cowmilker

BTW, it's easy to reschedule if you need to. They are available 24/7.

We just did this yesterday. Kiosk to buy tickets, easy to use. Roomy train. Lots of luggage. We had two large suitcases and 2 carry ons and a Bipap machine and we are old and slow and I hurt my hip just before leaving home and hence can't move well and nobody minded. On weekends, you only need ticket for one zone, so it's cheap, quick and easy.

We didn't know about it until we got to our hotel, the Hyatt downtown. They tell you to check your email in the Airport, but our phones incur charges in Canada. So I ignored the suggestion. Bad decision. Anyway, the hotel folks told us to go to a Shopper's drug store about 10 blocks away. We walked down there and found 2 other people in the same situation. We all worked together and figured out the online registration process- yes, there's another one- and it is finicky. Finally got it done after 8 or 10 tries, I might have gotten slightly testy, and Dave got tested. It's a PCR test so useless for us. They use it for statistics to determine whether or not their Covid policy is effective or something like that. I do think they should make it more convenient. It wasn't complying with their rules that irritated me. It was how perfectly awful the registration was and how it could have cost us a lot of money if we hadn't been able to walk to the pharmacy. The whole process took about 2 hours, and that after getting up in the wee hours to fly out of Nashville. We're exhausted. If anyone runs into this, just be very careful filling out the online stuff. No leading 1 for a US phone number. Use your hotel as a Canadian address. And when you get to the disclaimer crap scroll down through it all slowly. Be sure to click on all the drop downs, and check all the boxes, even the French section.

We were there today. There were several HAL reps at the baggage area. Can't miss them. We took the sky train to downtown to our hotel. Around $9 each. Easy. Cheap.

Easiest thing we've done. Took about 15 minutes and we had confirmed emails before disconnecting. OnPoint was awesome. On arrival at our hotel in downtown Vancouver this afternoon, we discovered that David had been randomly selected for testing by Canada. Getting that done was a royal pain. So he's been tested twice in less than 18 hours.

Okay, if the actual testing is as easy as it was to make the appt with OnPoint, this is great. Got our numbers and our zoom link and we're ready for tomorrow evening.

TY for this very clear explanation. We are planning to use OnPoint on Friday evening. I will make an appt tomorrow when I know the time better.

TY for this. We are flying to Vancouver next Friday as well for the same cruise and I've been going bonkers trying to figure it all out.

We just got the bivalent booster today. We each had two cards (one card has our original series, and the second card has our two prior boosters). They were able to fit my booster on my second card with the others, but DH had to get a third card for his. It all depends on how much they can fit.

It's airborne, folks. AIRBORNE. It's not spread by fomites (touching stuff). They thought it was at first and that's why we were all wiping down mail and groceries and worrying over touching things in the stores. While fomite spread is theoretically possible, it's unlikely. The much, much more likely source is simply standing next to a positive person and breathing the same air. That's because the virus simply does not survive well on surfaces. Yes, you can find studies where they isolated Covid virus from surfaces umpteen hours after exposure, BUT those studies don't show that the virus recovered was viable or able to infect anyone. Norovirus is different. That's why I'm a huge fan of having no self service in the Lido, and I am a hand washer of almost epic proportions. When it comes to Covid, though, I put on a really good mask.

We're getting Pfizer. It's what our local Walgreens has. We're fine with either one.

I made an appt for us to get the new booster for Wednesday, Sept 7. And that's in rural Kentucky where nobody ever has anything. 🙂 I was delighted, and we can get our flu shots at the same time, one shot in each arm, and then we'll go home and spend Thursday whining. 🙂

So you are seriously saying that getting vaccinated will make you sick. That's what you're saying. Like getting vaccinated makes you all magnetized and it draws the Covid virus to you and you end up on a ventilator. I give up.

That's your problem.

I wasn't suggesting that was the case. I was using those figures because of the ease of doing the mental math. OF COURSE, pre-existing conditions matter. They do with all infections. But no, it's not a "more accurate" predictor. It's simply one of a number of factors, including vax status and age and socio-economic status, and even race. What is NOT true is the idea that somehow people who got vaccinated are now more prone to being hospitalized with Covid than those who didn't. That's just not true. At all. Not even close.

Uh, that's because there are more of us (vaccinated people) than unvaccinated nowadays. If you have a population of 100 people and 90 of them are vaccinated and 10 of them are not, you can see that if you saw 4 of the vaxxed people in the hospital and only 2 of the unvaxxed, it's not really accurate to say that "twice as many vaccinated people are hospitalized." The rate of hospitalization for fully vaxxed AND boosted people is very, very low. That is a fact. This is from Washington state (it's hard to find composite data involving the whole USA - here's the link: COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalizations, and Deaths by Vaccination Status (wa.gov) ), and the blue line (the lower one) is ONLY vaxxed people who have "completed the primary series," meaning they aren't even doing data on people who are boosted. (The charts I've seen that show the boosted data would have a blue line without that spike in February.) And this data is for old folks like me, who are more vulnerable. The data is clear. Vaxxed people are FAR less likely to end up in the hospital than unvaxxed people.

That's what I thought, which is why I asked the original doctor the original question. I had even read stuff suggesting that it might be given over-the-counter status. At any rate, I give up. It might have something to do with the fact that I live in rural Kentucky.

BTW, I am a retired RN. I got over "doctor worship" years ago, in about 1970. Some of them are just great. Some of them are morons. Just like other people.

He's a moron because he equated Paxlovid with ivermectin. If you don't understand why that is a problem coming from a physician, well, I can't help you. I can no longer trust him. He is a family practice specialist. He SHOULD be very up-to-date on Covid stuff. He clearly is not.

Well, I tried that unsuccessfully. Called our family doc of many years. He said that he could not write a script UNLESS it was accompanied by a positive Covid test, and even then, we'd have to meet all sorts of criteria about risk. He also tossed in that he doesn't think Paxlovid is a bona fide drug and equates it with hydrochloroquine and ivermectin (!!!!) and pretty much belittled me for asking. He also implied that at 73 and 83, my husband and I are NOT "high risk." I beg to differ. I hate it, but I will never see him again. I need a doctor who is a real doctor not a moron. However, I did ask another actual doctor who isn't a flaming idiot, and he also said that right now, you cannot get Paxlovid without a verified positive Covid test. (To clarify, I wanted to get a prescription and actually have it filled and take the Paxlovid with us because we won't be able to get a prescription filled once we embark except in one or two ports that are in the US. Everything else is overseas.) The second doc thought that was actually a good idea but said that the supply available simply precludes doing that right now.

Of course I could have. And actually I did for a while. But I had a horrible cough and when I developed a fever, I knew it was time to see a real doc. Tamiflu and I was better really fast. (It wasn't a "slight fever." It was something like 103 F.) None of that is the point. My point was that IF you are running a fever, you WILL be quarantined IF you go to medical, even if what you have is the flu.

Uh, yes you DO get quarantined for flu. I know, because I spent about 48 hours in quarantine with it. It was because I was running a fever. I had to go to medical three times a day (or twice a day, I can't remember which) for a temp check, and I had to have THREE of them be normal before I was released. My husband was allowed to stay in the cabin with me, but he was placed on Tamiflu as well. So yes, they DO quarantine with flu.

FWIW, we have done 9 cruises (including a Grand Voyage), and in all that time, I've been on ONE ship's excursion. That one was just me, because DH had to go to the dentist for a root canal in Naples and I wanted to go to Pompeii and he didn't feel comfortable about me going by myself. I booked my spot the night before we arrived in Naples. Other than that, it's all been outside vendors or DIY. One of the most enjoyable things for me about planning a trip is making a spreadsheet and planning every port. I mark stuff on my phone's map, check out independent vendors (most of them have a "pay about two days before the excursion" policy, so if the cruise were cancelled, no problem cancelling the excursion as well). I make lists of what I think we'd want to do, and then we see how many of those we actually get to (sometimes all of them, sometimes just a few). Honestly, doing the planning is almost like getting to go on the trip twice. For some ports, I literally get on Google Earth and "walk" our route. Some of our best shore days were those where we spent almost no money at all.

I considered that, but on our SA cruise there was a guy who was doing it (circumnavigating SA) for the 3rd time. Now that I've done it, I understand why. I could be talked into going again. 🙂

Sounds great. BUT you have to make a reservation to attend, and when we did, they were seating people on the steps in the aisles. We left after the first ten minutes or so and had to fight our way out. The situation wasn't even safe. Go to the buffet. You can't imagine what an awful place that is. Hordes of people pushing and shoving to get to the food. They put out a platter of french fries and they were gone in a matter of seconds. A ten minute or longer wait for another platter, also gone in seconds. And I watched the wait staff clear tables and use the dirty napkins to wipe the table down. Literally. Never any further cleaning. We abandoned the buffet for that reason alone. The only experience we had on that ship that was even slightly pleasant was dinner each night. To give you an idea of how bad it was, we docked in Marseille during the trip for the day. We'd already been there, so we literally got off the ship, went to the terminal, paid for internet access for several hours and hung out in the terminal just to be off the ship. It was a 7 day trip and after the first couple of days, the only time we left our room was to leave the ship in the morning, without coming back until the last minute and then to go to dinner. We considered jumping ship and just taking a train back to Civitavecchia (where we were booked on a TA on NCL), and finally opted to just tough it out. I am not typically a picky person. I don't complain about much. I read a lot of the comments on CC and get a serious case of eye roll because we're generally just happy to be traveling. We are happy as clams in an inside cabin. But that cruise was really bad. BTW, I am not going to pay extra to be in some isolated part of a huge ship when I can simply pay the regular fare with a different line and have a much better experience at much less cost. MSC was NOT cheaper than HAL. It was about the same price. I know you think it's wonderful -- I've seen you comment about it before, but our experience was just horrible, and it wasn't just us. Our tablemates at dinner felt the same. I am open to the idea that perhaps it was simply that we don't like mega ships, and that we wouldn't like ANY of them, regardless of the cruise line. I'll never know because I'll never, ever do either one again (MSC or a mega ship).