njhorseman

We mailed our renewal applications on April 26 and received our new passports, passport cards as well as our old passports back today, May 31, exactly 5 weeks to the day from when we mailed the applications. We did not pay for expedited service. From the tracking history it looks like we would have received at least the new passports yesterday had it not been a holiday.

Old San Juan and Pan American are two different cruise terminals . Old San Juan is where NCL ships normally dock on port calls. It's the cruise terminal near El Morro and other Old San Juan attractions. Pan American is on the other side of the harbor, not in Old San Juan . It's the cruise terminal used by NCL as an embarkation/disembarkation port.

Even if you didn't see them on Riviera it doesn't mean they weren't allowed. I suspect that if you spent every night in Terrace Cafe for its entire dinner service hours you would have seen some people wearing shorts.

Where are jackets suggested? Not in the website FAQs. Not in the Currents. That's where you'll find "the rules" and suggestions, not in an advertising or brochure picture. Is there also a rule that passengers have to be as physically attractive as the models in the brochure ? Perhaps a "suggestion" ? The fact that you see them more in the specialty restaurants and less so in the GDR doesn't mean anything beyond passengers making a personal choice about their attire. They're not in "the rules". I can't "dumb down" a rule that doesn't exist. You also can't dumb down a suggestion that doesn't exist.

I don't believe anyone has said you should get approved two weeks before sailing. The process may go more quickly now that you no longer have to upload test results because that will eliminate the crush of last minute work but I don't think it's necessary to call unless you haven't been approved by four or five days prior to sailing.

The only thing I harp about is the people who make up their own rules and then want others to follow them. Your post is a perfect example, because sport coats are not required nor even suggested in any Oceania restaurant.

Where will you be staying and will you have a car?

Walgreens only does drive through testing. The OP will not be at home and there's a good chance they won't have a car. I don't know where they're staying but even if they happen to have a car and are in Manhattan there are no Walgreens stores that do testing because there are no Walgreens stores with drive up windows in Manhattan.

Additional testing is a different issue . This is just an example of NCL'S inability to properly relay Bermuda's requirements to its passengers.

And of course what you got is wrong. Bermuda no longer even wants you to upload the negative test results. You just bring it to the pier for verification at check in. The instructions are printed in big red letters on Bermuda's website . It never cease to amaze me how NCL has such difficulty getting simple things right.

I believe they only test passengers flying home to countries that require the testing and I don't think the UK requires it.

BTW, I just checked NCL's website and it still has the old instructions about needing a test if Bermuda is not the first port of call so someone at corporate isn't on the ball. That doesn't surprise me since for the longest time NCL was instructing its passengers to not fill out the Travel Authorization application until they had their test results, which was contrary to what Bermuda wanted and contributed mightily to the delays in getting approvals because Bermuda's authorities would get swamped with applications in the two days prior to sailing.

Since your embarkation was on May 22, one day after the rule change I suspect what happened is that NCL's corporate office did not notify the cruise ship staff that the rules had changed so they conducted unnecessary testing since they did not know about the change.

I didn't miss where you said that. The new rules took effect on May 21.

You're wrong. You have it backwards. Last week Bermuda eliminated the requirement for passengers making a port call prior to arriving in Bermuda to be retested but kept the requirement for retesting if the ship is arriving in Bermuda more than four days after embarkation. If someone on the Joy is telling you otherwise they need to be reeducated. Here are the rules: https://www.gov.bm/cruise-travel-authorisation You'll see that there's no longer a mention of retesting if the ship makes a prior port call but there still is the "more than 4 days" rule: Cruise voyages that take more than 4 days to get to Bermuda from the embarkation port: All passengers regardless of vaccination status must undergo a further supervised antigen or COVID-19 NAAT on-board, by the ships medical team, no more than 2 days before passengers are to come ashore in Bermuda.

Again, you have no understanding of the context. Also Bermuda is not unique. Canada's requirements and procedures are substantively identical to Bermuda's . You make application to the government prior to your cruise, receive approval, and present that approval plus your negative COVID test results to the cruise line for verification on embarkation. the biggest difference is that Bermuda has the audacity to charge you $40 per person for the application. You also are wrong because Bermuda's testing requirements other than in the unique circumstances when you are to arrive in Bermuda more than 4 days after embarkation are not substantively different than the testing requirements every cruise line already has in place for travel anywhere. Bermuda is just layering unnecessary bureaucracy onto the process because it has decided it needs to pump up its revenue stream by charging $40 per person to review and approve information you already have to provide to your cruise line. The government has actually admitted that the revenue need is what is really driving the process, not public health . Read this article. https://www.royalgazette.com/health/news/article/20220525/government-cannot-afford-to-drop-ta-form-senate-told/

Scheduled repairs 13 months from now to a ship that hasn't yet been placed in service?

I am fully aware of Bermuda's requirements. You're ignoring the context of the post to which I was replying. The poster was not referring to the exceptional requirement imposed when a ship arrives in Bermuda more than four days after embarkation but rather to Bermuda's normal requirements. Perhaps you've forgotten that last year Bermuda required all passengers to have an additional taken before arrival, but that requirement was eliminated this year.

I. believe the reference to "allowing everyone" meant there were no longer any capacity restrictions..

NCL doesn't permit medical waivers in lieu of vaccination.

That's incorrect. Masks are required when riding buses, ferries (except on open decks), taxis and mini buses. Apparently your mini bus driver did not enforce that rule, which I understand is quite common.

I'm not Ms Kats, but it is a separate application and $40 fee for each person.

Children under the age of 12 don't have to be vaccinated to cruise on NCL, but those ages 2 to 11 are subject to additional testing requirements.

Why would Bermuda have the need for additional testing as opposed to any other destination in the world? Every person cruising to anywhere is a "potential covid positive passenger". Some COVID cases on board ships are expected and planned for by the cruise lines. Probably most cruises have some number of COVID positive passengers at some time during the cruise. Someone would have to pay for the testing, so that would put the burden on the cruise lines, and their response is likely to be "we're cruising elsewhere". Bermuda doesn't want that to happen because cruise tourism is an important part of their economy. It almost sounds like you think, the title of the thread "Did anyone leave the Joy recently WITHOUT COVID?" has some foundation in fact or reality.

Bermuda doesn't care if any passengers on a previous cruise tested positive. They're just protecting their own population and as long as there's no spike in local cases attributable to contact with cruise ship passengers there's no reason for them to impose additional testing requirements.