HAL4NOW

Sorry if this is a repeat from other threads. On Circle Hawaii cruise out of Vancouver in October my DW and I would alternate days for taking Covid tests we brought on board with us. Ten days into the cruise I tested positive. We contacted ships medical, and it was confirmed with a PCR test. My DW and I isolated in our cabin for the duration of the cruise; she tested positive three days later than me, and we both continued testing positive until arriving back in Vancouver. Because we had been identified as having Covid, we were told to remain in our cabin until someone from the ship would come and escort us to the terminal for a taxi HAL had arranged (with extra cleaning charge). We were escorted to the BB King's venue, along with 80-100 other passengers that had been in isolation at the end of the sailing. I don't know how many other passengers had been identified with covid prior to us, or how prevalent it was on the Koningsdam. I am quite certain that many on the ship had covid and didn't report it because they didn't want to isolate. Both DW and I are doing well; we had very minimal symptoms for a short time.

There was only 17 inches between the corner of the bed and the wall in our Koningsdam verandah cabin. 23 inches between the tv wall and the bed. That might be tight, even for a small three wheeled scooter.

We were on Deck 4 recently on the Koningsdam. Smooth sailing across the Pacific from Vancouver, BC, to Hawaii, and back. Should be even less motion, typically, on inside passage cruises.

Thank you; I have never seen future cruise credit (FCC) on the Navigator App, even though there is a place for it. Our cruise ended on October 24th. My DW and I were quarantined in the room from October 18th through the end of the cruise. We do not have any FCC posted online in our account or in the Navigator. I am pleased that yours has been applied to your Mariner number.

I even had a tough time finding Mountain Dew in Hawaii. It wasn't until our last island that I was able to purchase a couple of cans. Of course, I had to consume them immediately because bringing them back on the ship wasn't allowed. I used to bring a good supply of Mountain Dew on the ship each cruise; now I have to suffer with Coke. 😞

We just got back from the Circle Hawaii cruise last month out of Vancouver. Premium Internet was totally out of service a couple of the days crossing back to Vancouver from Hawaii. The other days were spotty at best. I would not want to rely on service for anything necessary.

And more sunrise photos.

Hey, Terri, I don't know if this will help. Hope it does.

Now they will have more slots for Medicare Open Enrollment and Camp Lejeune lawsuit ads.

This is one of many remarkable quotes from a very insightful book. Dostoevsky weaves his observations of life into dialog between characters and some of the best insights come from the least likely perspectives; just like in real life. Here are a couple of shorter quotes from a somewhat cynical doctor character in the same book, since @StLouisCruisers felt like today's quote was a bit too long: “The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular.” “I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me.” Enough from the Brothers Karamazov; here are a few pictures from our Bonaire trip. I was surprised at how dry this island was:

He just blamed England.

I tried to purchase an excursion last week for an upcoming cruise and kept getting the same message. My DW then tried on her computer, with all the same card information entered, and the transaction went right through. No idea why.

The power came back on last night a little after nine, so only around 48 hours this time. We woke to a blanket of snow on the lawn, but none on the road. I love being able to see snow in the mountains and hills all around us, and not having to shovel. 🙂

No rhyme or reason as to how boarding times are assigned. Even "Priority boarding" can receive a later time. Also, since Nov. 19 is still almost two weeks out, your boarding time may change again.

I played saxaphone (Alto) during Junior High, High School, and a couple years in College. I love listening to a well-played saxaphone; music can capture emotions and bring us to depths beyond our imagination. I never could make the music with my instrument that I wanted to hear in my head and heart, so I gave up the effort. Power is still off today from Friday's outage, and the rain continues. Water has even found a way to infiltrate the breaker panel and trip one of the circuit breakers. Add replacing that breaker and investigating the water intrusion to my to-do list.

Victor phoned me back about thirty minutes after hanging up and said he had figured out the problem on their end and he could now book our flights. Excellent service: flights booked for August and September.

I was also having trouble getting Flight Ease to work through the website, so I tried phoning them today (800-628-4771). We have some time to work on flights, as our B2B cruises aren't until August and September of 2023. The nice man, Victor, at the Flight Ease number was not able to help me today either, as he is locked out of booking flights for those particular cruises. He said that the Zaandam cruises in July are being changed (dates, ports, ??) and he suspects that is true for the August and September cruises we are booked for. He could not give a difinitive answer because everyone on the cruise side was out to lunch and he only deals with flights. He recommended trying to call back in a few days, hoping they would have a better answer.

The UW Huskies were able to pull off winning a game from behind last night during our atmospheric river event. No local football interests until Sunday's Seahawk game. My mother was a redhead, and I was a redhead along with five of my other siblings. The last three siblings were adopted, so only six of the nine of us were redheads. We had some really strong winds last night and the power went off about 10 PM. I put off getting up out of our warm bed, hoping the power would come back on this morning, but finally gave up and started the generator about 9 AM. No estimate for when the power will be restored; it could be days. At least it warmed up a bit outside (currently 40 degrees F.) The rain has slowed some also, only about three inches the past 24 hours.

We are both back to normal activity levels. I tested negative for the first time yesterday, and DW tested negative again this morning.

One last update on the Bolt Creek Fire: I haven't seen any smoldering stumps for a few days. I think the layer of snow dropped last night on much of the fire area and the over 20 inches of rains we have experienced over the past 48 hours has probably put that fire to rest. We do have flood warnings and debris flow warnings around the fire and along Highway 2. So far, things look pretty good.

When you begin the Check In process, just select All Guests and then continue. You will get something that looks like this at the top of the next section: A green check mark will indicate the sections you have already completed, and you can click to any tab that still needs work. If all tabs are complete, you can go straight to DOCS tab.

I am reposting what I posted on October 13, 2021, and then adding a few more pictures. Stopped in Coquimbo on the Zaandam in 2019. Loved the Cruz del Tercer Milenio (Third Millennium Cross). We didn't see any tours that interested us that day, so just did a walk about through the town and up the steep hill to the cross. We went up into the cross and saw the museum that is located in the cross-bars. There is a chapel under the cross and numerous sculptures situated all around the grounds at the cross. One of the wild dogs that were so prevalent around town seemed to be guarding one of the sculpture scenes, but I think she was actually watching over her puppies that were behind the sculpture. Edited October 13, 2021 by HAL4NOW This very ornate set of doors led into the chapel under the cross. It read, "per me si quis introierit salvabitur" which translates from Latin into: if anyone enters through me, he will be saved. And we happened to be in Coquimbo on a Friday:

For Navy Day: a picture from the Missouri down in Pearl Harbor ten days ago.

@RedneckBobYour ransom was a lot less than ours in Chile. We flew into Santiago for a cruise on the Zaandam out of San Antonio, Chile. We had made arrangements with a small botique hotel in San Antonio to pick us up for our pre-stay with them. When we got outside the airport, we couldn't find the driver and a gentleman with an official airport badge around his neck offered to help. Since our phones didn't work in Chile, he phoned "our hotel" on his phone and then handed the phone to us. We were told by "the hotel manager" that our driver was stuck in traffic and to just take a taxi and we would settle the charges when we arrived. The gentleman with the official airport badge hailed us a taxi, we had our luggage put into the trunk of the cab, we hopped in the back seat, and then the gentleman got into the front seat. At this point we were beginning to wonder what was happening, but the back doors were locked. The cab took us into an industrial area outside the airport and stopped and a couple of black SUV's pulled up. Our airport gentleman got out and got a credit-card-reader from someone in one of the SUV's. The following "business" took place through the window with us locked in the back seat. He kept asking us for a debit card and the PIN number. We knew better than to fall for that, but he insisted we had to pay. We had agreed on a $150 fare to get us to the hotel in San Antonio. My DW handed a credit card to him and he ran it and then wanted her to sign the receipt. He was folding the receipt over so we couldn't tell what amount it was for, and when I tried to look at the amount, he got agitated, and grabbed the receipt back from her and went and got in one of the SUV's. Our taxi driver then drove us away. We were chatting wiith him in Spanish and trying to make some friendly connections (talked about his family, his country, his job, etc.). Things seem to be going okay according to the road signs. At least we were going in the right direction. The taxi stopped at a couple of roadside shrines for a quick prayer, and then he stopped the taxi just before going through a toll section. He insisted that he needed another $100 to get through the toll booth, and wouldn't drive until he received $100 cash. We gave it to him, and then he drove us to the hotel. When we reached the hotel he asked for more money, and I don't think he would have let us out without paying more, except two gentlemen from the hotel came out, took a picture of his license plate, and a picture of him, and they demanded he let us go. We got our luggage and made it safely into the hotel. Calling the local authorities didn't pan out, and we were not able to make connections with our bank until after getting on the ship. The airport gentleman had charged $2,000 to our credit card. We disputed the charge and it took a couple months to straighten it out, but these theives had already been paid by the credit card company and are probably still scamming people to this day. The real hotel manager/owner was not pleased. The driver from the hotel was at the airport waiting for us for a couple hours. They would not take money for her efforts, but when she took us to the cruise port a couple days later we were able to slip her a pretty big tip to help make up for it.

We have not received tiles on our last two cruises with HAL. One was on the Nieuw Amsterdam and the other was on the Koningsdam.