A&L_Ont

Within hours after I posted the above, it appears as though testing for fully vaccinated will be stopped, as well as random testing for fully vaccinated. There is supposedly still testing for unvaccinated, to be offsite. No word on what happens to vaccinated cruisers coming into Canada as this moment. From the news story… “The federal government is expected to announce today it will soon end the mandatory randomized arrival testing for incoming travellers at Canada's airports, CBC News has learned. As a result, starting as soon as Saturday, June 11, only unvaccinated travellers will be required to take a test upon entry into Canada, said a source with knowledge of the policy who was not authorized to speak publicly.” Link to the story https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/feds-travel-random-arrival-testing-1.6484759

Correct, for the fully vaccinated. Just to clarify, only fully vaccinated can enter without a negative result. Unvaccinated still need a negative result and a quarantine plan as of today. You might already be implying this, but I just want to clarify for any unvaccinated reading here. A screenshot for the requirements as of today for a flight from the US to Canada.

Bring on the cranberry. 😋

Dani, I hope things go as best as possible. Lioness, Jimmy in concert. Awesome. Graham, nice new wheels and what a screen. Dishwasher selections, don’t ask me. John, that chicken looked delicious.

Maybe she didn’t know your nationality. 😂

Foreign relations between Russians and Americans are icy right now, so I’m glad to see things warming up in your home. Jade is a cutie.

Owen had a unit of cricket in gym and he said it was a lot of fun. For some reason we turn it on during our cruises on the sports channel. They make catching the ball look so effortless.

I am happy to report that Owen’s ball game tonight has been cancelled because of the rain we received today. That’s fine with Owen, as well as us, because it has been a long weekend of baseball. Owen played in a tournament about an hour from home, with one game Friday late afternoon and two games Saturday. The first at 8am and the second at 2pm. That being said, they won all three and moved into playoffs on Sunday. The team they though they would meet in the semis, turned out to be who they met in the finals. After their semifinal game, which ran an extra inning, they had just an hour to eat and make it to the next Diamond. The final game was not a timed game with no new innings after 1:45 minutes, it was a full 7 innings with only a mercy rule concluding the game early. So who’s pitching would last because of pitching limitations and what team would come out on top? Owen’s team was the home team. At the top of the 7th the other team tied it up with a run. Bottom of the 7th it was tied up and we had a runner on second with one out. Well, this is what happened. What a weekend. They came back from three deficits, to win those games to be Champs. Happy Owen. Happy parents. It’s amazing Lisa can get these pants to be white again after games. This pair is now garbage after two years, as the hole on the knee is now straight through. She always says, a coach not a mom had to have picked the white pants. The host town was a rail hub back in the days of steam, so the medal is so suitable.

That’s so cool. It makes me think that it was the real cup not one of the duplicates that make the rounds. I have read some stories where the cup has some rough times during these 24 hour periods.

Yes, each player gets the cup for a 24 hour period and can take it where they wish, along with the Keeper of the Cup close at hand. Not sure if the three or four (my guess) Russian players can take it home this year though, with the state of the world. The 15+ Canadians will have no problem though. That being said, when the Avalanche win it I know that it will be coming to London, Ontario. Kadri gets his hair cut at the same barber shop that I go too, so I can get my photo with it again.

The team maybe south of my border, but the Cup will spend multiple days in Canada with the team members that won it.

Let’s Go Rangers! 👏👏👏 Let’s Go Rangers! 👏👏👏 Let’s Go Rangers! 👏👏👏 Let’s Go Avalanche! 👏👏👏 Let’s Go Avalanche! 👏👏👏 Let’s Go Avalanche! 👏👏👏 (Anyone but TB😉)

There have been delays for international flights with people getting off the plane at some airports across Canada. I couldn’t find any news stories that specifically address the Vancouver airport. I know multiple people, as well as have experienced it personally in Toronto. We were held on the plane for an hour, at the gate, until customs had eased a bit. They then let 50 people off at a time, out of a few hundred on our plane. Fortunately we were in that group. It took us at minimum an extra hour to get off the plane, and we were in business. I could only guess how long the folks behind us would have taken. There were no exceptions for Nexus/Global Entry travellers. Only those with connection flights, with boarding passes in hand were allowed off early. I don’t know if Vancouver is having these issues, but being the second busiest airport in Canada, it would not surprise me. If you land at 12:30 and process through the airport in an hour that makes 1:30 to the taxi stand. The drive to the cruise terminal is about 45 minutes on a good day. If you have a delay leaving your home airport and any delays in Vancouver I would be worried that there’s a good chance of you missing the all aboard time for the ship. There are many news stories about delays in Canadian airports at this point in time and no indication of when these delays may end. Government is blaming staffing issues as the main concern. I’m not sure if you want to look at flying the day before, earlier the same day or take your chances. It might go easy peasy or maybe not. I just thought I’d share, as travel in Canada at this point in time, is not as fluent as travelling within the US. On the Canadian board there are people who live in Vancouver who can report about testing locations and hopefully give a more accurate report on clearing customs/immigration in Vancouver. Here is a link to the Canadian cruisers page. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/2510-canadian-cruisers/

Did you book with Air2Sea?

It was a good legit question. Now, if some find out they bought the beverage package it could still happen. 😉😂

You might want to ask them same question on the Canada boards. There are many frequent posters there.

It is $2 Canadian a litre here. That would be $1.58 US a litre. Converted to gallons it would be $5.97 US a gallon. A lot of that is tax and out government is not going to complain about the cost of fuel when they are being rewarded handsomely.

Royalty; the originators of pimp my ride.

A licence to print money is a cruise during a holiday such as NYE, Christmas, July 4th. UBP is small change compared to the mark-up of a holiday sailing. It could also be prorated price of a 5 to 7 night sailing. This exactly. That’s why we booked it early. If the price drops we can rebook it. We can also easily use the package in CoCo Cay, Labadee and the two sea days. If there were port stops that were not RC owned we would most likely not have bought it.

Here is a comparable for UBP pricing on a couple sailings. For our sailing, NYE on Harmony, the drink package was $75 US as of yesterday. For Mariner in October it is $100 US, when we last looked. Are they deals or not, that is up to the individual.

@Ocean Boy Happy Birthday to you.

I’m going with greed.

This exactly. A thread like this calls for it.

How did you find the seasoning? Did you find that you seasoned them enough, too much or did they need more?

Maybe folks here are thinking about this wrong. Maybe this should be a discussion about making your drinking dollar go further while on your cruise vacation. That way they could/would "stick it to RC" for the high priced drink package. For example, I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the original rum runners at this point. What about Alcohol Powder, from looking it gets good reviews on Amazon. If you are a more hands on person, you could make your own Hooch or Bruno on your 7 or more day sailing. It typically takes 5-7 days to brew, from reading on-line. Don't forget to bring your jug or zip-loc bag from home, as you don't want to make it in the toilet. Just drink up after its brewed but watch out for any botulism outbreaks with you or your cabin roomates. I guess you could attend the art auction on every sea day for the free champagne. Clearly this does not include any hard earned vouchers you may have earned from years of brand loyalty. As an alternative I guess one could also over consume while off the ship on port heavy sailings, such as Cozumel. Do some pretend window shopping for jewelery in port and consume that free wine/champagne/beer that Tanzonite International hands out. Or if you are more spirited head over to Senior Frogs for the free pour shots. Most people make it back to the ship while being pushed in a wheel chair. Others that don't, while they get a longer stay in Cozumel. Everything above is tongue in cheek humour/sarcasm, but perhaps might become a thing of the future if UBP stays at the high cost listed today. Who knows, maybe rum runners and booze smuggling threads will be more common than Covid and dress code discussions as recent history.