K_e_short

2 hours ago, cruzn1974 said:

Thanks.  What do they need to show for the exemption?  All they have is the results from the Ontario Health site but it does not show last name or other personal info.

I would read the government website regarding Arrival testing.
The wording says "Travellers who provide a positive COVID-19 molecular pre-entry test result, conducted at least 14 and no more than 180 days (starting January 15, 2022, between 10 and 180 days ago) before their scheduled flight or arrival at the land border crossing, are exempt from arrival testing."

https://travel.gc.ca/travel-covid/travel-restrictions/covid-vaccinated-travellers-entering-canada#randomized

i just got back from a NYE cruise. There were a few Canadians on my cruise and two families tested positive.

One family took it well, flew to Washingston State, drove across the border, and got home to isoloate.

The second family reacted very badly, including blaming everyone. I do not think they expected what happened to have happened.

So as others have said - are you willing to test positive for a highly contagious variant of a virus that could give you mild symptoms or make you very sick.. and be sick in another country.

41 minutes ago, mz-s said:

Is there not a "late night snacks" buffet with the little chicken sandwiches, chips, cookies, etc?

Nope. Nothing. Everything but pizza is closed after 10pm.

I brought tupperware containers and ziploc bags with the plan to grab food before things closed and sticking them in my fridge.

1 minute ago, Froufie said:

Looking at that Nomi link for FLL (as a back up for rapid PCR test) -  looks like you can only do same date appointments?  How can you make one in advance?  Or do they not accept those?

I have no idea. I was just sharing what I researched when I was possibly flying in and out of FLL.

2 hours ago, cruzn1974 said:

We had to cancel our B2B  Christmas/NewYear cruises but not by choice.  Wife and daughter tested positive day before on the antigen so I spent all day Christmas Eve on phone. 😞  Was able to get all of my money back but took a hit on the foreign exchange and credit card fees .  Fingers crossed for our upcoming 1/30.   

Not sure this has been mentioned before but the positive from this is your wife and daughter are exempt from the arrival testing when you get back from your next cruise.

You'll still need to make sure they get a negative test to board the cruise ship.

Credit card fees? oh that is not good

I know what you mean about exchange rates. I like to pay off my credit cards right away but hate that one amount is posted then by the time it cleared my credit card the amount has changed.

1 hour ago, Fouremco said:

I have two issues with your suggestion. First of all, if you pretend to be symptomatic, are tested and prove negative, you might not be provided with printed or emailed test results in a format suitable for your flight home.

 

More importantly, I find it offensive to suggest that someone fake having COVID symptoms in order to bypass the procedures. If everyone requiring a PCR test to fly home started claiming symptoms and demanding a test, people who legitimately need to be tested might have trouble getting one. 

I will also add that if you say you have symptoms and ask for a test you will be quarantined to your room until the test comes back. If they think you have Covid you will not be walking around the ship. Not sure the turn around time for tests but still pretty silly.

14 hours ago, SOPHIHEYY said:

Just off the Mardi Gras today, we heard about no covid cases onboard from any staff or passengers. They keep it very hush but imagine there had to be some. 

I was on the Mardi Gras the week before.

They were very good to keep Covid quiet.

But if you happened to have a cabin on Deck 4 and 5 and tried to walk to the back of the ship you'd find the quarantine rooms.

I've mentioned this before that they aren't announcing all the other medical emergencies on board. so why talk about Covid?

Going to chime in here with some politics for a lovely snowy Sunday morning 🙂

Switch Health is making a lot of money off Covid.

They have contracts to do airport testing. They have contracts to do regular pcr testing. They have contracts to do vaccination clinics.

If you search online you will see quite a lot of negative comments.

There is anger that pcr tests from travellers are being processed before pcr tests for health care providers who can't get back to work until they get results.

There is anger that the government is pushing for Switch Health vaccine clinics when the PHU clinics have space.

This just emphasizes that the system is broken.

And I'm allowed to say this since I just got back from a cruise - the system doesn't restrict people from traveling. All it does is create more hoops to jump through. Jumping through the hoops doesn't make things safer. It's all optics.

3 hours ago, abby1257 said:

Family visiting family in Florida had Pcr test done for return flight…3 days later still no results but did receive an email that their test was sent to TEXAS to be analyzed……ARE YOU KIDDING……So ya…flights rebooked …what a sh….t show

Can you buy and ship them the LAMP test from Switch Health? Might be a solution.

The Orlando airport is no longer doing testing.

Someone on another social media site asked me that question, since I had given a detailed report about getting tested there.

You can't book a PCR test and there are no openings for antigen tests at all 😞

26 minutes ago, ddled said:

if the symptoms are as mild as most report including my family, I would have to be dying before I would report my self. I can quarantine myself in my cabin, and at least have that. I imagine the true numbers of people positive on each ship are way higher than reported. Not a good scene.

There are always people who won't say a thing so as to not ruin their vacation.

But remember that Covid has been dealt with very differently depending on where you are from, and when you bring people from around U.S., Canada, and even Europe together you are going to have different responses.

On my NYE cruise roll call, after we got home, some people tested because they had symptoms and found out they had Covid, some tested and came back negative (I was one of them). Some had symptoms but did not test because as they said "it was cruise crud". Some people got mad and angry that we were even talking about Covid after the cruise and told us "to stop living in fear."

The FLL airport does testing in under an hour:

https://www.broward.org/airport/passengers/flights/advisories/pages/default.aspx

https://testing.nomihealth.com/easy_registration/34/onsite

You can also fly out of Miami which is a 30? minute drive and do the testing at that airport instead

https://news.miami-airport.com/covid-19-testing-available-daily-at-mia-starting-may-21/

https://testing.nomihealth.com/easy_registration/100/signup

26 minutes ago, broberts said:

 

Someone posted that an agent told them they were trying to test 75% of arrivals. It's in one of the several threads in this section.

 

When I read it, I figured it was a joke. Guess not.

 That was me that posted that 🙂

I got out of customs in Ottawa and was one of the first people waiting for luggage (perks of flying business class). There were a lot of staff around. The QR Code to register with Switch Health was there and I asked "any idea how many people are going to get picked like me?" and the response was "we will be picking at least 75% of passengers arriving." (or something like that - it was a long travel day - I don't remember exactly what was said).

And to repeat out of the 20 or so people that I chatted with in line, we were the only ones that had been on a cruise. (Yes I'm one of those people that starts randomly talking to you in lines 🙂

8 minutes ago, hubbards said:

I’m curious if you offered up the info that you were on a cruise, or if they knew.  If you hadn’t said anything you wouldn’t have had to test.

I came back from a cruise on Sunday.

I did not lie on my ArriveCan app as thaty would be illegal.

The ArriveCan app asks if you have been in another country other then Canada and the U.S. in the last 14 days.

Also it is random testing. I came back from a flight from Orlando. People on my flight who had just stayed in Florida were chosen.

So lying and saying you weren't in another country won't work.

When I searched online it sounded like the government was testing A LOT of travellers last weekend coming from the U.S. and other countries.

32 minutes ago, lots-of-km2 said:

 

This technique is adaptable to a Winn-Dixie grocery shopping trip:

https://www.legalcheek.com/2020/07/covid-19-lawyer-attends-court-in-hazmat-suit/

I'm a teacher and use Twitter as my professional social media platform.

Most schools are in person in the states so been seeing many frustrated teachers posting their experiences.

The one that stood out was the person in line at the grocery store buying A LOT of groceries and when asked said "I have Covid and am in quarantine so I need food for 2 weeks."

But to get political for a moment, in Ontario only health care workers can get tested so really how do we know if we're surrounded by covid positive people?

1 minute ago, HarborHermit said:

 

I don't remember ever having that ability. Your browser must be better than mine, or you have been cruising longer than I have. 😄

They used to have the option of viewing by calendar or by cruise (the only option now).

I'm sure others will remember.

But I guess it depends on how you search for cruises. I'm limited based on school vacations so for my first cruise I searched for cruises leaving on the Sunday of March Break and coming back the Friday.

For next Christmas it has to leave the 17th and come back the 24th 🙂

13 minutes ago, HarborHermit said:

Which browser were you using before? That's the way it has been for me for a long time. Unless you mean the calendar at the top where you get to click on dates? 

They used to have a calendar view where you could see for example the month of January and when you clicked on a date it would show all the cruises departing on that specific date.

Now I have to click on December 2022 and scroll through all 41 results to see which ones leave on December 17th (see I told you it was frivalous 🙂

Just got back from a cruise and looking ahead to next Christmas.

Carnival changed the way they list cruises on their website.

You used to be able to have a calendar view and could see which cruises left on which date.

That doesn't seem to be an option anymore.

Means I have to click through each cruise to see when it leaves to be able to see what fits into my schedule.

Yes I'm whining. Move along 🙂

18 minutes ago, tert333 said:

 

 

I think when I get back, I am going to create a laminated card with personal information to give someone when they need the details, so that they can just copy the info from the card..

Thats a very good idea.

I know when I got my pcr test done I gave them my passport to make sure my name, birthday, etc. was correct.

I've heard horror stories of issues with wrong info.

1 hour ago, netpj said:

I agree that more people seem to be getting tested.  We flew in from Florida, Friday afternoon.  Looked like many pink stickers, including ours.  Long line-up for testing, took about an hour from entering the line.  We were advised 24 - 48 hrs. for results - we'll see.  We had pre-registered but were told we had to stay in the general line.

Just wanted to let you know that Ottawa did not do stickers, at least when I arrived.

We were given the official government handout with the testing requirements and at the top in red/pink the border staff wrote a letter T X 2 (two people to test).

Nothing was ever written or put on my passports or nexus cards.

1 hour ago, AlbertaCruisers said:

As a note, we had our test last Monday at 6:30pm at Pearson airport. We are still waiting for our results. I’ve been trying to get in touch with Switch Health with no luck. Will wait on hold today. 
 

We were told 48 to 72 hours. 

I would message them on Social Media (Book of Faces and the Bird one 🙂

I messaged them with my testing codes and magically the next day the results showed up.

I also posted on their social media directly.

My results took 5 days, so 114 hours.

I read online really bad reviews of Switch Health and the turn around times. Things like some people never got their results and waited 10 days at home. Some people who knew someone who went in and paid for a pcr test and got results the next day (aka if you pay them the results are quicker).

16 minutes ago, Virga said:

I have friends onboard the Mardi Gras (debarking as I type, I suspect) and I know a lot of our favorite staff members from our last Mardi Gras cruise have been 'on vacation' for their sailing.  They both mentioned that it has seemed like the remaining staff is dealing with more than the usual share of incredibly rude passengers.  Will be interested to see what others have been noticing.

I was on the cruise for NYE. When Costa Maya was cancelled it was not a pleasant day.

People were taking their anger out on the Tiki Bar bar tenders 😞

I remember having a conversation that having to wait for a free drink in the middle of the ocean, where the weather is 88 degrees, is way better then being at home, at work, in the snow.

I was on the Mardi Gras last week, does that count?

No staff issues at all.

Someone mentioned on the last day that there were very few bartenders. I didn't notice.

I never ate in the same place so didn't notice that there were different servers (aka staff testing positive and being replaced).

I also drank at the same bar and it was a group of about 4-5 bartenders, the same ones, the entire week.

The Funsquad was always around. Never noticed anyone missing.

Supposedly there was A LOT of positive cases on board with guests, but it didn't affect staffing.

I paid off my bill with cash, but remember your credit card will still have a hold for the charges.

They cleared out for me within 5 business days, but something to think about if you don't want any holds on a credit card.

The reason it says "not suitable for travel" is that the U.S. is the only country that uses an antigen test for entry into that country.

Most other countries require a PCR test.

So if you were getting the test you got and try to enter Canada or the U.K. you would not be allowed.

But to get on a cruise ship in the country you currently are in isn't really travelling 🙂