When are booked passengers notified of the COVID protocols to be in effect for their voyage?

[Lesanne]

I have just emailed Cunard UK to ask I which dock and if Cape Liberty will they put on a shuttle. Will let you know when I get a reply

[frankp01]

1 hour ago, Lesanne said:

I have just emailed Cunard UK to ask I which dock

Every response by Cunard I've read has been "Brooklyn/Red Hook". eTickets should become available soon, and that will put the matter to rest. In fact, I think I just read that passengers could check in for the QM2 November short voyage. That means we should be able to in a week or so.

[Yorky67]

We enjoy all the very practical info you post. 

We’re hoping to do a Cunard Excursion on our first NY stop and possibly by ourselves second stop. Is it the IKEA ferry you mention as the nearest ferry to QM… in case it’s Brooklyn? Sorry if this is posted elsewhere. 

Also, can you still use cash to buy tickets for machines for ferries, subway etc? We do have UK iPhones, but not always able to use them abroad on our network … and it’s been a while because of Covid. 

[frankp01]

1 hour ago, Yorky67 said:

We enjoy all the very practical info you post. 

We’re hoping to do a Cunard Excursion on our first NY stop and possibly by ourselves second stop. Is it the IKEA ferry you mention as the nearest ferry to QM… in case it’s Brooklyn? Sorry if this is posted elsewhere. 

It's not the Ikea ferry. That's been running for a very long time. Ikea is a little bit of a hike from the cruise terminal (but, at one time, that was suggested as a way to get to Brooklyn, if I recall) New York instituted a comprehensive ferry service around 2016-2017 (I've lost track of when it started, but I know we used it in 2017). The system's website is ferry.nyc. There have been several threads on using the ferry. When I'm at my laptop I'll send some of those links. Suffice it to say that the ferry is very convenient... A 10 minute walk from the cruise terminal, runs about every 40 minutes and costs $2.75.

 

I know the ferry ticket vending machine takes credit cards, and I'm pretty certain it takes cash as well. And virtually all of the subway vending machines take cash and cards. (You would pay an extra dollar the first time, as that's the fee for the card. You can then reload the card, as needed)

[Yorky67]

Wonderful. Thank you. 

[Underwatr]

On 11/11/2021 at 7:27 AM, frankp01 said:

And virtually all of the subway vending machines take cash and cards. (You would pay an extra dollar the first time, as that's the fee for the card. You can then reload the card, as needed)

The NY transit system (MTA) has rolled out contactless payments across the subway network (it's either complete or coming for buses). You can pay directly at the turnstile with a contactless credit card or Google Pay/Apple Pay without any other fess or ticket machine hassles (and in my experience the scanning process at the gate works much more smoothly than swiping a fare card at the turnstile).

 

MTA also has a smartphone app but since I use Google Pay it just used that even through I had set up the MTA app. 

 

As of yet there's no daily fare cap like there is on the London Underground nor is there a way to use a weekly or monthly transit pass using the contactless readers.

[frankp01]

6 hours ago, Underwatr said:

The NY transit system (MTA) has rolled out contactless payments

In order to take advantage of the senior fare I need to continue using a MetroCard. So I forget about the Omny card or the ability to use any contactless payment method. For a visitor, that is simpler.

[frankp01]

7 hours ago, Underwatr said:

You can pay directly at the turnstile with a contactless credit card

It'll be nice when all systems have rolled out that capability. At the moment I have a collection of 'tap' cards from London, Boston, Philadelphia, DC, Atlanta, Orlando, New Orleans, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles!

[Underwatr]

28 minutes ago, frankp01 said:

It'll be nice when all systems have rolled out that capability. At the moment I have a collection of 'tap' cards from London, Boston, Philadelphia, DC, Atlanta, Orlando, New Orleans, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles!

The issue for me in New York has generally been the mismatch between fares and fixed recharge levels (e.g., $2.75 fare and the inability to recharge the fare card in other than fixed increments like $10.00, at least with a credit card).

 

DC Metro lets you reload to the nickel although fares that vary by distance ridden and time of day complicate the task of exactly using up the stored value of a dare card.

[frankp01]

6 hours ago, Underwatr said:

DC Metro lets you reload to the nickel although fares that vary by distance ridden and time of day

Not to mention whether the senior discount is in effect (for me, anyway). At least I'm in DC often enough that I don't mind have a small balance left on my card. But almost every other card I mentioned probably has $2-3 balance on it. And most of that will go unused. When it comes to recharging you'd think that you could recharge with smaller amounts online. But one of the systems I use frequently has a pretty high minimum when buying fares online, but no minimum when using cash at a kiosk.