Fouremco

Assuming for a moment that the Egyptian embassy will accept an application submitted by Visa Central, what are the benefits in going through a 3rd party that charges you quite a fee for doing what you can do yourself? And possibly add to the time line as everything goes through them, coming and going. The new application form (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D0GCHXTI6i684vQcopT6jyCd1-dfLu7F/view?fbclid=IwAR1nNsH88cbEq9WaUvf1wp3HROxYtARu3cVish-FyEFQ_a3Z6uv2YtkeDZk) seems quite easy to fill out, and I'm just not seeing the value added by using Visa Central or similar services.

LOL. This 75 year old boomer has been wearing a watch since he was a pre-teen. Night or day, wherever I am, checking the time is instantaneous, no need to find a clock or my iPhone. My Gen X kids laughed at me, although my son finally saw the light and bought an Apple Watch. 😇

As of October 1st, those travelling on a Canadian passport can no longer acquire a visa online. That includes the Egyptian government visa portal and all commercial sites such as visacentral.ca or its US counterpart, visacentral.com. The latter may well be recommended by NCL, and can continue to be used by its US client base, but Canadians are currently required to apply at the Egyptian Embassy in Ottawa or the Montreal Consulate General, or any Egyptian embassy or consulate elsewhere. From the travel.gc.ca website: Starting October 1, 2023, Canadian passport holders will not be able to obtain a visa online before travelling to or upon arrival in Egypt. You will be required to obtain a visa from an Egyptian embassy or consulate abroad. From the Egyptian Embassy FB page: As both the Canadian and Egyptian governments state, online visas are no longer available for Canadian passport holders. They must apply in person or by mail.

With an iPhone, Apple Watch and an iPad, all with clock and alarm functions, I've never brought a clock along. IIRC, you can get a wake up call, but other than what you can find on the TV, I don't recall seeing any clocks, let alone one with an alarm.

No need to worry. Ever since starting with my TA, and particularly during the first couple of years with COVID, there have been a small number of issues that I needed help with. They handled them all with speed, efficiency and to my complete satisfaction.

The Brits flew from London, the others from Amsterdam. In both cases, their initial flights took them to Halifax, where there was a change in plane before the short hop to Sydney.

Canadian cities were once filled with small, independent brick and mortar bookstores. Their numbers have dwindled over the past few decades, unable to compete with the large national and international chains that moved in, and unable to deal with the rise of internet sales. Today, online retailer Amazon in Canada probably sells more books in more formats than all of the remaining independent bookstores combined. A while back, Amazon started offering a free monthly Kindle book to all of its Prime members. Some months, we get to choose two, and I made my October picks yesterday. I’ve enjoyed many of the books I’ve read since Amazon started this program, and I’m quite sure that this little perk has attracted many of its customers to purchase other books. Amazon isn’t stupid, and you can be sure that it has found the program to be a money maker. When my big box travel agency was first established in Canada a few years ago, it immediately started offering perks to its customers. Canadian cities were filled with small, independent brick and mortar travel agencies, and this new kid on the block needed to provide an incentive to get travellers to switch allegiance. I don’t recall any hue and cry from the cruise community for them to give up part of their commission, it was simply a good, very effective marketing strategy on the part of the agency. As a consumer, whether I’m buying the latest best seller or booking my next cruise, I’ll choose the best deal offered to me. The key word here is “offered”. I never asked Amazon for free Kindle books and I never asked my TA for part of its commission. And to answer your question, no, I wouldn’t ask my lawyer, my plumber, my real estate agent, my barber to give me back part of their pay, but I would certainly accept a discount if they were to offer one. I see that Shell is offering a 3 cent per litre discount to CAA members. And Petro-Canada has offered a similar discount for a few years to customers who pay with an RBC credit card. Again, simply good business sense on their part, and I accept the discount with absolutely no feeling of guilt for having cut into their corporate profits.

IIRC, both pairs had booked their trip through the same Dutch travel agency, but it wasn't clear whether this was the fault of the travelers or the travel agency. I suspect that some European TA's may have never heard of our Sydney and simply booked it without realizing that they had the wrong one.

Back in 2002, when we still lived in Halifax, there was a young British couple that was devastated when they arrived in Sydney, Nova Scotia, instead of in Australia. A few years later, a Dutch grandfather and his grandson did the same thing. And a couple of years before COVID, either Celebrity or Holland America had a photo of the Sydney opera house accompanying a write up on Sydney, NS, for a Canada/New England cruise. SMH.

Make sure that you read the full policy very carefully and ask a lot of pointed questions about the Travel Canada policy. Don't accept vague responses. For example, there are limits to what they will pay: "Covered expenses that exceed the reasonable and customary charges where the medical emergency happens." Would they pay the much higher fees typically charged by cruise lines for medical treatment? You should also determine whether or not they will even sell your dad an in-Canada policy for an international cruise, even if he gets approval from the line to disembark early. As this falls outside of the norm for cruise travel, Manulife may not be flexible on this point and only offer the Emergency Medical policy for international travel, a policy that does have pre-existing condition limitations. Good luck, and I hope that your dad gets to enjoy his cruise!

No TA works for free. They get a healthy commission from the cruise line for every booking, and some TA's keep all of it, perhaps minus the cost of a cheap bottle of wine, while others are more generous with their perks. This results in a smaller profit per booking (smaller, not small) but more bookings as the perks attract more customers. The net result is a bigger overall profit. No need to worry on their behalf.

You would have to check with the cruise line regarding early debarkation. If the cruise starts in Canada, there shouldn't be an issue debarking at the final Canadian port, but the cruise line needs to approve. In my experience, none of the onboard doctors are Canadian or American, but a doctor's nationality is immaterial, it's the location of the treatment that matters. This is what OHIP has to say: What’s covered elsewhere in Canada When you show your valid Ontario health card in another Canadian province or territory, you will be covered for some of the same services you’re covered for in Ontario including: physician services (e.g. visit to a walk-in clinic) services provided in a public hospital (e.g. emergency, diagnostic, laboratory) Any service or treatment you receive in another Canadian province or territory must be medically necessary for it to be covered by OHIP. However, as the ship won't take an OHIP payment, your dad would have to pay the ship and submit a claim. Unfortunately, ship medical charges are significantly higher than most provincial maximums, so without travel insurance, it could be a costly venture. Another question that arises is knowing which province is going to pay. If your dad start treatment while in Quebec waters, and the cruise then enters Newfoundland and PEI waters before treatment ends in Nova Scotian waters, who are you going to bill? Even if your dad takes out medical travel insurance, in most cases there are limitations on coverage for pre-existing conditions. So if he falls and breaks an arm, he's covered, but anything related to his existing heart condition would not be covered unless there was a sufficiently long period of stability. This period can be up to 365 days. Without knowing far more detail about your dad's condition and the specific cruise, my best advice would be to not take a cruise at this time.

Thank you!!! It amazes me how many posts in this thread have the wrong name. It's a good thing they aren't navigating the ship! 😇

I'm curious about that too. One thing I do know, however, is that I won't be buying the package onboard. It's bad enough at the sale price of $98.90 pp/pd, but the onboard price shown in the app is $141.28 CAD. Add in the auto-gratuity and the cost would come to $2667.37 CAD for the two of us.

That's crazy, $68 CAD vs $98 CAD for the same package. Lucky you!

Pot... kettle... black! 🙄

It also depends on what you drink. Your 5 drink estimate works out to $14.80 per drink, but I can get 9 drinks of the day or beers for $74. More likely for us, 4 drinks during the course of the day, a couple of lattes and a glass of wine with dinner, all for under $50. Then factor in port days when we'll be off the ship for the better part of the day. There's little chance on any day of the cruise that we'd reach either the 15-drink limit or $74 pp/pd cost. According to today's email from RCI, only 509 passengers (of a potential 6,680) have purchased the BP. With less than 4 months till embarkation, I'm thinking that I'm not the only one who views the package as overpriced. I fully recognize that other passengers might drink far more and/or drink more expensive beverages, but for us, it's simply not worth it.

Googling "travel insurance quotes canada" turns up a few additional sites that will provide multiple quotes, but I've not checked them out to see if they provide any more than ratesdotca and insuremytripdotca. While more labour intensive, perhaps getting quotes through several of these websites will generate quotes from a broader range of insurance companies.

For an upcoming January cruise, the current offer of 30% off the CAD price of $141.28 pp/pd comes to $98.90 ($73.65 USD). That's $1390.51 USD for two for an 8 night cruise, over 50% of what we paid for the cruise. These BP prices are insane IMO.

In my experience, one of the big benefits of having a TA is that if an issue arises, they will take care of it for you. The time it takes to do so can be quite significant at times, and I'm quite happy not having to spend my own time when my TA can handle it for me. From your post, it sounds like you had an issue "many years ago" with a particular TA. It's too bad that the experience soured you on TA's, as good ones are a pleasure to do business with. And the perks are quite a nice bonus. That said, I'm pleased for you that having direct control enables you to stay in your comfort zone.

What port(s) are you interested in?

It might not prevent him from acquiring medical insurance. But he probably wouldn't be covered for anything that could be linked to the procedure or the related medication, depending on the amount of time between the clinical trial and the cruise. Your husband's medical history, the precise nature of the procedure, the specific medication and your insurance company's policy with respect to pre-existing conditions all would have a bearing on possible coverage. In your case, I doubt that any CC member could give you a concrete answer, so I'd suggest contacting the insurance company now rather than holding out for answers here.

Speaking from experience, in the time that it takes you to reach out to your TA and for your TA to action your request, someone else might have snatched it up if it's a very desirable cabin that has just come open. That's why I book it immediately and then transfer the booking to my TA in the very infrequent occasions that this situation has occurred. The transfer process is very quick and easy, and probably takes no more of my time than you phoning your TA and giving her all of the booking details. And even the best and most diligent of TA's aren't absolutely available 24/7.

After checking local exchange rates (>1.370) and comparing them with what RCI is charging today (1.300), I decided to buy OBC for the boys. As that is a darn good rate, I decided to treat myself to some as well. 😇

What John Heald may or may not intend to do will be very quickly reversed if any country reinstates COVID regulations.