HenryKisor

Just make sure the California certificate has a serial number on it. 

On 7/17/2022 at 9:19 PM, DUTRAVEL said:

That's interesting - did they ask about the dog food in Vancouver at the port on disembarkation or at the border on the way to Seattle? We have returned to Vancouver on a couple of cruises and I'm not sure if I remembered to declare that I had Henri's food with me (probably haven't done it in California or Florida either). When traveling, I bring Henri's food in the original unopened package (with enough in separate baggies until we get on the cruise ship so that I don't have to open the main bag until then). I'm going to start bringing the receipt with me too now that they questioned you.

 

The EU only lets you bring in 2 kg of pet food and it must be needed for health required reasons.  No way is 2 kg enough for a 65lb lab for two or three weeks. I always ask my Vet to write a letter stating that my service dog needs to remain on her normal diet when traveling. 

 

Did you have any issues with the Alaskan Health Certificate? I have checked with my Vet to make sure they can do a California Certificate of Veterinary Inspection when we travel to Alaska in September.  Did your Vet e-mail or mail a copy to the Alaska State Veterinarian's Office?

No questions at Vancouver disembarkation. The questions came at the U.S. border on the way to Seattle. No questions anywhere about the health certificate, except to show the rabies vaxx cert. Vet did not file an email or mail a copy to the Alaska state vet office, but just gave the documents to me. I did give a copy of the Illinois health certificate (which just says the dog has been vaxxed against rabies and is in good health) as well as the 7001 to the ship after we boarded. Possibly the ship's port officer informed Alaskan ports of the documentation, but we hopped off the ship at Ketchikan, Skagway, Juneau and Whittier without any official turning up to question us. 

On 6/13/2022 at 10:16 AM, HenryKisor said:

We're scheduled to board HAL's Nieuw Amsterdam next Sunday in Vancouver. Boarding time for my assigned group is 2 p.m. Ship departs at 4 p.m. That doesn't give us a lot of time to find the location of the pee station or talk to the dining room maitre 'd for a suitable table against a wall. On previous voyages out of Fort Lauderdale and Montreal, there were special desks in the departure halls for passengers with special needs. We didn't have to wait long and were whisked aboard quickly. I am thinking about the possibility of just showing up at an earlier time and heading for the special needs desk. Or maybe I should try to find a HAL rep at our hotel the night before and ask. What do youse guys think?

 

Here is what happened. I could not get an answer from HAL headquarters or the third-party rep who was handling HAL passengers at the hotel. So Debby, Trooper and I just arrived at the cruise terminal at 10 a.m. and were immediately directed to the special needs desk, which had us wait in an alcove with a few other gimps and when boarding started at 10:30 we were whisked aboard first. Easy peasy. 

Back from a two-week Alaska cruise out of Vancouver with a bus trip afterward to Seattle, where we caught a train back to Chicago.

A slight glitch returning through US Customs and Immigration. We had packed individual meals in plastic sandwich baggies for Trooper, and we declared them on the customs form. The agent said we were supposed to bring the original kibble bag with us as well as a sales slip proving we bought the food in the United States. We didn't have those, and the agent said she technically had to confiscate the food, but when my wife pointed out that Trooper was a service dog and had to eat specific food, the agent said she'd let it go this time. Next time we'll again pack the individual meals in baggies, but we'll stuff them all back into the bag and take a sales slip, too. 

"Service dog handler" is what people with disabilities who use service dogs call themselves. I'm one of them.

Calling HAL is problematic because I'm deaf . . . and asking a hearing person to spend an hour or more on hold to accommodate me is a no-go.

I'll just look for the HAL rep at the hotel the night before. I'll also try emailing the guest accessibility people, but having had considerable experience with them, may not get a response in time.

I'm a service dog handler. We're scheduled to board HAL's Nieuw Amsterdam next Sunday in Vancouver. Boarding time for my assigned group is 2 p.m. Ship departs at 4 p.m. That doesn't give us a lot of time to find the location of the pee station or talk to the dining room maitre 'd for a suitable table against a wall for the dog. On previous voyages out of Fort Lauderdale and Montreal, there were special desks in the departure halls for passengers with special needs. We didn't have to wait long and were whisked aboard quickly. I am thinking about the possibility of just showing up at an earlier time and heading for the special needs desk. Or maybe I should try to find a HAL rep at our hotel the night before and ask. What do youse guys think?

We're scheduled to board HAL's Nieuw Amsterdam next Sunday in Vancouver. Boarding time for my assigned group is 2 p.m. Ship departs at 4 p.m. That doesn't give us a lot of time to find the location of the pee station or talk to the dining room maitre 'd for a suitable table against a wall. On previous voyages out of Fort Lauderdale and Montreal, there were special desks in the departure halls for passengers with special needs. We didn't have to wait long and were whisked aboard quickly. I am thinking about the possibility of just showing up at an earlier time and heading for the special needs desk. Or maybe I should try to find a HAL rep at our hotel the night before and ask. What do youse guys think?

I'm heading for Alaska out of Vancouver for a 14-day HAL cruise next week. Checking APHIS brought up the info that for dogs and cats Alaska now requires a 7001 with a certificate number OR a state veterinary health certificate with a stamped number. Most U.S. vets use the downloadable form because they don't have a pad of numbered paper certificates, and the downloadable form has no number, so that isn't valid. My vet filled out the 7001 for the ship and the Illinois health certificate for Alaska.

Now we'll see if this is actually being enforced or it's just a bunch of bureaucratic bumf.

Massachusetts now requires a 7001, too, but doesn't specify that it carry a certificate number.

We're getting our tests at the first site on this list:

Trooper and I (and Debby) are scheduled for back-to-back Vancouver-Whittier-Vancouver cruises on the Nieuw Amsterdam June 19-July 3, and I'm hoping mightily the new Omigod variant (as Omicron is known in my house) behaves itself sufficiently. We just made appointments (CAN$135 each, nonrefundable) for rapid antigen tests in Vancouver the day before, and will be crossing our fingers. Trooper just had his rabies vaxx and we'll take him back to the vet for the APHIS 7001 before leaving home. 

Thank you! That makes sense. Now I've got to book a place in Vancouver for the day the ship sails. Shouldn't be difficult.

Another question: We're doing back-to-back Alaska voyages on the Nieuw Amsterdam from Vancouver to Whittier and return. Will we have to be covid tested at Whittier between deboarding and reboarding? If so, does Whittier have someplace for rapid covid testing?

7 hours ago, Cruise Suzy said:

 

 

Look under Already Booked, Cruise Activities, Specialty Dining. Then select the venue you want to book.

 

If you have Complimentary Dining from Have It All, be sure to check that AND select names from the drop-down list. (The number of Complimentary Dining credits will show on your Itinerary, also available in Already Booked.) If you do this, the screen will indicate a $0.00 charge. You can combine Complimentary Dining and reservations you pay for in the same cart. Just be sure the charges are correct.

 

If you have AnyTime Dining, you can select days/times for the Main Dining Room (no charge). No need to select a time if you have Fixed Dining.

Sadly, when I do this (I do have Have It All), it doesn't work properly. I'm trying to book dinner for myself and my wife in the Pinnacle, but it keeps showing up in the cart with a $96 charge and a request for a credit card number. Maybe I should wait until we're aboard ship to do this. Meanwhile, we want to dine in the regular dining room the other nights but I am not given a choice for AnyTime Dining. This is annoying.

My wife, my service dog, and I will be on the Nieuw Amsterdam heading to Alaska out of Vancouver on June 19. I have not been able to book dining room times on the HAL web site. How is this done, please?

I and mine are doing back-to-backs Vancouver-Whittier-Vancouver on the Nieuw Amsterdam in June/July. I presume there will be a means of rapid testing at Whittier before reboarding the ship for the voyage to Vancouver.

I'm hoping that in June HAL will require masks INSIDE the ship but make them optional on the outside decks and the open pool deck. A nice sea breeze will help immensely.

Like Ellen, I've booked back-to-back cruises from Vancouver to Alaska in June. I'm watching things carefully and will decide on go/no-go by March 15, when full payment is due.

It's a neurological echo that goes away after a while. After a cruise my legs "thrum" to the cadence of the ship's engines for about five or six days. Same after a two-day, two-night train trip. I've heard some people are so bothered by the phenomenon tey never want to travel by ship or train again.

I also find myself walking spraddle-legged like a sailor for a day or two after a cruise.

"By their behavior ye shall know them."

By the way, it should be pointed out that some states, Illinois among them, make discrimination against service dog teams a misdemeanor, a criminal offense, and the local cops can be called to enforce state law. However, some law enforcement agencies may not be aware of the law or think they have better things to do. If you run up against this problem you can ask the county attorney to inform the police of their obligations.

Here's a vote for always vesting your dog in public, except maybe at a nude beach (that would be a faux pas). Trooper is from an ADI-affiliated organization so wears an official Dogs for Better Lives-issued vest wherever we go. I too have an invisible disability, so the vest helps persuade gatekeepers on first glance that Trooper MAY be a legit service dog. In fact, DBL's policy is that hearing dogs should be vested at all times in public.

There are other reasons. I now live in an independent living retirement community with about 110 residents. Trooper's bright orange vest helps alert seniors with poor eyesight to the little black dog on dark carpets. 

Of course some people assume Trooper must be a fake because he is a small dog, a 20 pound schnoodle, but the hell with them. (If they ask nicely, I do try to educate them politely.)

Should we buy identifying gear online? If we have independently trained, or self trained, service dogs, there is no choice. I myself bought a "SERVICE ANIMAL" patch to put on Trooper's orange winter coat because DBL doesn't provide such patches and carefully limits each of its graduates to one vest (it will supply a new one when the old wears out).

I guess that every service dog and their handler has different needs and experiences, and we should respect their ideas about what they have to do to make life easier for them.

If your ship is stopping anywhere in the Bahamas, you MUST have an import permit for your service dog even if you are not getting off the ship. You will not be allowed to board if you do not have this permit.

First, is your dog actually a service animal necessary for a disability? If so, then we can help you. But if your dog is a pet, we cannot help you. We do not approve of trying to pass off pets as service animals. That hurts us.

Other questions: Where was your dog trained? A training organization? A private trainer? What tasks does it do for you? 

I strongly recommend that you ask your vet to fax the application to the Bahamas over the vet's letterhead. The Bahamians seem to treat that as more "official" than "casual" and move faster and more carefully.

When I saw this I just had to post it here.

Every service dog handler will have their own way of dealing with unwanted attention, and this is mine. Very, very few people have any understanding of service dog etiquette, and it is not their obligation to educate themselves—it is OUR obligation to educate them if we can. If someone asks to pet Trooper, I almost always can say yes, asking the person to sit down and giving Trooper the "go say hello!" command. Then I explain what Trooper does for me as a hearing alert assistance dog, at the same time pressing a calling card with the Dogs for Better Lives info upon them. It's a victory when we not only educate someone but can make them friends of service dogs in general. SD handlers with guide dogs or those in wheelchairs or with mobility or social impairments may not find this so easy to do, however, and no obligation attaches to them.

So far I have encountered no unruly drunks or rude people while cruising, but that's probably because Trooper and I sail the staid Geezer Line (HAL) exclusively. Not that older people are any less curious, but they do have better manners in general. There are a few stink eyes, but those can be ignored.