CDNPolar

Congratulations! Happy to hear that your cheque arrived!

In my interview for renewal, the US CBP questioned me about several ports that were cruise ship ports in the APAC region. I was surprised that they had all this information, because they were all cruise ship ports, but they did. My understanding is that disembark or not, you visited that country.

First, I am not questioning your medical conditions and don't know your insurance policy language, but this is my experience. In the Canadian insurance policies anything that you are taking a medication for or are receiving treatment for could be considered a pre-existing condition no matter how long you have had the medical condition. In most cases diabetes is not one of these unless your diabetes is not well managed. For instance, if you are on a beta blocker for your heart, and you have been stable for 3 years with no issues, no medication changes, etc., then you are stable and good to go. No worries here. However if your doc changes the medication, or now is recommending a Holter Monitor even as a routine follow up test, this now changes you - in most insurance - to an unstable pre-existing condition and you must conform to the stability period of 3 months or 6 months after the test or the medication change. Even if you expect the Holter Monitor to deliver a stable outcome and it may well do, just the fact that this test was ordered changes your status from stable to unstable and you are now subject to satisfying the stability period again. This is how it is in the Canadian insurance companies and I believe that it is the same with American insurance too. Most folks don't recognize that even a reduction of medication dose, or a stoppage of medication changes that status from stable to unstable.

I am pretty sure with Viking it is 60 days.

Thank you @FlyerTalker as I have learned so much from your explanations. You have a great way of explaining these things in easy to understand terms. I work with a lot of online platforms (not travel related) that the pricing algorithms are so complicated that move with the time of day and the volume and the fees you are paying and so many elements that they are almost impossible to explain. This should be required reading for anyone using Viking Air in MVJ.

For us, we don't often spend more than the cabin price, so we consider Viking to be all inclusive. Even land based all inclusive resorts have other things that cost more - upgraded rooms, dining, drinks packages. The fact is that you could have a very enjoyable experience on Viking without paying more than the cabin price, with the exception in North America of having a gratuity charge at the end of the cruise - but you can decline and have that removed. Is this the best term for a line like Viking that is supposed to be approaching the luxury category? No, but this is catching the attention of those that plain think Viking is too expensive against the mass market lines.

Oh, and no offence to rubber lovers. I don’t discriminate any group and their likes.

Lobster is good, no doubt, but I don't know that it is that amazing to me to get all excited about. I would be just as happy with any well cooked meal. For me lobster is a feast where you are not just having a tail cut in half, but you have a plastic tub of whole lobsters on a paper lined table, crackers, picks and all the tools, put on a bib and get down to business.

I think that 15K steps in 3 hours even on flat surface would be a lot for many people and a real workout. It would be interesting if Viking would consider putting "Step Counts" into their excursions. This might help many folks to understand the demand from a walking perspective. That is a fair workout for 3 hours.

We have always purchased Air Plus before. This is the first time we have not and we are anticipating flights to be populated in about 60 days. That is when we will be looking at all of this, so I am excited to see where this goes with other experience.

How the heck is anyone going to look at any one of these flying anywhere and say, oh my gosh, that is the Rubber Pride flag! I never even knew that there was a Rubber Pride flag. Who dreams these up? Do they go in front of a Gay Legislature for approval?

I would rather have no labels but we are a society of people who love to apply a label to both themselves and others. Labels won't go away. What is the saying my Mother used, and likely others out there...? Call me anything you want, just don't call me late for dinner.

For us it is only about the deals and the OBC. We are quite confident doing it all ourselves.

I would agree that they are trying to make the loading and unloading of luggage easier, but we typically handle our own carryon. We rarely leave that with the checked luggage to arrive in our cabin, because this bag is where we have the medications, laptop, and other valuables. So, we are technically only giving any cruise line one bag pp to schlep. And, yes @gnome12 this is a great suggestion and this is how we store our bags at home too...

Great review and great pics! Glad you enjoyed it.

Great - MVJ gets easier to navigate as you get used to it. Not the most intuitive platform, but it works for the most part. My only complaint about MVJ is that if you are using a TA then you cannot see your account and payments. I don't need the ability to make payments on the cruise portion, but I would like to see the payments made and outstanding.

Since we first received our Nexus cards, we were aware that all family members (immediate only I believe) could do something that could result in us having our cards revoked if they were found or caught doing something that was against Nexus rules. This is in the fine print somewhere. Seemingly my brother could falsely declare goods either driving or flying be pulled into secondary, have the false declaration exposed, and lose not only his Nexus, but cause the loss of ours as well. We had this discussion with my brothers when we first signed up. I personally don't think that this has anything to do with your kids using your address. I think that "they" know who you are and who is family.

If it were this easy to "stay on board" I would refuse to pay my bill on the last day!

Yes, I have mentioned that we do this exact thing because we found that it significantly reduced our packing not thinking about a separate wardrobe for evenings. But, we don't dress in jeans and t-shirts or tank tops during the day, but find that our dress is acceptable as "elegant casual" in the evenings. We have over the years purchased a lot of comfortable travel clothing that is smart for day or evening.

Welcome to Cruise Critic! The only comment that I have as someone that has claimed and received back a significant amount of money for an unforeseen medical event that caused a cancelation is don't skimp on the insurance. If you are one that wants to insure your trip, don't look to save a few hundred dollars. We always do what Steve suggests above and insure per person cost - the only saving grace for us as a couple is we are the same cost so we do take the total cost and divide by two. Very good blog post Steve! I was not so aware of this before reading this. I just wish that you sold insurance in Canada!

Welcome to Cruise Critic and I too am sorry to hear of this situation with your Dad and it must be stressful planning anything, let alone thinking also about the potential of cancelling. I went through this with my Mom over several years not knowing exactly when the time was going to come, but fortunately she passed when we were home and able to be with her. Now, Canadian insurance can be different from what is available in the USA, but from my understanding in Canada anyway, a family members illness or medical situation that is not travelling is never considered anything to do with a pre-existing condition. However, our policies have language like what you have quoted: Unforeseen" -- and "Unforeseen" is defined as "not anticipated or expected..." I would think that regardless of what you might "swear" that the insurance company is going to look at the doctor's reports and hospital records to determine if this could have been anticipated when you bought the trip and the insurance, and the most critical date is the date that the insurance was purchased. In short, and in my opinion, if you are purchasing a trip and insurance with a reasonable expectation that you might have to cancel, then the insurance company is going to see it the same way and you may not be covered unless you pay for CFAR insurance. Personally I would contact the insurance company on the phone and spell out your exact situation NOW and let them guide you. Get it from the source. Sorry again about your Dad.

Yes! Thanks! Cannot wait!

We spend a lot of time searching for and finding the government websites from the country we are going to. I have seen here on CC people paying over $100 for a Visa when we got the same visa from the government website for $25. You have to be very careful where you are landing and that it is a credible site. Often the URL tells you a lot.

Well, it gives your Partner the full menu to browse and no worries, because you always get included wines with meals. In essence this has cost Viking nothing to upgrade you.

Yes, I can be "harsh" sometimes and was more so in the past and have had some posts removed. Now I just look the other way, count to 10 and convince myself that the person meant well and if I was speaking to them in-person I would hear the sarcasm in their voice. (Even though I know it's not sarcasm). Walking away is the better thing to do.