1kaper

As I've said, I've been through the airports 3 times since September. In September at YYZ, they were letting Nexus and airport employees skip to the front of the line with only one or two officers working. One officer kept walking people somewhere. That meant at some points no one from the "plebian" non-nexus line was moving. It was at that moment I decided to enrol. I made it through in time to get to my gate and board. My last trip was last week. I've been paying attention every time. While some of my connections were painless, others would have been made a lot less stressful with Nexus.

I arrived Friday afternoon. It’s now Wednesday afternoon. No response.

Where I live in Canada I almost always require a connection. And if I happen to not have to connect, that airport uses Nexus. I have been on 3 trips since September in which it would have been useful and alleviated a lot of stress on one end or both. It would be well worth it to me. Unfortunately, I can't get an interview.

Hmm. I thought that the machines had a wide options of languages but can't quite remember. My favourite was going through YUL last week and getting "randomly" selected for a covid test. I know it's a thing. I have no problem with it. But the lady asked me to write down all my information and then typed it in. Two fingers. I was stressing because my flight was boarding in 10 minutes. I explained to her I knew I had to do this but I was also hurrying to make a connection. Her response was "everyone here has a connection". I explained I meant boarding soon. And my gate was far. Turns out I was the lucky one. Some people behind me had a flight already boarding. When I got to my gate they were calling last call for that flight. I knew people behind me didn't make it (their gate was past mine). I was frustrated that they would have someone in a data entry position who was could not do data entry. She was two finger typing and despite writing my stuff clearly I ended up spelling everything for her. Still haven't gotten my results...

Room We were deck 11 aft. We had a lot of difficulty trying to figure out how to get to our room. You could not walk all the way through deck 11 and it wasn't clear from the plans near the elevators which floors you could. We ended up going up to deck 12, walking through the buffet and then down. Eventually some of the doors opened and sometimes you were able to walk the length of deck 11. Sometimes you couldn't. The room was about the same as any other ship I've been on. It was clean. I did find the bed and bedding wasn't as comfortable as my last ship. It was definitely a firmer mattress. I did enjoy the aft balcony. I had read some reviews ahead of time that it could get hot - it does. There is not much breeze. The other thing I found was when we arrived on Ocean Cay around 6 or 7, there was a lot of rumbling. It lasted for a long time and made it difficult to sleep. It was cool to watch them throw the line to the tugboat (and the tugboat have to try to pull it out of the water) so the tug could pull us backwards into the dock.

I thought I'd put together my thoughts on my recent MSC cruise. I found there isn't as much info on here as other cruise lines so just in case someone else is looking in the future. This was my first cruise with MSC. And my 5th cruise overall. We have sailed with Carnival in the past. My husband gets pretty great casino deals, plus we travel with our 7yo. Our last cruise was the end of March of this year. About 2 weeks out my friend suggested we do a short cruise. She had found the deal for a 4 night cruise to the Bahamas on MSC Divina. At the time I actually had some $30 balcony deals with Drinks on Us in the casino for Carnival (I played in the casino on our last cruise). Our options were an aft balcony on Carnival or an inside on MSC with internet and drinks. Both went to Nassau and a private island. MSC was overnight on the island. Once we added the drink package on Carnival, it was essentially the same price. The downside - Carnival stopped at Half Moon Cay (their private island which I loved) but the drink package isn't included there. This really irritated me on our last trip there. You use your sail and sign card, you buy their liquor with no other options but it isn't included in the drink package. Since it was a short cruise, my friend didn't want to buy the drink package if we weren't going to be able to use it on the island. I hate the idea of buying my drinks individually, I start worrying about how much I'm spending and don't enjoy it. I'd rather have it paid for upfront. Because of this, we chose MSC. Several days before sailing, we got the option to bid on an upgrade. We opted to bid the lowest amount we could on a balcony and were successful. We were assigned an aft balcony (found out about 4 days prior to cruise) I also applied to have a status match and just before the cruise was given Silver status on MSC. Even though I entered my MSC number on our reservation it was not added. I found the website was and check in was difficult to figure out. I don't think I ended up being fully checked in before we went. By the time I figured out where to link my credit card, it was too close to cruise time and it wouldn't let me. Linking my credit card on board was pretty easy though. They have machines all over. We flew into MCO, rented a car and stayed in a hotel in Cocoa Beach area. We returned the rental near the port and took their shuttle to port. It was very easy, the shuttle driver was awesome. Embarkation Embarkation was a breeze. We sailed right through. There were several stops we had to make to show various things, vaccination documents, negative test, passport, etc. We never waited for a moment. A very nice contrast to boarding in Galveston the month before when we waited in a huge line. It took forever to board. But to be fair, our Carnival cruise was closer to capacity. I heard around 1100 on our Divina sailing. I had asked a question here before about insurance. Being Canadian they said we were required to have COVID 19 insurance. There were a lot of questions about what was required and how strict. They never asked to see proof of coverage or even asked if we had it. The first impression of the ship was nice. The Swarovski crystal stair case was gorgeous. I disliked that people going around trying to sell drink packages or dining upgrades. Nothing against the staff doing it, I realize it is their job. We grabbed a mimosa and relaxed for a few minutes, got some assistance with hooking up the wifi (the primary has to create their account first) and then went to check out the cabin. TBC...

Exactly this. We were in the same situation with my child. He was not eligible for a booster and was able to test 3 days out.

I believe I have seen some people stare they got an exemption for religious reasons but that may also depend on where they are sailing from. For some reason when searching on mobile it doesn’t give me the option to restrict results to the Carnival forum but I do believe there was a fairly recent thread on this.

You may be better off getting a rental car. We stayed one night in Orlando the night before our cruise. My friend rented a car with points, pick up at airport and dropped it off near the cruise terminal. They had a free shuttle that took us to the port. On the way back, she booked us a shuttle (I'll ask her which one and how much) to the airport. We actually didn't fly out that day, took an Uber to our hotel nearby. I checked for rentals for the return trip and they seemed pricey to drop back off at airport.

We used the Walgreens near the Gallaria Mall and they would only do one test at a time. And there were long lines in the drive thru we had to wait through.

We booked with Walgreen's. There were three of us though and you can only do one person per appointment at the drive thru. Appointments are 15 minutes apart. We had 30 minutes between our first and second appointment because I couldn't get them all back to back. It ended up taking a long time to get all three done due to the line up in the drive thru. Also, you need a car.

Uber to the airport would have been like $90 when we were there the other day. My friend booked us a shuttle that cost less than that for both of us but I don't know who she used.

It is confusing. I dislike this very much. I had easy plus and was constantly worried about ordering the wrong drink and getting charged without realizing.

I found this. It is winter 2021 onward. I thought I found one for 2022 but it’s hard on my phone. I’ll check again tomorrow. https://www.msccruisesusa.com/-/media/usa/drink-packages/winter-2021-drink-package-comparison.pdf

And Baddeck is a lovely little town to visit. Couple of nice restaurants. You can take a sailing tour on the Amoeba. Or hang out at the beach. There are two very nice scenic look offs on either side of Kelly’s Mountain heading to Baddeck.

No. There are no tests to arrive in Canada any more. If you are not leaving the secure area you don’t have to fill out Arrive Can. Air Canada does have a handy tool that lets you put in your flight and layovers and tell you what the requirements are. I believe with AC you’ll be arriving in Terminal 1. At least that’s where I went coming from Houston.

Yup. I found when they were served on deck to me they didn’t open them. But I did notice that on port days they made sure to open them.

You may not have had to show it but border services can see if passengers don’t fill it out. I have never had to show my QR code going through the border but the agents know that I’ve done it. And know my vax status.

ArriveCan is not just for people arriving by cruise ship. Anyone arriving at any entry is required to use it in some form or another. also. Based on this thread, clearly the cruise lines don’t have it sorted. They literally had tons of people on the ship not fill it out. Since they don’t check passports getting off the boat some people may have entered Canada without it having filled out the app. It is literally the entire premise of this thread. I’m not relying on any other entities to verify information I require. Particularly not one that would benefit by letting requirements slide. If Canada wasn’t so strict on ArriveCAN and entry requirements, Carnival wouldn’t be either.

There are many COVID vaccines. Many combinations people have taken. Some are accepted and some are not. There are time lines involved. The different vaccination papers look different. If you are really checking vaccine status it takes more than a glance. We have an app at work where people could input their vaccination status. Every single one was reviewed by a person. For the straight forward ones - two shots of vaccines used in Canada, it was a nurse. For the others, it was reviewed by someone else with special training. im also not sure if you’ve been to Canada lately but the major airports are seriously understaffed. Line ups to get cleared through security and customs are huge as it is. An extra 30 seconds per person would add a huge ton of time. As it is now, I don’t even have to show my ArriveCAN. It is linked to my passport and when I get to a border agent they see it’s been uploaded and cleared. ArriveCAN also helps track people afterwards. Initially people were required to quarantine for two weeks That is no longer required but people are still being selected for random covid tests and it helps track them as well.

I don’t smoke so I can’t say if it’s the only one. But I know at least one area is in the Garden Pool area. It’s adults only. Right at the bar (and around). There is a couple tables under a cover , stools at the bar and a bunch outside. There was also a cigar lounge. Not sure if all smoking is included.

wow! That is way worse.

Door slamming is a pet peeve of mine. It is actually something I look for in a hotel - can I hear people in the hallway and the doors closing? If I can, I will not book there again. I didn’t have any issue on my last two cruises. But I did stay at a hotel the night before my cruise. There was also a group staying there for a hockey tournament. I knew I was in trouble when I walked to my room and saw all the doors propped open with the security latch (knowing that they were leaving their rooms open for others to come and go). Not only did the doors slam, they slammed on the metal security latch which was even louder. All evening. I could also hear conversations in the next room clearly. Likely partially due to the open door and probably poor construction in general. I will not be staying there again. luckily I was really tired and was still able to get to sleep.

When we travelled in September they would not do this for a man in our line. He was going to miss his flight and they would not accommodate him. We, as passengers, did let him and another person skip ahead of us.