Almost Live from Explorer

[cinnamon]

Tomorrow, my Goddaughter and I will be flying from Gatwick to Tenerife to sail on Explorer for 7 days.  

I was a frequent cruiser with my late husband but have never holidayed with Clare before, nor been on Marella.  In the past I have written Live From Blogs whilst cruising but this time will only have internet when using 4G ashore.

 

We have just spent a very stressful half hour doing our night before LFT, sending it off to Chronomics and getting back the certificate.  Thanks to assistance on this board from Ferretktf I was able to do our cruise and flight checkin yesterday so we are all ready to go.  My alarm is set for 3.45 am but with all the adrenaline pumping after the test procedure and conquering the tech skills to send off the photo etc it will be a while before I can settle to sleep.

 

I'll probably post again from Gatwick in the morning.

Do let me know if this is something you will be interesting in reading as Marella has a much smaller presence on Cruise Critic than my previous cruises.

 

Corinne. aka Cinnamon

[dronnygirl]

Hi Corinne, 

I would love to hear about your cruise and hope all goes well for you 

I have cruised many times with Marella and can't wait to cruise again but, at the moment, we don't have the confidence to go abroad.  Hopefully things will improve soon.  Enjoy your holiday.

[ferretktf]

Looking forward to reading your experiences, coming so close after my recent voyage on EX2.

 

Have a wonderful and special time with your goddaughter.  
 

 

[cinnamon]

Good morning. We are at Gatwick and all checked in. It was not without stress. Somehow we both missed the need for a Spanish health form in advance and landed up trying to do it on our phones at the side of the queue. Took about 15 minutes. Could have been done beforehand if we’d realised. 
We did have to show our vaccine certificate as well but not yet our LFT from last night. 
 

Clare has some health needs which means she wears a Lanyard for hidden disability so we sailed though the quiet assistance lane at security. Just having breakfast now and flight is at 8.10. 

[paulatsea]

Very interested to hear how it goes. Thanks for sharing this. I am due to go in may and am already starting to worry ! Especially about the fit to fly test that you have mentioned.

 

best wishes hope you have a good holiday.

[ferretktf]

1 hour ago, cinnamon said:

Somehow we both missed the need for a Spanish health form in advance and landed up trying to do it on our phones at the side of the queue.  

Oh no.  So sorry i did not mention this 😞

 

I am surprised your LFT was not checked by the TUI Staff.  They are supposed to check it and then put a highlighter stroke on your boarding pass to say that they have been checked (and if no highlight then gate staff will do those checks)

 

By the time you read this you will be on the ship, hopefully relaxing with your first Prosecco.  Enjoy!

[bluewater2111]

Very interested to hear from you, thank you for keeping us updated.

 

Hope you have a wonderful time.

[cinnamon]

On the coach from airport. No one checked our LFT at all yet.  Spanish health form checked plus vaccination certificate straight after Passport control. We were bussed from aircraft so took an hour to clear us through. 
 

Weather glorious. 22, blue sky and sunny 

[bluewater2111]

Nice to see some sunshine!

[paulatsea]

57 minutes ago, cinnamon said:

On the coach from airport. No one checked our LFT at all yet.  Spanish health form checked plus vaccination certificate straight after Passport control. We were bussed from aircraft so took an hour to clear us through. 
 

Weather glorious. 22, blue sky and sunny 

Good news ! So far so good ! 

[paulatsea]

Is the LFT linked to your passport in some way ? Hence not being checked separately ? 

[cinnamon]

Onboard and in cabin by 15.10 and the cases were outside waiting for us. 😀
At the dock all our papers or codes were checked. Insurance, vaccination, LFT and of course boarding pass and passport. 

We saw the safety video whilst queuing there, had photo taken and credit card registered at the end. Once onboard we had to go straight to our Muster Drill to collect our cruise cards before heading to the cabin. 
 

Now in the Italian food area for a little pizza to tide us over to dinner. Oh. And a Lager!

We are ready to cruise. 😀

[cinnamon]

PS

 

The ship holds around 2,000 passengers. This week we have 900 onboard. 

[Tizzy-Jo]

I’m dead jealous. Have a great time and stay safe. 

[okavango]

5 hours ago, cinnamon said:

On the coach from airport. No one checked our LFT at all yet.  Spanish health form checked plus vaccination certificate straight after Passport control. We were bussed from aircraft so took an hour to clear us through. 
 

Weather glorious. 22, blue sky and sunny 

The reason your LFT was not checked was because its not a fit to fly test ,its a fit to embark the ship test which is why it was it was not checked till ship check in

[paulatsea]

1 hour ago, okavango said:

The reason your LFT was not checked was because its not a fit to fly test ,its a fit to embark the ship test which is why it was it was not checked till ship check in

I thought the test you had to do after 9pm day before was a fit to fly test ? As another test is done at the port prior to embarkation ?  

[okavango]

1 hour ago, paulatsea said:

I thought the test you had to do after 9pm day before was a fit to fly test ? As another test is done at the port prior to embarkation ?  

It was done instead of the port one ,imagine the scenario ,no night before test ,you get to the ship ,you test positive ,you go in to quarintine ashore for however many days, you fly home.

Instead you test at home , you test positive ,you dont go anywhere

[ferretktf]

It is a fit to embark test which, as it is self certified, you could get randomly asked to do another one at the port.

 

it is supposed to be checked by tui staff at flight check in though, but perhaps unless you specifically highlighted that you were flying out to join a cruise, it was overlooked

[okavango]

2 minutes ago, ferretktf said:

It is a fit to embark test which, as it is self certified, you could get randomly asked to do another one at the port.

 

it is supposed to be checked by tui staff at flight check in though, but perhaps unless you specifically highlighted that you were flying out to join a cruise, it was overlooked

The check in staff are not interested ,its not required for the flight

[paulatsea]

2 hours ago, okavango said:

The check in staff are not interested ,its not required for the flight

 

2 hours ago, okavango said:

The check in staff are not interested ,its not required for the flight

Ok - as I understand it and from what I have read there are (or were ) certain countries and or airlines that do (or did) require a negative test prior to flying - proved by a “fit to fly certificate”  - I don’t know which ones  - maybe it was more common earlier on - I thought incorrectly it was most countries.

 

I also probably misread the bit that said the entry requirements for most countries was fully vaccinated OR pre departure negative test.

 

so in a fly cruise case from say uk to Spain and then cruise , the test is a pre cruise test.

 

also for some reason I thought that fly cruise folk were on separate flights from non cruise folk and all kept together in order to minimise contact with people who have not had a pre cruise test ! Perhaps some companies do this.

 

it seems stupid to me that you do a pre cruise test before the flight , it’s not necessarily checked and then you are on a flight with others who are not cruising so have not been tested and then you do not necessarily get tested again prior to boarding the ship !

maybe it’s just not practical to do any other way.

 

Anyway - thanks for the clarification okavango and ferretktf.

 

 

 

 

[cinnamon]

Very frustrating. Long post last night and it had disappeared 
 

[cinnamon]

Just docked in La Palma. This was half an hour ago. 

[bluewater2111]

Looks beautiful, enjoy.

[ferretktf]

11 hours ago, okavango said:

The check in staff are not interested ,its not required for the flight

 

On both of my recent cruises - the "fit to cruise" test was checked by TUI Check-In staff.  I accept that if you travel independently on other airlines, they will not be interested, but TUI staff are supposed to check... btw our Cruise Travel Insurance was also checked.

 

Having said that, on both of my flights, well in excess of 50% of the passengers were heading for the Cruise and so the check-in staff were "cruise focussed". On a flight with a much smaller percentage of cruisers, it is possible that this could be overlooked ... but this is not supposed to be the case.

[Pensioncruiser]

1 hour ago, cinnamon said:

Very frustrating. Long post last night and it had disappeared 
 

They have highlighted an in-house problem with disapearing posts.