @GregD, The Boss, and I) were supposed to sail the original Odyssey Inaugural together in November 2020 along with a ton of other blog/Insider friends, so we were sharing our misery together over that lost sailing.

The conversation went like this:

Me: I am pretty sure the GC to Norway is not going to happen so this is the replacement in 2022. Prices are way better than 2021. I am thinking of Star, and I want those aft views of the Fjords.

Greg: Yeah, star class would be awesome on Quantum class ships with all those activities.

Me: We’ve been on Anthem twice already. Hubby really wants to try SC on Anthem. (See my justification there 😉)

Me: YOLO Book It! for you and fam? LOL

Greg: I will talk to the boss.

The Boss: Norway is a must do, and if we are looking at a third cruise being cancelled, STAR CLASS IS A REQUIREMENT!!

Me: Woohoo! @WAAAYTOOO said to stay away from the corner lofts, they are way smaller.

Greg: Yup.

Greg: So, I did a thing… (sends email to TA to inquire)

Me: Let me know how it plays out.

---Day after---

Greg: STAR CLASS NEIGHBORS!

And so, the “Starry Neighbor (Neighbours?) Chronicles” begins!

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Perspective from the other neighbour (neighbor?) It seems so long ago when COVID wasn’t a thing, but our story started out on Empress. The Boss (Heather) and I were looking for an adults only cruise. There was an 8(9?) night Eastern Caribbean BVI cruise that we had booked. The week we booked happened to include Heathers birthday. I remember reading a @twangster blog that got me interested in that Itinerary. We had one of the aft owners suites booked I think. As time went on Heather was nervous about being on a little ship (she is prone to motion sickness) but we liked the idea of going to places that the bigger ships couldn’t get into

I remember when @Matt announced the 2021 group cruise in Norway, and I thought this sounds like a great experience. I brought it up to The Boss who much to my surprise thought the same thing. As she tells it, she never thought about going there, but now that the idea was in her head, why not. We decided that Empress was out and Norway was in, so we jumped ship and the group cruise was booked. That cruise was also our Anniversary, so why not celebrate with friends.

We booked one of the short lived spa balcony rooms, because suite prices were stupid money at the time. The Boss figured if she couldn’t get her suite, the spa bonus was a consolation prize and we didn’t need all that space since it was just us adults. At the time, we had a GS Odyssey Inaugural, a GS2BR on Liberty, plus an A2 on Oasis booked, so something had to give.

Boy did it give. COVID happened and things started getting cancelled. We were so excited to be on those group cruises so that we could finally meet some of these people that we interact with online. The Boss was fully ready to learn from the Suite Snob master herself. As things were going from bad to worse, I remember getting that message from Sabrina about shifting the Norway cruise to the following summer.  I told The Boss about it, and she demanded Star Class.  You all have seen how that conversation went. After messaging my TA, and what seemed like eternity later, the switch was made again, and we all became Star Class neighbors, and the chronicles began.

We couldn’t just stop there though. We also decided to make this an even bigger vacation. The plan was to do two days in Southampton pre cruise, then 5 days in London after the cruise. If you have read my previous Navigator blog, you saw how we like to surprise our kids. Well, we are at it again. The kids are now coming with us, and they have no idea. They think that they are staying at the grandparents while The Boss and I are on the cruise. They still think we are in a balcony room, so the star class room will also be a surprise to them. The plan of attack for letting them in on this is that my dad will drop us off at the airport. The kids will ride along, since they are going to his house after, and they will get the first surprise in the parking lot when we get there. We will still tell them we are in a standard balcony room until we get to the terminal and find the star class banner with an “oops…did we forget to mention we were star class too?"

As we have gotten closer we have been teasing the kids about the things that we are doing. One of the booked excursions ends at the top of a mountain with a snack of waffles. Johnny lamented “but I like waffles.” Lydia was also whining about not going. We told her that she wouldn’t have any fun. The cruise will be mostly scenery and mountains, to which she replied tearfully “I love mountains….” Will the kids end up in therapy from their parents lying to them all the time? Maybe. Is it worth it for the surprises? Definitely.

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Itinerary:

The original group cruise visited, Kristiansand, Stavanger, Alesund, and Bergen. At the time, I had nearly all the excursions planned out so when we switched to this one things were easy, we just now had to account on what the kids could tolerate.

This cruise visits Kristiansand, Alesund, Flam, and Stavanger. The itinerary originally had Geriengerfjord which is so picturesque and had a really cool excursion to a glacier etc, but that got swapped for Flam. Still deep into a Fjord, and opens up other opportunities for exploring.

Kristiansand: We opted for the Old Town Walking tour. This was on our choice on the original cruise. This will give ease us into Norway. Us adults get to see the cultural stuff without completely boring the kids, since it isn’t that long. Sabrina and her family are booked on this one too. Our tour ends around lunch time, and if the kids have run out of fun, we can send them back to the ship, and us adults can adventure some more.

Alesund: Bring on the waffles!! This was also on our original cruise. This one just sounds so cool. Experience Norway’s dramatic scenery on a five-hour, fully-guided adventure that includes a ferry boat ride to Sykkylven, a cable car ride to the top of Stranda Mountain, and a picturesque bus ride along Storfjord. The epic journey and Norwegian landscapes begin on a 20-minute ferry cruise from Magerholm across icy-blue waters to the tiny community of Sykkylven, where a fishing and furniture-making industry flourishes. You’ll then hop in a glass-enclosed cable car for a sky-high trip dangling overtop thick pine forest and the snow-ski slopes of Strandafjellet Skisenter. At the mountain summit you’ll enjoy coffee, tea and waffles while overlooking the Sunnmore Alps’ plunging cliffsides and bright-green pastures. A ferry then transports you to Liabygda village, where you’ll relax on a coach drive that leads you along Storfjord. This breathtaking stretch of coastline is home to Europe’s largest glacier and deepest lake — and the surrounding fjord scenery will leave you in awe, as well.

I’m hoping this still happens. It no longer appears in the cruise planner, but it has been sold out for a while. Also, when our cruise docs arrived, we dock in Alesund after this tour was supposed to depart.

Flam: This will be a cool day. We will ride the Flam Railway, which is a short, but steep line up into the mountains. The stretch of railway is the steepest standard gauge railway in Europe. The change in elevation is 2841 feet, and there are 20 tunnels and one bridge. Our tickets are in the morning. In the afternoon we are also going to the Stegastein viewing platform which extends out from the mountain into the fjord. Flam itself is mainly a tourist destination, and there are some shops etc right there including a bakery that looks amazing.

Stavanger: This stop our plans changed. The original cruise had two days in Stavanger followed by a sea day, The first day, we were going to do a walking tour and the second day I was going to hike pulpit rock while The Boss enjoyed the spa. There was a sea day after so I could spend the next day allowing my legs to recover. The new itinerary has one day, and with the kids in tow, we needed to make adjustments. We still kept the walking tour for Heather and the kids, and I was going to do the hike, and hope I don’t die. After some messaging with Sabrina, I found out that they were doing the Lysefjord cruise. We ended up switching Heather and the kids to that so they would have some familiar faces. Later on while checking my travel insurance documentation, one of the exclusions is “injuries obtained while mountain climbing.” Another trip to the cruise planner and now we are all on that cruise. I’ll just get to see pulpit rock from the bottom, and I don’t have to worry about my legs being jello for the rest of the cruise. Oh, did I mention there were waffles on this one too?

Breakfast Feels GIF by DreamWorks Animation

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13 minutes ago, GregD said:

The itinerary originally had Geriengerfjord which is so picturesque

This is the one disappointment from this sailing, I really wanted this port.

15 minutes ago, GregD said:

Alesund: Bring on the waffles!!

I should have followed my own advice on this one. @GregDbooked this one first and I was going to wait for the price to drop a bit in the CP as we still had months left. Then it sold out. We decided to do a "Highlights of Alesund" tour instead.

17 minutes ago, GregD said:

Flam: This will be a cool day. We will ride the Flam Railway,

Ditto for us. This was the last port to open up excursions. I even reached out to Private Journeys to see if they could get us tickets for the railway ahead of time. They could not but said they would notify us right away when it does open up. In the end, we caught it as it opened in the CP and booked it ourselves.

There were a number of people in the FB group who were considering booking ticket on their own (instead of through Royal) because Royal released the Flam excursions so late. You know how we know that @GregDis an awesome guy? Because he grabbed 8 tickets directly from the railway for us while we waited for Royal to release it. In the end, both our families decided to stick with the excursion through Royal, just safer that way.

22 minutes ago, GregD said:

After some messaging with Sabrina, I found out that they were doing the Lysefjord cruise.

Hubby is still disappointed that we are not doing the Pulpit Rock hike. Not that I was even entertaining that option to begin with. Last year we took a trip out to the Rockies and did a few "easy" hikes. My feet are still, almost a year later, recovering from that. I told him then that I was done with hiking. Definitely not my scene lol, especially not some 8km uphill hike!

25 minutes ago, GregD said:

Oh, did I mention there were waffles on this one too?

That is pretty much what made @GregDand The Boss change their minds lol

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The @Lovetocruise2002pre-cruise plan is as follows:

July 3rd: DTW-LHR. Delta, booked through Air2Sea. Hopefully no flight drama and lost luggage like last time. I will not be able to function as well this time if I lose my luggage.

July 4th - 8th: Spending a few days in London, England. We have Harry Potter fans here so the girls are really looking forward to that. My 16 year old is just looking forward to "all things British" as she puts it. This will be their first time across the pond and Hubby and I have not been to London since 2004! The excitement is real.

July 8th - Blackberry Cars (who has excellent reviews on TripAdvisor and has been extremely pleasant to deal with pre-travel) will pick us up from our London hotel and drive us to Southampton.

I will admit, I am way more nervous about testing for this sailing than any other one since the restart, because we are spending those days in London before the cruise. At this point, not much more we can do but hope for the best. 

I was really hoping that Royal would ditch the testing for Southampton sailings in time for our cruise but no such luck. However, one good thing is that when we got the protocols email a week ago, Royal has now put in writing that they will accept Switch Health test for pre-cruise for Canadians. That will save us some money rather than having to find a place to test in London.

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Leory is the Genie for both our suites. The questionnaire never came, but the welcome email came for both @GregD and I at exactly 30 days out. 

Today, exactly 14 days out, Leory emailed us detailed arrival instructions as well as his Whatsapp info.

This is a bit different from Allure in December 2021 and Oasis in March 2022. Smith (Allure) did not share her Whatsapp info until the morning of the cruise and Allan F. (Oasis) did not share until we met him at the terminal. Just goes to show you again that every ship and Genie is different.

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40 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

 

Hubby is still disappointed that we are not doing the Pulpit Rock hike. Not that I was even entertaining that option to begin with. Last year we took a trip out to the Rockies and did a few "easy" hikes. My feet are still, almost a year later, recovering from that. I told him then that I was done with hiking. Definitely not my scene lol, especially not some 8km uphill hike!

Aww man, had I known this I would have gone hiking with him, while you ladies went on the Lysefjord cruise🤣

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Pre-cruise travel for us:

We booked our flights a while ago. I spent many hours looking over many websites and different departure airports. We live near Albany, NY so getting to major airports is not a big deal for us, so we looked at flights from NYC, Newark, Boston, Bradley and found that it was actually easier and more cost effective to fly from Albany. We ended up booking flights directly through British Airways, though the flights are operated by American Airlines. The cost difference to fly from Albany vs JFK for the same flight was $300 total round trip. Factoring my time driving to JFK which is about 3 1/2 hours each way and parking fees etc Flying from Albany is a no brainer. The airport is 20 minutes from my house, and we can get a ride from family.

We were originally going to leave July 5th, but the OG flight got cancelled and moved to earlier in the day, but we couldn’t make that work with The Boss’s case schedule, so now we leave on July 6th at 4pm EST. We arrive in London on Thursday at 0800am London time. That gives us plenty of time if there are travel delays.

Once we arrive in Heathrow, we have a car service booked to take us directly to Southampton. Hopefully we can get at least a little sleep on the flight to we aren’t completely exhausted. We plan to drop the luggage at the hotel and will try to stay busy as long as we can, and then crash. We booked a Novotel that is right across from the port, so getting to the ship the next morning will be super easy. The hotel is also not far from The cultural quarter and city center, so there will be plenty to keep us busy.

We will also be going to London for a few days, but we are doing that after getting off the ship...more on that to come!

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1 hour ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

The @Lovetocruise2002pre-cruise 

July 3rd: DTW-LHR. Delta, booked through Air2Sea. Hopefully no flight drama and lost luggage like last time. I will not be able to function as well this time if I lose my luggage.

 

No way that will happen again! And if anything does happen while in London, I've got an amazing  cousin (former Canadian) who could help you! 

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Not sure if this is new, or if it’s because we are sailing from a European port, but I got this email this morning from Royal. It clearly lays out testing options. I have never received such an email like this since the restart but it puts my mind at ease for using Switch Health.

Hopefully this pre-cruise test does not spell the end for us. To be honest, I am more nervous this time than other times because we are flying in earlier and spending time in London beforehand. Fingers crossed! 
 

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Stateroom: As we all know, we are star class neighbours (neighbors?) After Sabrina sent me that message and I had the “STAR CLASS IS A REQUIREMENT” ultimatum from The Boss I quickly pulled up the cruise online, and sent the TA an email to move the 2021 Norway cruise to 2022. We specifically wanted Grand Loft Suite 10324. The whole time I was waiting for the response I was panicking because we were quite specific on the room we wanted because;

1) being neighbors (neighbours?) To the OG suite snob allows me to check that off the bucket list. 

2) Not have to worry about noise from 270, 

3) have a better room layout than the corner suites. I can’t think of a better way to view the fjords while sipping on a cocktail with those aft views.

After two days of

refresh GIF

We got the confirmation and we were officially moved. I’m super excited for this stateroom. This will be our first foray into the loft category. Normally my sister is with us, so we are limited in our choices with 5 passengers, but this will just be the 4 of us. The wow factor of these rooms will be awesome too with surprising the kids.

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Post cruise antics:

As I mentioned earlier, we are staying in London for 5 days after the cruise to do all of the touristy things. We ended up booking a Premier Inn as our hotel. This one is super convenient because its right near Paddington Station. This gives us easy access to the tube, and when it's time for our journey to end, we can take the Heathrow Express to get to the airport. 

While in London we have plans to try to see many of the sights. On the list is the hop on hop off bus tours, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, We have tickets to go up into The Shard, we will probably also do the London Eye. We too are big Harry Potter fans, so we have a walking tour booked. We would also like to see Windsor Castle, and we have a Palaces and Parliament tour booked that will take us through Westminster, and see changing of the guard etc.

Our final day in England we have rented a car and I get to practice driving on the other side of the road. The Boss is a huge Downton Abbey fan, so we are going to spend the day at Highclere Castle where the show and many other movies etc were filmed.

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47 minutes ago, AlmondFarmer said:

Very patriotic of you to not be in England on July 4th, acceptable for Sabrina since she is Canadian. 

Only July 4th, I will be stumbling my way through England, or "powering through" as the 15 (almost 16) year old puts it.

We are due to arrival at 7:00 am UK time (hopefully there are no delays) and the plan is to have a normal day and fight through the jet lag. 

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I will say, I have been pretty impressed with Leory pre-cruise. As mentioned before, after sending out the initial pre-cruise welcome email at exactly 30 days, he has been fairly prompt with exchanges.

On Friday, at 14 days out, he shared his Whatsapp info and over the weekend, he has already sent us several messages inquiring about different things.

He also sent another detailed email on Friday about arrival in Southampton, which I appreciated since I have never sailed from that port.

Our dining schedule was also shared with us over the weekend, with the understanding that we might move things around once we know the entertainment schedule.

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38 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

I will say, I have been pretty impressed with Leory pre-cruise. As mentioned before, after sending out the initial pre-cruise welcome email at exactly 30 days, he has been fairly prompt with exchanges.

On Friday, at 14 days out, he shared his Whatsapp info and over the weekend, he has already sent us several messages inquiring about different things.

He also sent another detailed email on Friday about arrival in Southampton, which I appreciated since I have never sailed from that port.

Our dining schedule was also shared with us over the weekend, with the understanding that we might move things around once we know the entertainment schedule.

I agree, So far his communication has been great!

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Have you guys been able to book onboard activities or shows? I’m on the same cruise , we are three families in four balcony cabins on deck 11. 

The younger ones want North Star and escape room, but they are not showing up in my cruise planner. The entertainment and onboard activities are completely empty…

We are booked on Path of the Trolls excursion, which doesn’t show up any longer, and the tour departure in my cruise planner is a few hours before we dock. So let’s see of that one will be cancelled. It os the tour we are really looking forward to.

OTOH, it will be great to finally (hopefully) be able to go on a cruise! As long as the  cruise tests don’t throw any surprises our way!

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17 minutes ago, Nicci said:

Have you guys been able to book onboard activities or shows? I’m on the same cruise , we are three families in four balcony cabins on deck 11. 

The younger ones want North Star and escape room, but they are not showing up in my cruise planner. The entertainment and onboard activities are completely empty…

We are booked on Path of the Trolls excursion, which doesn’t show up any longer, and the tour departure in my cruise planner is a few hours before we dock. So let’s see of that one will be cancelled. It os the tour we are really looking forward to.

OTOH, it will be great to finally (hopefully) be able to go on a cruise! As long as the  cruise tests don’t throw any surprises our way!

All the on board activities are booked through the app once on board. Once you get on the ship you can connect to the ships WIFI (no package needed) and then you can select them. 
 

I’m hoping for the excursions with potential conflicts with when we dock just get their times adjusted. We will know for sure when we get to our staterooms because the tickets will be there.

Hope to see you on board!! Feel free to say hi if you see me or my family. 

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2 hours ago, Nicci said:

Have you guys been able to book onboard activities or shows? I’m on the same cruise , we are three families in four balcony cabins on deck 11. 

The younger ones want North Star and escape room, but they are not showing up in my cruise planner. The entertainment and onboard activities are completely empty…

Ever since the restart last year, entertainment has only been released really close to the sail date. So no one can book anything until then. The last few sailings we've done, the entertainment schedule came out about 24 hours in advance.

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4 days out from departure to London....

With the stress of wrapping up the school year and Grade 8 Graduation (both planning one for my class and celebrating my own daughter's) behind us, the focus is now on this trip. We have not packed a thing. I will likely spend the next few days doing that.

I am not going to deny that I am most definitely stressed. Between the talk and news all over the place of flight cancellations, lost baggage (I still am traumatized from the March Break experience), LHR being a complete mess and long lines, rising covid rates in the UK, and the need to test on Wednesday while there, I feel like we still have a lot of obstacles before @GregD, The Boss, Hubby, and I can toast to tequila at sail away. This particular sailing (we have done several since the restart) I feel the most stress. Hubby is saying that there is too much beyond our control here and we need to just roll with whatever happens. If we get covid over the next week, at least we will get a good vacation in London, England out of it.

I am trying to focus hard on the positives. There is only one non-stop flight leaving out of DTW-LHR on July 3rd and we are on it. So no connections and hopefully they won't cancel it since it's the only non-stop that day. The flight is pretty much full. Not sure what positives we can look at for the baggage. At the moment, we are trying to decide how early we need to get to DTW on July 3rd. Our flight is scheduled to depart at 6:50pm.

I am getting stressed just typing all this out lol so I think the plan is to binge watch Obi Wan Kenobi tonight (it's been on the back burner due to craziness at work and Stanley Cup Playoffs) and worry about the trip some more tomorrow. 🙃

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1 hour ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

Those were Hubby’s words exactly! Thank you for the encouragement. ❤️

I keep saying everything will go according to plan, though to say I’m not stressed about it too would be a lie. I keep monitoring the flights we are taking since the schedule is the same for the next few weeks, and they have all been leaving on time, or within 20 minutes of the scheduled departure. @Lovetocruise2002, while I know it’s not Delta (that’s your typical airline of choice, right?) if you do encounter issues, and you can get to Philadelphia, American has three direct flights to LHR on Sunday. I would say for your flight arrive at least 3hrs early, if not even earlier. 
I feel we do have a good omen for our sail away tequila shots…We won a bottle of tequila at a fundraiser raffle today, so I think that means it’s meant to be!

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11 hours ago, GregD said:

I keep monitoring the flights we are taking since the schedule is the same for the next few weeks, and they have all been leaving on time, or within 20 minutes of the scheduled departure.

Me too!  I been tracking the same daily flight that we are on for weeks now and so far so good. But I am flying over the 4th of July weekend too so fingers crossed!

 

11 hours ago, GregD said:

if you do encounter issues, and you can get to Philadelphia

No! Don't mention Philadelphia again lol. That is where we ended in March....

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On 6/27/2022 at 6:27 AM, GregD said:

Our final day in England we have rented a car and I get to practice driving on the other side of the road.

Did you/will you have to do anything other than getting an IDP before you go? We are hoping to do this next summer to cruise the Lake District.

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10 hours ago, DDaley said:

Did you/will you have to do anything other than getting an IDP before you go? We are hoping to do this next summer to cruise the Lake District.

I’m not getting one. The IDP basically translates your US license information into the language of the country you are visiting. Since it’s the UK, a translation isn’t needed. Other members of my family have rented cars in the UK without an IDP. I’ve booked with Enterprise too to keep it simple/familiar.

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2 days out from departure to London...

No updates on the packing. The suitcases are still empty. We really need to get moving on that today.

I've been tracking our flight to LHR on Flightaware and it looks pretty consistent as far as not being cancelled. Hoping for the best over this holiday weekend as all the domestic cancellations are making me anxious.

This actually made me think of another question since we booked our flights through Air2Sea this time. If our flight does get cancelled and we rebook something on our own (without going through Air2Sea), will Air2Sea refund us (we booked refundable with them) since the airline cancelled and not us? Or would we be stuck waiting for Air2Sea to find us something else?

On the Genie end, I woke up to a text from Leroy today wishing us a Happy Canada Day! I am impressed that he did that. After being blessed with the opportunity to sail several SC cruises, I am starting to learn that it is the small things like this that make a great Genie. Almost anyone can do the grand gestures (arrange for food, cake, decorations, etc.), but small things like this show that they pay attention to the details. I really don't want to miss this sailing. 

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20 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

This actually made me think of another question since we booked our flights through Air2Sea this time. If our flight does get cancelled and we rebook something on our own (without going through Air2Sea), will Air2Sea refund us (we booked refundable with them) since the airline cancelled and not us? Or would we be stuck waiting for Air2Sea to find us something else?

Are you asking if A2S will reimburse your directly acquired tickets?  Or are you asking if A2S will refund the tickets you purchased through them?

I've had a difficult time getting straight answers from A2S on other issues recently.  After escalating to an A2S specialist I was told they don't know what the Emergency Response Team would do.  That seemed rather incredulous to me.  When I pushed them they just kept on repeating it would be handled how the Emergency Response Team sees fit.  

I've followed A2S guests who have incurred travel issues recently and for something like a flight cancellation the A2S response seems to be "The airline will issue a credit or future flight certificate based on the airline's policy".  In other words they deflect the response to the airline.

So I'm left with the conclusion that Assured Arrival is a marketing concept but it is not a form of travel insurance.  As such it does not have a published list of covered events or coverage limits that you can review.  It will be what they see fit in your unique situation given what the options are at the time of your incident but for the most part it will rely on what the airline does or how the airline handles your tickets.

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