July1963

Thanks everyone for your input.

We booked Norwegian first time for July next year on the Joy. We have since found out that children are not allowed on the Sundeck. This would exclude us as a family from this whole area, our Son will be 14 when sailing, only child and behaves much as an adult. I did have an online Chat with Norwegian and they said to talk with Guest Services when onboard. Has anyone seen children in this area? This may well be a deal breaker for us to the extent we cancel.

I developed Covid on the first day so must have picked it up several days before. I was confined to a quarantine cabin on deck 5 forward. After speaking with several people who were also impacted they had a nickname for that are that I will not name here. I was confined for 8 days and it was a truly horrible experience that I would not wish for anyone. My wife and son had to test each day and had very limited access to ship for 5 days. They also had to eat in the cabin. Unfortunately she tested positive on Day 4. This meant I was confined in Quarantine. My wife was told to stay in her original cabin. The Quarantine area was well occupied so do not know if a room was available at that time. Our travel partners also tested positive at roughly the same time as my wife. They were confined to the Quarantine area. The silver lining with my Wife and travel partners is that the symptoms were not bad and had 2 clear tests after day 5 and were released. They still had to eat in the cabins. Our family missed most of the ports but we did manage to spend a couple of days all together at the end of the cruise. I did speak with a staff member that stated they are having issues recruiting staff. He also stated that they had to sign up for a 10 month contract. Regarding service it was generally very good. I think a few instances when it was not what it should be was perhaps being slightly understaffed, lack of training/experience. On the return trip my Covid symptoms took a turn for the worse, cough being the main issue. I pretty much went straight to the emergency room where they gave me an X-ray and some medications. The hospital staff mentioned that they are seeing a lot of people coming in after being on a cruise. They said for some people after the initial infection the secondary symptoms can very quickly take a turn for the worse and may need additional treatment as was my case. We had planned this trip for a year and were so looking forward to it. It was our 6th voyage on QM2. For our travel partners it will the the first and last cruise. I know we will get future cruise credits but at this point I very much doubt we will ever cruise again. Maybe time will change that but the credits will have expired by then. I think it is important for everyone to fully understand the impact of being quarantined while on board before stepping onboard. My job now is to get over this Covid thing.

Thanks exlondoner, that's good to know it is not a showstopper.

We are getting an error when we submit our health declaration for my son and myself. My Wife completed without an issue. We are leaving on our journey to England this afternoon and hope to reach Cunard before then. I doubt we will have internet access when we arrive. Is this critical to complete before arriving at the terminal. Has anybody completed this at check-in? I hate this last minutes stress!

We have a boarding time of 3:15pm but we have to check out of the hotel by 12:00 noon. We don't want to be lugging our bags around for over 3 hours. Our hotel is near the ship. Can we drop our bags off first and then check in later?

Thanks Mumoftwo and David.

How many days before sailing do you have access to print the labels?