Live Cruise Reports

Welcome to the Live Cruise Report for our cruise.  Please feel free to post your experiences for sharing with other cruisers.  We are Bob & Steve from Palm Springs, CA, and we hope to see you all on board safely.

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I can’t believe we actually made it!  
Step 1: Negative Covid test 72 hours ago
Step 2: Hope NCL doesn’t cancel the cruise
Step 3: Change flights to avoid snow and canceled flights
Step 4: Test negative at the port 

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Our original plan was a week on the Caribbean P., followed by 24 days in the Caribbean and Panama Cannel on the Island P and then the world cruise on the Island P.  With the cancellation of the Island P voyages, I was lucky to be able to string together a new set of voyages.  That was to be 3 x 7-night on the Caribbean P followed by a day in Ft. L and then 40 nights on the Regal. 

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Precruise
 
We have had several requests from those who know we are traveling again to post some of our experiences.  I hope to have enough internet to be able to share pictures along the way.
 
This trip is a 10 day Caribbean cruise on the Holland America MS Eurodam, a ship we have experienced several times and absolutely love for its layout, design and amenities.
 
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Made it through testing, and check-in. Will upload photos. Got here at 9:30am. Little hectic process but all went smoothly at the earlier hour. I would suggest being early if possible. Process of testing, security and check-in took about an hour. 
 
CVS sends you a text when results are in. Pink wristbands. 
 
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We'll be boarding Anthem for our 11 night Southern Caribbean sailing. I will try to keep up with doing a live review the best that I can. This will be our third time on Anthem. 
 
As everyone knows, San Juan is a no go. As of now, we are supposed to go to St Maarten, St Kitts, Antigua, and Barbados. Things are bound to change so I'm expecting it to not go as planned. Totally fine with that, just happy to be on vacation and sailing again.

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Boarded today in Miami. Just under 2 hours from arrival to being in my suite. Protocols were laborious and repetitive. 8 Seperate lines from start to finish, the longest being an hour as there were only 2 agents on the desk. I’m not sure why it’s necessary to show your passport 6 times and your vaccine record 3 times, they really could do with a simplified system but it was worth it just to be onboard. First impressions are fantastic, she’s like a new ship. Everywhere pristine, smell of new carpets, everything sparkles. Crew are extremely warm and friendly, every single crew member greets you. A Quick lunch in Silk which was superb, followed by an Ice cream and then off to unpack.

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Boarding was smooth. Got to Park and Go at 10:40. In the lounge waiting to board at 11:15 and were escorted to the ship at 12:15, one of the first eight on-board. We were told everyone has to go to open air deck fifteen and wait for the announcement that our staterooms were available, but being the adventurous ones we went to Passenger service desk to see about an upgrade. We were told they would contact us tomorrow, so we'll see. We noticed down below that the International cafe and Good Spirits bar were open, so after stopping by the dining room to get our dining preferences entered we sat down with a drink and some food in the Piazza and listened to the violinist. Good way to start our cruise.

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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.

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Wednesday was previously supposed to be a stop in San Juan but due to their new testing policy, our ship cannot dock. 
 
We were also notified a couple of weeks ago that our departure time had changed to 16:30 instead of 15:00, which seems to be typical for Anthem right now. Then yesterday, they notified us that the ship is having problems with one of its azipods, so they're taking it slow and our check-in and boarding is delayed an additional hour. 

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Past Cruises:  We have sailed on many different lines.  We pick the cruise line based on cruise itinerary and timing.  We have our favorites and have yet been on a line where we said never again… YET lol.  Since the restart we have been on NCL EPIC, Royal Caribbean Odyssey, Celebrity Summit(our favorite), Carnival Mardi Gras.
 
Day 1
 
After dealing with flight cancellations and the winter storm we finally made it to FLL.  We were able to get a Uber very quickly for about $13.00.

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With everything that's going on, such as shortages of tests, flights being cancelled and the like, I thought yet another "live" would be appropriate, and I welcome everyone else on this sailing to join us and post your thoughts and experiences.

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BOARDING TO START OF 2ND SEA DAY
 
It looks like no one is doing a live from our cruise & so many people are wondering about Hawai’i cruising so here is a little update. I don’t want to take the time from my cruising adventures (& eating) to do a full live but thought I might post some highlights & thoughts every few days. Maybe some others from this cruise will drop in & fill in the gaps.
 
So far, the most stressful part of the cruise has been the preparation & wondering what might happen. Once we left home everything has been lovely.

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Hi all, 
 
Boarding Allure today and figured I would do a live report for anyone who wants to follow along in these crazy times! Thankfully allure wasn't one that got canceled, as we were already in Florida when they announced the others. 
 
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There is a Covid outbreak on the ship - exact numbers are unknown ( as many as 100 plus) apparently many are asymptomatic. The ship took a number hours to clear health authorities in Genoa yesterday and walking tours were cancelled. 
 
All passengers are being given FFP2 facemasks and they are the only acceptable facemasks to wear. 

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Hello all. So looking forward to beginning our wonderful cruise together. 
We will be posting all the fun happenings and photos. Please join along, either on board or online.

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We are scheduled to board Splendor on Thursday.  First Regent cruise in over 2 1/2 years, though we had many scheduled that were cancelled due to covid.  We have done one cruise, on Silversea Galapagos back in August, which was great, but obviously a very different sort of product, and are very excited at the thought of being aboard Regent again.

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LET’S GO CRUISING… 
I’m EXCITED to announce, all things pending… that we are headed out on the beautiful Carnival Liberty THIS SATURDAY! Join me here for all of the pre-cruise shenanigans, cocktails, food, and of course beach time, as we sail from Miami on an 8 day adventure to (knock on wood) the ABCs. 

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Hi, all
Before leaving on this sailing, I really appreciated the information others had posted about holiday cruises and recent experiences onboard Silhouette. Hopefully I can also help others who have questions.
  
The ship is decorated beautifully decorated for the holidays; Celebrity always does a great job with this.

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We are driving south to San Diego in two days / this Sunday morning for Koningsdam's 7-day New Year's cruise to the three very usual Mexican Riviera ports (yes, I've read what occurred in PV with K-dam this week, we shall see how it goes there next week!)

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After much ado, embarkation day is here! The weather is warm with a few scattered showers here in Miami Beach and with negative Covid tests in hand, we are ready to go. It seems unlikely to have a perfectly light and airy trip report amid the flurry of changes, but I’d like to try to keep it more fun, tipsy, and delicious than argumentative please.

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I noticed that no one had started a thread for our voyage that starts tomorrow, probably in the rain!
 
We'll be busy with our 7 year old granddaughter, but will try to keep the thread active and hope our fellow passengers will do the same.
 
Our party of 10 all tested negative yesterday and we are all packed and ready for the hour drive to the port tomorrow morning.
 
Happy New Year!!!

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So this is our first cruise in just over 2 years, and our first during the COVID mess.  I wanted to update everyone who has not cruised on what the process is to board a NCL ship with all of the new protocols in place.  We are sailing on the 11-night Caribbean cruise on the NCL Escape out of Port Canaveral.

Life from Grand Princess - December 20 - 30th
    I booked the Grand Princess 16 days before sailing. No thought went into this except for I already had the time away from work, it was longer than 7 nights and flying West as opposed to East is easier for me time frame wise. I flew in the day of which I have only done on my very first cruise. I regret it but it all turned out.

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We have cruises with Celebrity, Royal Caribbean and NCL in the past but never on Carnival.  This will be our first experience with Carnival and we are very excited to try something new.  We are armed with reviews / suggestions from members on this board (thank you Megan and Sid) so at least we will have some ideas about the ship and things to try.  We will be residing on deck 17 in a Cloud 9 Spa interior room.
 
Day before the cruise.
We flew in a day before to spend some time in Universal to fully get into the Christmas spirit before our cruise.  Pictures from Universal Studios Orlando.