Jersey42

@Babr has given you good advice and you probably will not find a policy that will do exactly what you want. I agree that "It almost seems counter-intuitive", but IMHO trip insurance is much more complicated than it should be. That said, here are a few ideas that might help, depending on your situation: I second the suggestion to call Trip Insurance Store. I have have tried several insurance brokers, and while others offer more policies and have flashier websites, Steve and his people really know the policies they sell. They may not have the answer you want to hear, but they will give you a straight answer. If that does not help, you might want to consider your cruise line's "vacation protection plan". I normally do not recommend these plans because they have many more holes than third party insurance. But in some cases, they are the best of imperfect options. I am guessing you are on Royal Caribbean so my comments are based specifically on RCI. If you are on another line, then look at your line's plan for Connecticut to see if there are any significant differences. RCI offers Cancel For Any Reason (CFAR) as long as you cancel your cruise prior to the scheduled ship departure time. So in your specific situation you would be covered. It is a 90% FCC that must be used within a year. It also does not cover your airfare, even if you purchased it through RCI's Air2Sea program. If you can work with that, it may be your best option. Some other downsides that may or may not apply to you: Medical is $25K. Not great unless you have other medical insurance It has a pre-existing condition clause with a 60 day lookback period. It applies to virtually all coverages except medical evacuation and repatriation. It will not apply to CFAR. It will not cover any pre or post cruise travel. Please let us know if you find a better solution and what you end up doing.

I am also glad that you are doing well. @Babr and @Bo1953 both provided excellent info. But let me expand upon your warning for others in a similar situation. Your warning does not apply to just NCL. Most of the plans offered by the major cruise lines have similar pre-existing conditions clause with a 60 day lookback period. In addition, unlike most third party travel insurance policies, most cruise line plans do not offer a waiver of pre-existing conditions. That waiver is critical for people in a similar situation. It is also really nice to have for anyone, because the claims administrator will not ask for prior medical records when you file a claim. Here are cruise line plan exceptions I am aware of: Holland America has no pre-existing conditions clause or cancelation reasons. The Platinum plan provides a 90% cash refund for any cancelation. But, medical coverage is only $10K. MSC will waive the pre-existing conditions clause if the plan is purchased up to 24 hours after final payment. Medical is $25K. Viking will waive the pre-existing conditions clause if the plan is purchased up to 15 days after initial payment. Medical is $100K (the only cruise line plan I am aware of that offers more than $25K). Other Notes: The pre-existing conditions clause applies not only to trip cancelation, but also to trip interruption and medical. Depending on the plan, some coverages such as trip delay, baggage and medical evacuation may not be subject to the pre-existing conditions clause. Credit card travel insurance benefits are often more restrictive than the cruise line plans regarding pre-existing conditions.

It includes a Cancel For Any Reason benefit which is not permitted in New York. Under New York law, CFAR benefits in the travel context do not technically qualify as insurance because the cancellation of a trip “for any reason” does not depend on the occurrence of fortuitous event. If you read the plan document for New York it says: Notice to New York residents: The Princess Cancel For Any Reason Travel Credit Feature may be purchased separately from the Princess Travel Insurance Program. Contact 1-888-722-2195 for details. This is the way they can legally sell the plan in NY. I have seen posts in the past when someone has tried to do this. I can't remember any post where someone was successful. I would never recommend considering either of the Princess plans to anyone unless they already had good foreign emergency medical coverage. As you also said, the evacuation coverage is low. But the Platinum coverage of $75K is probably adequate for most trips. It depends on location. Also remember in the rare case of an evacuation from ship to shore, you probably will not pay anything. The insurance covers your evacuation from where you are injured on land, or where the ship-to-shore transportation brings you, to a hospital that can adequately treat you if necessary. It then covers your trip back home. Sorry about some duplication of @Babr's post. We were responding at the same time.

Most of our Elite cruises have been in the Caribbean, but one was in the Baltics and another in the South Pacific. Prior to the shutdown I believe we have always received two of the following: - Beefeater Gin - Skyy Vodka - Dewar's Scotch - Courvoisier VS - Dos Equis Beer - Coke - Sprite - Schweppes Tonic Water - Perrier - Bottled Water (various brands) Since the restart, both types and brands have varied, and I don't believe we have ever received the exact list above. Here is an example from a 2022 Caribbean Princess cruise. We received two of each. This was the only time we ever got rum.

I did get rum once. It was since the restart. And yes it was white - Bacardi Superior. I have never received Smirnoff vodka. It is usually Skyy, but I have received Absolut on occasion. I have always received gin. It is usually Beefeater.

Annual comprehensive travel insurance plans do not offer the same coverage as purchasing plans for each trip. They do not work well for us and I suspect they are not a good choice for many people. That said, there are situations where they can be a good value. A typical scenario where the annual plans can work well is: you take a lot of relatively inexpensive trips, have no pre-existing conditions and have good medical coverage outside of the US (even with a big annual deductible) Below is a link to a previous post with more details. By the way Allianz comes up a lot on CC. They offer four different annual plans and some of the plans let you choose the cancelation/interruption benefit. The maximum available benefits for key coverages include: $50K medical per person per trip. Not enough in my opinion unless you have other medical coverage. Medical coverage is secondary. Can work for some. Poor choice for others. $15K cancelation/interruption per policy per year. A policy often has two people on it. Another policy offers $10K per person per year. Once you reach the maximum, you can not purchase additional coverage until the following annual period. By that time it is often too late to purchase a trip specific plan and still get a pre-existing conditions waiver. $500K in medical evacuation per person per trip. Probably more than adequate in any situation. These benefits are pretty much the best you will find in an annual comprehensive travel insurance plan. n

Even though they tout it as new, those changes have been around since at least December 2021 and probably longer. The 150% trip interruption benefit brings the Princess plans up to what most other third party and cruise line plans offer. $75K medical evacuation is better than almost all cruise line plans, but way below most third party plans. That said, $75K is probably more than adequate for most situations. By the way, some people erroneously assume the Emergency Evacuation benefit includes a helicopter evacuation from the ship to shore. In this rare situation, it is normally done by the Coast Guard or similar government entity at no charge to the passenger. Once you are taken to a hospital, the Evac benefit is to get you to a suitable hospital to treat your condition (if necessary) and then to get you home. Emergency Evacuation means: (a) Your medical condition warrants immediate Transportation from the Hospital where You are first taken when injured or sick to the nearest Hospital where appropriate medical treatment can be obtained; (b) after being treated at a local Hospital, Your medical condition warrants Transportation to Your Home where You reside, to obtain further medical treatment or to recover; or (c) both (a) and (b), above.

I really like tripinsurancestore.com. It is a small travel insurance broker. Steve, the owner occasionally posts on the Cruise/Travel Insurance boards. They are very honest and helpful, but you really need to call them rather than trying to purchase from the web site. You both can ask each other questions and hopefully come up with a policy that makes sense for your particular situation. Before you call, you should be familiar with how your existing health insurance works outside of the country. Also, think about what else you really want to insure and are there any specific situations you want to be sure are covered. We always carry an annual GeoBlue Trekker policy for emergency medical and medical evacuation. Each trip is different. We often just self insure individual cruises or rely on our credit card. But sometimes we get a trip specific policy for an expensive cruise where there is a situation (such as health of a parent) that raises the probability we might need to cancel. There are so many nuances with travel insurance and there is no one size fits all solution. Also, be careful about relying on on-line policy summary charts as there are often important details that can only be found in the policy document. Good luck.

I don't know if there are other non cruise line specific policies that offer this coverage, but I suspect there might be. I looked at a handful of of policies that I had PDFs for, and Travel Guard was the only one I found. Most of the major cruise line policies do seem to cover this situation. The ones that use Aon Affinity and Nationwide all seem to have the same language as the Princess one I previously mentioned. Most of the other cruise line policies that I have seen also cover expenses up to a year after the incident. BUT - the cruise line policies usually have a very low cap on medical expenses (10K - 25K), so the risk to offer this coverage is much different than a third party policy that usually offers $100K++ coverage. Two cruise line policies that I know would not cover this situation are Disney and Viking. Viking offers $100K of medical coverage (the only one I know of with a reasonable amount), so I get it. Disney offers the typical $20K medical coverage, so I am not sure why they specifically exclude the OP's situation.

As @GeezerCouple mentioned, many (probably most) policies will not cover you outside of the "coverage period". Definitions may vary, but the coverage period typically ends on your scheduled return date. Sometimes it can be extended due to certain unforeseen circumstances, but I can't recall ever seeing one that extends beyond you actual return home. For example, if you are hospitalized beyond your scheduled return date, you are often covered for that extended period. The one Allianz policy I looked at (One Trip Prime) unfortunately excludes your situation. That said, there are policies that would have covered your medical expenses after returning home. Here is sample wording from the Princess Platinum policy: If You incur Covered Medical Expenses for Necessary Treatment of an Accidental Injury or a Sickness that occurs during the Trip. You must receive initial treatment for Accidental Injuries or the onset of the Sickness while on the Trip. All Necessary Treatment must be received within fifty-two (52) weeks of the date of the Accident or the onset of the Sickness. Here is an excerpt from another policy (Travel Guard Deluxe): The Company will pay a benefit to reimburse the Insured for these expenses for all treatment related to the initial Injury or Sickness for 365 days from the date of the first treatment during the Trip, or until the Return Date, whichever is later In the future, when you read the policy look for this type of language. Or, deal with a good broker such as tripinsurancestore and ask questions. I have never seen this type of detail in any of the online summaries, the devil is in the policy details. If you have something other than Allianz One Trip Prime, read your policy just to be sure your situation is actually excluded. If you see promising language, you can always appeal citing excerpts from your specific policy.

I have no direct experience with this. But, based on my reading of five different places in the policy, I believe you should be covered. I would still confirm with Princess, but here are the applicable sections: WHEN YOUR COVERAGE BEGINS - Provided: a) coverage has been elected; and b) the required premium has been paid. All coverage will begin on the Scheduled Departure Date, or the actual departure date if change is required by a Common Carrier, when You depart for the first Travel Arrangement (or alternate travel arrangement if You must use an alternate travel arrangement to reach Your Trip destination) for Your Trip. Coverage will not begin before the Effective Date shown on Your purchase confirmation. Scheduled Departure Date means the date on which You are originally scheduled to leave on Your Trip. Trip means Travel Arrangements with a defined itinerary away from Your Home for which coverage is purchased under this Certificate and premium is paid. Travel Arrangements means: (a) transportation; (b) accommodations; and (c) other specified services arranged by the Travel Supplier for the Trip. Travel Supplier means Princess Cruises and/or Princess Tours. So if you purchased air through Princess Cruises you should be covered from your Departure Date which would be the date your plane leaves. ------------------------------------------------------------ Now, the for the question you did not ask: What are some of the holes in this policy and might there be better third party options? Medical coverage is only $20K. If you don't have other coverage outside of the US, it is probably too low. Medical coverage is secondary. You have to first submit to your regular insurance and get an EOB. Platinum will then consider whatever was denied. In any case, it will take some time. Pre-existing conditions are excluded for most of the coverages in the Platinum plan including cancelation (not CFAR), interruption and medical. Pre-Existing Condition means an illness, disease, or other condition during the sixty (60) day period immediately prior to the Effective Date of Your Certificate/Policy for which You, Your Traveling Companion, or a Family Member booked to travel with You: 1) that would have caused an ordinarily prudent person to seek diagnosis, care or treatment; or 2) for which medical advice, care or treatment was recommended or received; or 3) an existing pregnancy. **For trip cancelation, pre-existing conditions for non-traveling family members are also excluded If any of this might be applicable to your situation, you might want to browse the Cruise/Travel Insurance boards for further insights.

Hopefully Steve will provide his insights, at least for the companies he knows well. I can't find one now, but I am sure I have seen posts about people having to insure their non-refundable flights, even though they never expected to collect if they had to cancel. I am not sure if my 2020 experience was atypical, or if it would be different today. In our case, the vouchers were for an airline we probably would not have flown on again that year, even without COVID. I don't believe that was ever part of the reason for reimbursement. I have looked at a number of policies in the past, but I can't recall one where this topic is addressed.

I know you and others have said this in the past. Do you know if this is the case with pretty much all policies today? My only experience with this was several years ago in early 2020 before the COVID shut down. We canceled a cruise and our airline tickets for a covered reason. The insurance company (Nationwide) reimbursed us for the value of the air tickets after we signed their form saying the tickets would not be used. . . The pertinent language from the form is shown below. I am not sure if their policy is different today. Your airline tickets will have transferable value until one year from the original booking date. It is necessary for us to have a document in hand from you verifying that you do not plan to use the tickets as outlined below. The above noted parties agree that they do not plan to use the value of the tickets described above by themselves or by transfer/sale to another party, and that these tickets should be considered null and void. Even so, should the listed tickets be used by anyone, all parties noted above agree to reimburse Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company and affiliated companies the value of the used ticket/tickets paid by Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company less any fees associated with reactivating the tickets for use (except fees for use of the tickets by another party not listed above as an original ticket holder). Based on this agreement, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company and affiliated companies agree to refund the full insured value of the tickets.

Not quite. In your example it is almost 7 x 24 hrs. It is actually 7 x24 less 1.5 hours. 6 full days plus two partial days (embarkation day from 11 AM to midnight and debarkation day from midnight to 9:30 AM. I wish Princess could come up with a way to create an extra 24 hours each week 😁

If you board at noon and disembark at 9:00 AM, Princess "cheats" you out a total of three hours.

https://www.princess.com/downloads/pdf/cc/captains-circle-loyalty-benefits.pdf The benefit currently says "priority ship-to-shore water shuttle embarkation".

Recently on the Caribbean Princess we had two tender (aka water shuttle) ports. Elites went to the Crown Grill and everyone else went to a designated dining room. On both days, they did a good job at quickly moving elites out of the Crown Grill to a tender. I was a little lucky, but I waited less than 5 minutes in the Crown Grill on both occasions. If I arrived just after a group left, I'm sure it would have been a little longer. On one day I was one of the first to board the tender (tenders at Grand Cayman and Belize are big ones provided by the port) and I had to wait almost 15 minutes for the tender to fill up before we departed. This process has pretty much been the norm for us although years ago, I do remember at least once where we were told to show our black card and "jump the line". Although my experience is somewhat limited, I have never had priority boarding on tenders returning to the ship. The benefit currently says "priority ship-to-shore water shuttle embarkation". In the 10 years we have been elite, I don't any recall different language except for the change from tender to water shuttle.

With two passengers in a stateroom, both need to get Plus, so your math is correct. Yes it is 7 days. The 3rd or 4th passengers can optionally purchase Plus.

Maybe you are right, but there is no way I am willing to purchase thousands of dollars worth of gift cards and then find out the TA will not take them. In that case, I either must charge my final payment to my CC for several more thousand dollars, or I cancel and attempt to rebook with Princess or another TA. Based on all of the responses here (including at least two from people who appear to be TAs), a TA will never know where I got the cards, and the source of the card has no bearing on the agency commission. So if this TA is lying to me about one thing, is he lying about other things as well? I have already decided not to use him. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Here is a recap , if anyone is interested. I have already moved on. A passenger on our recent cruise told me about a TA he uses that always saves him money. The savings were usually in cruise fare, but sometimes there were OBCs as well. There were a few quirks in how they operated, but it sounded like a good fit for us. Geared to cruisers who know what they want as opposed to needing advice from a TA Online only for booking and payment No phone support, only email. But they respond quickly. Good discounts on all cruises and great discounts on many agency group bookings I was not yet ready to book another cruise, but I did a few mock bookings on the website and I liked what I saw. I emailed the agency with a few of my typical questions - agency cancelation fees, re-faring before final payment etc. Because most online payment systems are not set up for gift cards, I also asked "Do you accept cruise line gift cards for payment?" I never mentioned AARP. They responded very quickly to my inquiry on a Sunday afternoon. All of the responses were positive except for the gift card question. The initial answer was: Yes, we do except Cruise Line issued gift cards with some exceptions. (Example: The AARP program looks like, smells like a gift card, but it is not.) I then sent a follow-up and explained that I have never had a problem using AARP issued cards with other TAs as well as directly with the cruise line. They appear just like any other gift card on the cruise line balance inquiry site. I ended my email with the question "You say these are not actual gift cards. Does that mean you can't accept them?" Again I received a very quick response that I partially posted before: On the AARP gift cards, many cruise lines do not pay agency commission. So if an agency is accepting the cards, they lose the commission on the gift card portion. They accept the gift cards to keep the client and make some money. That's what prompted my initial post (231) on this thread a few days later. It has been enlightening.

Many Medicare Supplement plans (lettered Plans C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, M, and N) offer foreign emergency travel coverage - with limitations. They all cover 80% after a $250 annual deductible. There is a lifetime limit of $50K. It doesn't matter who your carrier is, thy all work the same. The only exception is if you are a resident of MA, MN or WI. They all have state specific plans that are different from the other states. If yours covered you completely, you must be a resident of Massachusetts (or possible Minnesota). Otherwise you don't have a Medicare Supplement (aka Medigap) plan. Some Medicare Advantage plans will cover you fully outside of the US. Some employer sponsored retiree plans (typically government or military) will also offer this kind of coverage.

As the others have said, your old passport must be summitted as part of the renewal process. The old passport will be invalidated and traveling with a copy will not work. Hopefully, you will not have any emergency travel while waiting for the new passport. The best that I can tell, you will have to make an in person appointment at one of the regional passport agencies (https://www.passportsandvisas.com/passport-agencies) and hope they can help you. I have not found any definitive answers on an official ,gov site. This site below does have a lot of what appears to be good information, but I would not trust any of it without verification. https://www.us-passport-service-guide.com/can-i-travel-internationally-during-passport-renewal-process.html I had the same questions as you did before submitting our renewal by mail. So all of this based on one I found doing some online research. One more thing. When I went to mail thee renewals at the post office, the clerk offered to look at everything (forms, photos and checks) to make sure there was no obvious reasons for a rejection. One of our signatures was in black ink and the other was in blue ink. She said the signatures needed to be in black ink or they could be rejected. I question whether that is true, but rather than wasting weeks or more, I went home, reprinted my form, reattached the photo, and signed it in black ink. I returned to the post office and mailed both applications (with separate checks) in one envelope.

Most likely because of the Cancel For Any Reason component. NY does not allow this kind of coverage.

I still can't understand why people think what is a no brainer for them must be a no brainer for everyone else. This also includes those that think Plus doesn't work for them and therefore it is not a good deal for anyone. I think most people understand Plus and are smart enough to figure it out for themselves. As I have said before, if the math is close, it is probably worth trying Plus to see if it works for them. On our recent seven day cruise we spent less that $60 per day for the two of us combined on crew appreciation, wi-fi and beverages. So it was a "no brainer" for us not to purchase Plus at $120 per day. We shared a wi-fi package at half price, I know we were not charged for all of our beverages and the 18% gratuity was only added some of the time. I also did not include an extra cash tips for our room steward. Even with all that factored in, we would never come close to $120 per day.

I appreciate everyone's responses to my question about TAs accepting the gift cards from AARP. I have not heard anyone having a problem with their TA accepting them, so that is good. As I said in my initial post, my regular TA has always accepted them for 100% of the fare including and taxes and fees. Based on everyone's input, I still have no idea why a different recommended TA told me he would unconditionally accept cruise line issued cards, but would only take the gift cards from AARP with restrictions such as limited number and at less than face value? It makes no sense. Maybe I should take this as a big Red Flag and no longer consider using him. FYI - Here was part of his explanation when I asked about why he treated the cards from AARP differently from cards issued directly from the cruise line. On the AARP gift cards, many cruise lines do not pay agency commission. So if an agency is accepting the cards, they lose the commission on the gift card portion. They accept the gift cards to keep the client and make some money. If this were true, my current TA would make virtually no commission on my cruses, as I usually pay my entire fare (except for an FCD) with gift cards. He is a very nice guy, but he can't afford to work for free.