gooch47

I know I could probably figure this out, but I'm thinking of taking my granddaughter and her boyfriend on a Princess Cruise.  They are both nineteen and (gasp) want their own cabin, leaving me in a cabin by myself. 

Can this be done?

Same problem.  We went back to the Walgreens store and they replaced their chintzy one with one that said CDC on it.  Don't know if it really means anything, but it made me feel better.

What really made me mad, though, was their employee who earlier told me only hospitals were handing out the CDC ones.  I knew that wasn't true.  Our daughter got a CDC one at a different Walgreens.

16 hours ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

You may not realize it but, if you already didn’t, you now have a medical record at Walgreens and, depending on your regular health care provider’s record system (hopefully MyChart or some other Epic system) that info should be syncable.

Count me in the camp of folks who believe that, should a vaccine passport or passport visa become required, only the bona fide medical record (and not the paper card) will be required for proof that you were vaccinated.

Ours is just a half sheet of paper that is actually raggedly torn along one edge.  And instead of the CDC logo in the upper right hand corner it simply says "Walgreens."  I can just see myself walking up to the counter at a cruise terminal and not being allowed to board.  It looks so unofficial.

I'm sure we could get it done, just not terribly motivated at this point.

Funny thing. Some years ago they had to run a new line from the box t o the house.  Left the old one connected, or at least it looks like it is.  The new one is hidden under our deck.  So thieves would probably cut the wrong one.

Some day we need to figure out how to convert our alarm system to use a cellular phone.  That is the only reason we keep our land line.

A little off subject, but I bought quite a few postcards on Curacao at the Curacao factory.  I wanted to mail them home.  The sweet clerk said if I gave her the money she would buy the postage and mail them for me.

Guess what?  Nobody ever saw a single postcard.

Some of the roughest seas we've ever encountered was between New York City and Ft. Lauderdale.  Twice.

And of course, the North Sea.  We missed Greenland twice and arrived at Iceland so late all tours were cancelled.

Around the horn was extremely smooth.  And so was the area around the Falklands.

Ohio is supposedly going to a centralized scheduling system around the middle of this month.  I'm not sure I understood the process.  One place said you could schedule right there on that web site but another hinted that it is only going to refer you to places that had available appointments.

I am a retired software engineer and I cringe to think of the problems that could arise with thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people all trying to go to the same site at the same time.  But of course, Amazon handles it, don't they?  LOL

Edited:  I also just read where Ohio will be doing the 65+ appointments for several weeks.  Reason?  More 65+ people.  My guess is vaccine availablity for second doses, teachers, etc.

Sadly, no cruises since forever, but when we were cruising frequently I'd get Norovirus.  Had it at least six times.  But we stopped going to the buffets, and no more Norovirus.

39 minutes ago, Markanddonna said:

If you live near Licking County, go to their website. I believe they are scheduling today or tomorrow for next week- by phone only. I'm in that 70+ group too.

We live in Reynoldsburg about a half mile from Licking County.  But when I try that number I get a message I've never heard before:  "We're sorry, your call did not go through.  Try again."

But thanks for the hint.

Our favorites were the "Most Travelled Passenger" luncheons on Princess.  The food was always wonderful but even more so I enjoyed being recognized as a valued customer.

We also were invited to a couple of them with NCL but they no where came close to the special occasion that Princess offered.

I must say, though, that when Princess had cocktail parties instead of luncheons it was no where near as nice.

Thank you so much.  We do live in Ohio and all I get is "No appointments available" for every provider I check.  We are in the 70 year old group that got combined with the teachers.  I have no problem with the teachers getting theirs sooner but it sure has made it nearly impossible for me and my husband.

My husband had to have a covid test five days before a medical procedure.  He couldn't understand why he had to stay home between the test being administered and the procedure.  He could have had the test and became infected that same afternoon.

I've told this story before on Cruise Critic.  It was actually before the cruise.  Hope it counts.

We arrived at the New Orleans port to board.  No ship.  We were told it was delayed.  Later found out it was diverted to Key West to offload a sick passenger.

No one was allowed inside the building.  At first there were lines, but that quickly disintegrated as busloads from the airport arrived and people just pushed in toward the doors.  Parking was a nightmare since the cars were still there from the passengers already on board from the last cruise.

Once the outlet mall closed there were no restrooms, no food, no place to sit down.  If you had to use the restroom they would take your passport at the door to the building and give it back when you came back outside.  No food, nothing to drink.  They brought out some sandwiches and water but it disappeared very quickly.

The ship finally arrived around 5:30 p.m.  You all know it takes a while to dock, unload the luggage and the passengers.  I don't know exactly what time they started allowing people into the building but it was a stampede.  We hung back, but finally reached the security checkpoint.  We were herded into groups and told to sit down until our group was called.  Like sheep, we obeyed, but were among the few that obeyed.  People were pushing and shoving to get into lines to check in.  To make matters worse, some of the employees who were to check people in decided their shift was over and went home.  So they were short on staff.   I finally told my husband our "group" was never going to get called so we joined the throng.  We checked in and again were told where to sit until we were called.  Once again we tried to comply.  We finally realized there were only about a dozen or so of us left sitting.  We finally got to our cabin around midnight.  Not sure when the ship actually sailed since we collapsed into bed.

There is no way we blamed the ship for diverting, and the mess outside was probably not under the control of the cruise line.  They somehow made up some of the time but our first stop was cut short.

People can be allergic to anything.  Aspirin?  Dog hair?  Your husband?

I'm more concerned that now that the vaccinations are available that people will become complacent and stop taking care to avoid the virus.

2 minutes ago, clo said:

Is it the getting to and from the ship that wears you out? We're your age and generally to to Europe or Latin America so it's multiple planes/layovers. (Reno doesn't have a lot of nonstops flights.) So we always get in at least two or three days ahead of time.

We always go in a couple days early, too.  But dragging suitcases around and just walking around the mega ships both wear us out. 

Not sure we ever will.  If at all, not until 2022 is my best guess.

We aren't getting any younger (73 and 76) and the last cruise even two years ago was getting to be a bit much.  I'm thinking maybe a cruise inside the USA.  Great Lakes, Mississippi River, something like that.

I thought of another one:  Tahiti

Went there twice.  Both ship's excursion.  The first time we toured in and near the city of Papeete.  I was shocked to see they had a freeway, LOL.   It was so disappointing.  The second time we got out into the countryside, took a jeep excursion up into the mountains,  That was the Tahiti I was looking for.

On 10/28/2020 at 3:52 PM, mom says said:

Of course there are. Have you not heard of rapid tests? Of course their reliability is not that great compared to the PCR tests...

Thank you.  I honestly didn't remember there were tests that came back that quickly.  I should have.  Back in June I had to have some minor surgery and had to have a test within 24 hours before the scheduled time.  Let's just call this a senior moment.

Test positive at the pier?  Is there really a test where results are available that quickly?

I'm sure many will disagree, but for me it was the Amazon River.  I'm not sure what I expected.  Jaguars peering out of the jungle on the bank?  Flocks of colorful parrots flying overhead?  We did get to see the pink river dolphins and go fishing for piranha, but overall it was just a big disappointment to me.

Another one was the entire Baltic Cruise.  But I was sick as a dog so I suppose that was a big influence.

On 10/22/2020 at 5:21 AM, Hflors said:

I thought the Vatican was my biggest disappointment.  The wealth displayed there would have cured world hunger for one thousand years!  During my time there I kept thinking about the priest in our church chastising the parishioners for not donating enough to the church so the church could do "God's" work.  And then to see a whole "city" and realize "God's" work supported this.  Very disappointing.

I felt that way about the cathedrals in Quito, Ecuador.  There is one that is nearly completely covered inside in gold foil.  Same day we went outside and there was a march going on about rent increases.

I was walking through a lounge on an Hawaiian cruise and heard someone call my name.  It turned out to be a former pastor and his family.  But what was really strange was that he knew we were on board because all of our tour tickets had accidentally been delivered to his cabin.

Not exactly an activity, but we took an Amazon River Cruise on the old, small Royal Princess.  The dining room was low on the ship and while you were eating you could hear these loud thumps.  Our waited told us it was the ship hitting logs in the river.

On 8/28/2020 at 8:08 AM, Roz said:

Viking is absolutely relentless! There is no way to stop their mailings.  I swear if you ask to be taken off their list they send you twice as many brochures.  I get mail from Regent and Oceania all the time even though the chances of me sailing with them are slim to none.

We took one cruise with Viking many years ago.  I swear any profit they made off us for that cruise is long gone due to the frequent brochure mailings we get from them.