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Hi, I’m really enjoying reading about your daily adventures, trivia, crafts, meals, shore excursions, plus seeing all the photos (which I’m able to access from the link in post #208). The calm seas and sunset look amazing. I’ll be joining in Cape Town and wonder if there’s a way to reserve a spot on a trivia team, an early seating dining table, the watercolor class, or anything else that might be tricky finding a spot if I wait until aboard. Any help or advice will be greatly appreciated. After reading this blog (and that of G and J Travels), I feel like I know a bit about the ship, activities, plus several of the ports, and can’t wait to be there with you all myself, in just a couple of weeks. Keep having a great time, entertaining us with tales of your adventures and time aboard, and see you at the meet and greet. Thanks for all the info, take care, Vicki 1946

Congratulations, Kathi, on your negative test and release from captivity! I am so glad you are now out and about and free to enjoy the rest of the cruise. It's been very enlightening following this blog, hearing about the cruise including the really unfortunate experience of quarantine. I'll be joining you all in Cape Town and very much looking forward to it. If anyone would be so kind, would it be possible to find out if I can sign up early for any of the watercolor classes starting after Cape Town? Thanks also for posting the itinerary showing all the crafts projects, which look great. I know yellow fever vax has been discussed a lot but I'm wondering if, when boarding in Montreal or Ft Lauderdale, HAL required seeing yellow fever vax waivers or the yellow international certificates of vaccination showing dates within or beyond 10 years? Thanks so much for all the postings and happy cruising! Vicki

That is so interesting that you are boarding mid-segment. How do you go about doing that? Do you need special permission and can you choose any port in which to board? Thanks! Vicki

Holland America's Travelwell and health protocols FAQs website states as to testing after covid recovery: Exceptions may apply for asymptomatic guests who have tested positive for COVID-19 within 90 days of their embarkation if they are at least 10 days past their COVID-19 infection, are fully recovered with no symptoms and produce documentation of recovery from COVID-19 infection. Documentation of Recovery consists of the following: Paper or electronic copies of the positive viral test result from a certified laboratory (dated no more than 90 days ago), or A valid digital COVID-19 Certificate (DCC) or a document issued by a health or government authority showing confirmed previous infection. Guest who present these documents will need to go through a secondary screening at the terminal, and boarding will be approved at the medical staff’s discretion. Does anyone have experience with this or know what the secondary screening consists of? If someone is, appears, or feels fully recovered (and has the above documentation), can they count on being allowed to board? Is a covid test still required within 2-3 of embarkation? Any tips for handling this? Thanks!

Hi, Holland America's FAQs states: Documentation of Recovery consists of the following: Paper or electronic copies of the positive viral test result from a certified laboratory (dated no more than 90 days ago), or A valid digital COVID-19 Certificate (DCC) or a document issued by a health or government authority showing confirmed previous infection. Guest who present these documents will need to go through a secondary screening at the terminal, and boarding will be approved at the medical staff’s discretion. Does anyone have experience with this or know what the secondary screening consists of? If someone is, appears, or feels fully recovered, can they count on being allowed to board? Any tips for handling this? Thanks!

Using HAL gift cards to make the final payment for my cruise was quite an experience and if I ended up with a discount overall, it was well earned. I’m glad to hear that they changed the $25 bonus cards to higher denominations as all those cards and numbers took plenty of time to enter (and manually remove the spaces between numbers). It took me 7 days of attempting to purchase cards, calling “buyatab”, trying the “chat” option (no response), calling HAL, emailing HAL and “buyatab” (no response or help), and receiving hundreds of emails but it’s finally (mostly) complete (I hope). As has been the case with many others who’ve posted, several times the transaction was canceled as they were “unable to authenticate” my order. My credit card companies said it wasn’t them, it was a problem with the vendor. Most of the phone numbers for “buyatab” did not work (fast busy signal) and when one of the phone numbers was answered, most staff didn’t know anything about HAL gift cards. Eventually, I spoke to someone at “buyatab” who did know about them and how to “authenticate” my order. She just verified my email address and said to wait 24 hours and I would get an another email. The email stated “your order has been reassessed and is now active”. This worked and I was able to continue with the previously canceled order(s). Due to not getting all of the bonus cards that I’d calculated, I ended up having to buy extra cards and tried to move the excess to my on-board HAL account. Although the correct amount shows in an email, it does not show anywhere in my HAL account, that I can find. Does anyone know if it should show or where I can find it? When calling HAL, they haven’t been able to find it or help. In all of my attempts, successes and failures at purchasing these cards, at least I wasn’t subjected to having to select photos (ha ha, that’s little consolation but another wrinkle for some). The very first HAL staff I spoke to about the gift cards recommended that I simply pay by credit card instead – maybe he was right. Thanks for listening! Vicki