hal2008

Most hotels in Copenhagen do not have air conditioning 

Tripadvisor and other travel site are outright incorrect in that regard 

Very few hotels like Marriott has true air conditioning.

Most hotels have air cooling where you can "try" to adjust room temperature by few degrees by electronically controlling ventilation

Copenhagen typically do not require air conditioning and most residences do not have that.

But with climate change, there are some warm days in summer and while periodic showers help from getting very hot, they increase humidity and that cannot be lowered by so called "air cooling".

You are actually better off with high floor where window can be opened and stuffiness reduced by using hotel provided desk fan or pedastal fan.

Two hotels at airport so have AC.

So does Marriott. 

I have used them 

They work fine except if something goes wrong it is virtually impossible to reach them.

They put wrong date and time for the test rendering this whole circus useless 

Their competition seems to get great feedback and will be using them goi g forward 

On 7/27/2022 at 3:48 PM, MaddyandMax said:

Sorry - for clarification - I was referring to the comment from someone about how its possible that Royal may get rid of testing but require you to have had a vaccine/booster within 270 days. The reference to Canada was not because I'm cruising there but because I live in Canada and boosters haven't been approved for my youngest.

 

Apologies for the confusion.

270 days requirement is purely speculative based on exactly that Europe did this summer.

Some people in medical field were done with their two shots by Jan 2021.

Using that as to consider being vaccinated in 2023 spring (2+ years later) may not make sense.

How are Canadians handling current RCL requirement of last shot within 270 days for European cruising? 

1 hour ago, milolii said:

So, how easy is it to visit the Curonian Spit DYI from a cruise ship?  It is hard finding shorter tours. (5-6 hours).  Our port time is 8 hours.  The tours I am finding are 7-8 hours.  I did send an email to the company mentioned in 

post #3.   Their tour dates 7.5-8 hours.  We are interested in the dunes.,
 

I agree about the injury risk. Ty 

Going to Nida will be tight 

Going to Baltic beach which has dunes (but not like Nida) is easy.

8 hour port time is actually about 6 to 6 5 hours of workable time. You will be on parking lot of Smiltyne in less than an hour after gangway opens.  Enough time to do cycling, beach, amber browsing, etc.  May not be enough to go all the way to Nida. 

@Hallasm.

Can you see the artic circle marker on the shore from the cruise ship?

On 7/25/2022 at 6:52 PM, KrisD28 said:

Howdy all - excited to stumble upon this thread. My wife and I just booked a 12-day RCL cruise in July 2023. We can't wait to start planning excursions and learning more about each port. We are avid hikers and love being outside and exploring so we figured this a perfect spot for us to visit. 

This is an excellent itinerary

1. It is not a 14 day trip made of up of two 7 day cruises that HAL and others run (ship comes back to Amsterdamn and goes out again)

2. Long enough time at Stavanger to do Pulpit rock hike 

3. Both top deep fjord cruising included 

a. Odd that RCL marketing considers "Arctic Circle" cruising only on southbound on 8th day but not Northbound on 5th day. (may be actual arctic circle crossing might be happening during overnight on Northbound).

b. Would have preferred to see Oslo instead of Kristiansand (and may be Bergen or Alesund  instead of Molde) t make it even better.

For mainline american cruises, there are only 3 or 4 trips each year among all of them combined that are this good.

Intra-Europe fare is very cheap when booked about 3 weeks or so in advance including 1 checkin bag.

But in current chaos, train works out better both for 4-6 hours mid-hauls or overnight long-hauls.

Combining two or three cruise/land vacations dents the cost of TA airfare (and that also doesn't matter if you book awards tickets which are so easy to get on partner airlines or newly initiated routes using extended layovers strategy - you even get an extra local sightseeing out of it - just need to think out of sandbox and be creative)

3 minutes ago, exm said:

 

I think if you compare mortality and rates of BA.5 with the flu you'll be surprised. Unfortunately people keep on dragging Delta numbers into the comparison which is a totally different situation.

Totally correct.

No point in looking at alpha/Delta or even Omicron right now 

Until, new variant shows up, our group's current analysis is focussed in BA.5 only.

From last week's summary:

1. For most people BA.5 is actually less suffering than typical full fledged flu.

2. Mortality/Hospitalization is significantly down but still higher than Flu.

3. Transmissibility (how infectious it is) is troubling as it is drastically higher than flu.

These were summary conclusions, not opinions of talking heads on CableTV or CC posters.

But putting the above in perspective of current regulations on cruise lines? Not much directly correlated. 

In absence of any regulations, cruise lines will remove/impose restrictions as per feedback from their PR/legal/marketing teams 

8 minutes ago, hazeleyes46 said:

Most of us are living normal and knowing this is a virus that will never go away and needs to be treated like every other virus out there.

14 cruises on 4 continents after reopening, do give you different perspective (forced research, experiences, observations).

"Treated like every other virus" - not possible. Ever. Because there is a whole spectrum of viruses out there and we sensibly do treat them differently. 

No need to treat covid like ebola. But it hasn't reached flu/norovirus category yet.  Hopefully soon 

Just now, exm said:

 

There's plenty of viruses out there including the flu, and no one cares about those. It's time to treat Covid like the flu.

Totally agree.

Now only if covid cooperates and behaves like flu 

It is getting there ....

Hopefully soon ... 

You can even order such special diet related meals by talking to head waiter in MDR (not custom dish but specific diet)

They will indeed try their best using what is available to them.  Dish may turn out hit or miss but they will try.

Also, it is possible to get that MDR prepared dish delivered to WJ (they have an official process setup for it with internal forms between MDR and WJ).   More relaxed environment but more importantly, if dish is a miss, you can grab various things from WJ. 

8 hours ago, mkdreams said:

Well better get used to the fact that change is coming really soon, now that is a fact! Time to get back to living normal again!

Hope virus listens to you about need to live "normal"  again.

43 minutes ago, flamingos said:

Just to be clear - you know the regulations for this trip and you have no intention to comply with them. So the obvious answer is to not book the cruise.

Exactly 

Right or Wrong, we have no choice but to comply with requirements of cruise line (directly or indirectly due to the requirements of ports on the trip).

It is quite likely that requirements will be relaxed (hopefully) or tightened (hope not).   

If current requirements are not of your likings and you are hell bent on not complying then obvious answer is do not book until you get favorable results - either with regulations or with your personal stand 

What else you expected this community to say? 

On 7/23/2022 at 6:27 PM, Potstech said:

They do not say that it is reported that over 100 of the cases are crew who have been isolated. It is news so it can't be biased, just ask them,

Pax (not crew) reporting covid is now is substantially more.   

Can anyone who has taken cruise this year to Bergen's Dokken/Jetevik port confirm where does the free port bus drop pax?

1. Just outside the port gate (1 minute bus ride)

2. Byparken (central park with lake)

3. Torget/Fishmarket

For someone traveling alone ( Arlanda is more economical with two or more in party)

There are two commuter train options.

First one (right from the airport, skycity, is not that cheaper as one has to pay "arlanda gateway fee")

Second is bus to Mastra station and then train into city (youtube video available) - Will never recommend this option to cruise travel after TransAtlantic flight.

If Arlanda is expensive then flybus about 119 Kr and Flexibis (if available) might be even cheaper.

Nordic hotel is so convenient from Arlanda platform (front of the train) (Hotel C, if acceptable, is closer)

From the rear of the Arlanda Express train, Scandic Grand Central is convenient (and budget hotel Comfor Express is actually right above the rear of the platform)

2 hours ago, Baseball fan said:

Thank you for confirming this.  I did load the app so it should be easy once I arrive.

Dont know if Oceankaj cruise terminal has ticket vending machine or gift shop that can sell you city pass but airport, train, etc. you can get city pass paper ticket very easily and those tickets are lot more convenient then fiddling with phone.

On 7/23/2022 at 3:14 PM, mary_228 said:

I am considering the Songefjord in a Nutshell, traveling from Oslo to Bergen. 

 

I would like to enquire if anyone has taken this routing, as there are no transfers to buses or trains after the fjord portion.  We still get the Flam train portion. We would spend a night (or two?) in Balestrand, and take the boat at 7:50 the next morning directly to Bergen, a four hour journey. Is this appealing scenery and would the voyage on the Norwegian Sea be pleasant? Also, we would be arriving Bergen on the day we can board our ship, the Viking Mars. Perhaps the ferry terminal is close to the Viking ship, which would be a bonus.

ColdCruise recently took this trip and posted about it few posts above

He/She found trip through Songnefjord not that impressive

Also, that trip does not go through Naeryofjord which seems to be the pinnacle of this whole NiN trip.

(if you have taken mountain trains in Switzerland or Asia or USA,  Flambanen is ho-hum)

If you are traveling from Oslo Bergen (or vice versa), doing NiN does make sense.

For Bergen roundtrip, was considering Sognefjord but if I get more datapoints like the one from ColdCruise then on the next trip, I might just drive to Gudvengen pier and do ferry roundtrip (or ferry one way and quick bus shuttle back)

On 7/20/2022 at 4:30 PM, geko29 said:

Our flight leaves today, but lands very early tomorrow, and we sail on Saturday.   So we can't test until we are already there.   We just did home tests (all negative, of course) about an hour ago, 🤞 we have the same results for the real thing tomorrow morning.   So the months of unnecessary stress ends in less than 18 hours....

Taking proctored tests at home is extremely easy process.

Easier then fiddling with RCL app/website for online check-in.

On 7/20/2022 at 5:57 PM, unclegrandpa said:

I wonder why emed does not take those. Does RCI take rapidtestandtrace?

YES

On 7/20/2022 at 4:21 PM, rudeney said:

 

I don't take my shoes off for TSA.  Or my belt, or remove my laptop from my bag.  I paid for TSA Pre-Check to avoid that nonsense.  Hmm, maybe cruise lines could offer COVID pre-check where you just test at home without a proctor and they trust you to truthfully report the results.  I mean, they are trusting you to say you haven't been exposed, so why does proving a negative test need to be such a chore?

For the same reason taking shoes at airport is a requirement.

Primary objective is not safety. But confidence of the customers.

Cruises will get rid of the testing (same way they did with the masks) as soon as their internal PR/marketing tells them to do so. (Govt is not a factor any more)

12 minutes ago, unclegrandpa said:

I don't understand why the cruise line themselves can't just look at it while you do it in front of them and charge you 25 dollars for this. Why do we have to deal with this nonsense?

You mean at port or while you do it at your home?

If former, they do not want to be in the business of disappointing paying pax who have travelled long distances (even overseas).  Medically speaking, portside testing will be more effective than testing 60 hours in advance and then undertake higher risk travel exposure. But they dont want to be in the business (unless forced by regulators) of being agent of making people unhappy.

If later,  they are in cruising business, not testing business.  In any case, It is extremely easy to do these proctored tests (Easier than struggling with RCCL's flaky website/app)

If you can deal with useless nonsense of taking off shoes at TSA then why these extremely easy tests done in comfort of your home so challenging

1 hour ago, Biker19 said:

You might want to look for another financial guy.

Second that.

Copenhagen is quite compact. Quite walkable too.

But even for people who cant walk much, there is so much of integrated public transport (metro, train, bus, water bus) available that it is more efficient to not wait for next hop-on/hop-off bus. (even setting aside the huge price difference between unlimited travel city small pass and HOHO price)

2 hours ago, NavyCruiser said:

Thanks for the awesome posts/replies above!

Just booked that PANORAMA EXCLUSIVE BUS.

Don't understand why/how HAL cruise line's excursion is over twice as expensive...

That's how the industry work.

Cruise lines will keep marking up excursions as far as they keep getting suckers coughing up those inflated prices.   Unless, return to ship is in jeopardy, it never makes any  economic sense to buy cruise excursions from the cruise line itself.

There are times when ship exclusion has no competition  (due to contract exclusions or just by the nature of the excursion like specialized technical stop drop/pickup)