bigenna

BC, 🇨🇦 Canada here.  Still waiting on getting essential workers, remote communities and over 80’s vaccinated.  
In spite of a good start in December vaccine shipments keep getting delayed and/or shortchanged and lots of us are getting worried when it will ever be “our turn”.   We are in the 70-74 group so first shot is probably months away at the rate we are going.

Happy New Year 2021

this was us last night saying goodbye to 2020 and hoping to be travelling again this year!

We have very little family around so Christmas has always been quite small.  We each have one grown son, both single still, although mine recently started seeing a young lady and he’s indicated that she is likely “the one”!   So family might start enlarging in the next year or two.

my husband and I will cook a scaled down Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve - still have to have a small turkey, I made cranberry jelly, and I’ll be making what both our sons have come to expect as our traditional dessert.  It is a layered cheesecaky dessert called pistachio delight, which one refers to as “that green stuff”.  I’ve tried different after dinner sweets a time or two, but to Veiled looks Of disappointment - so “green stuff” it is.

We’ll be making up to go plates for both of them and having a short outdoor chat, and that will be it for this year.

Sounds lovely

Sounds nice.   Since we have to stick to our own household there will be just two.

To change the subject 🥳- how have you all been managing the usual Christmas shopping and gift giving in this very unusual year.?

We have no little ones so we have talked things over with our adult kids and all decided that since we are confined to our own households we will have a Christmas in (hopefully) the early spring.  
We still have the house decorated and will cook a small dinner and contact by some form of video chat.  

12 hours ago, Loki S said:

We have been through very similar restrictions with boarder restrictions between states. I think 🤔 all boarders to each state are now open. Restrictions are being eased all the time as in Qld as far as I’m aware we have no community transmitted COVID-19 cases. Victoria have been under the longest restrictions but have got on top of COVID, there restrictions have been eased as well. We still need to be COVID safe.

 

According to the nightly news, all eyes are on NSW as they’ve had some cases diagnosed over the last few days. Lots of people lining up to get tested.

 

I do understand how many would be feeling, as I know for myself I hadn’t seen my parents for 5 months. In the early days we even couldn’t go far from our homes 😢.

Yes if we had clamped down early we might have been having a better Christmas this year.  As it is, no gatherings with anyone anywhere - stick to own household only.

Enjoy the season and hopefully things will be changing for Canada and the US by fall 2021.

Wow - life where you are seems so normal!  We are in severe restrictions- no social gatherings at all, whether in someone’s home, a restaurant, even outdoors.  We are to stick to our own household only.  It will be a pretty lonely Christmas and New Years for families in B.C.  

Typical weather here in SW British Columbia.  Drizzly and around 5C/40F.
 

The Christmas tree that only we will see this year.  

Great - looks like we made a good decision, thanks

Thanks so much for putting my mind at ease.  I had been worried about the balcony door being blocked or hitting our heads on the upper beds.

We have never been o the Island Princess before.  Do you happen to know if there are still some decent dancing venues in use on that ship?

Our favorites are the Grand Class ships for that reason.  Much nicer to not have the only dancing on that hard floor in the piazza.

btw - sure feels good to finally be planning cruises again.  

Has any one ever stayed in this cabin?  We are a couple, but after booking noticed that it can accommodate 4 people as it has two Pullman beds.  It is a generous sized stateroom so wondering if the pullmans cause any problems.  
We’d appreciate any insight.

Thanks so much, I was able to find exactly what I was looking for.  

Can anyone tell me more about this cabin?   Sorry, I have tried searching for photos or reviews of this exact cabin to no avail, so any personal experiences would be so helpful.  Previously I had been told about a site by Renmar that had actual photos showing views to outside but that seems to have disappeared.

🤸🏽‍♂️😻

Yippee!  We are now booked.

thanks for helping me think this out.

That does make sense.  I’ll be calling insurance company in the morning, followed by final payment on the cruise.  Thanks for the encouragement.

That is what I was hoping too.  

Thanks for your input.

our final payment is due this coming week and would be interested in hearing anyone’s opinion about how the fires in Australia will affect travel to New Zealand.  Apparently the skies are orange, asthma and other respiratory ailments are being affected, etc.

But we were not planning to arrive until early April, which is the area’s fall, so hopefully for travellers and especially the residents this devastion will be over.

Any thoughts?

Does anyone know where those doors lead right next to staterooms C742 and C743?

Are there secret little outdoor viewing areas?  Or are they staff only access to back stairways?

Sure  would be nice if it was the former.

That is exactly what I have done several times in the past.  

I questioned the agent when he told me I had to make the request direct to Princess myself so he offered to get them on the phone and we did a three way call.  Princess was unwavering in their policy.  No way this was going to get done unless I filled out the form, then they would look and see if they were going to approve it or not.  I just barely squeaked in under the 60 day deadline, but still six weeks until final payment.

i can’t believe it - I have had quite a few cruises with Princess - even book myself on line. Now I have to fill out paperwork myself to transfer to an agent!

This is reminding me of self checkout at the grocery store.  I pay for the service AND do the work.

 I am Hoping for any personal experiences on this.  In the past this had been an easy process, just call the agent and they called Princess and done, as long as outside final payment.

Now I have had to jump through new hoops of calling the agent, them calling Princess while I held and listened that I had to apply and be approved for the transfer, finally getting an authorization form sent to me which I had to fill in and send back to Princess.  And, just found out, prior to 60 days from when I made the booking to boot!

So I have two more days before the 60 days is up, it is Memorial Day weekend, and I gather I just have to sit and wait until someone (who?  Princess?  Agent?) let’s me know if Princess will approve the transfer?

Have any of you had any problems being approved and do you know if the 60 day limit is up to when the request by me was made?

i appreciate any insight you have, thank you.

Great news, thanks.

We are thinking of a Cruise on this ship next fall and noticed that it was refurbished earlier this year.  We love this ship but wonder if any changes were done to the dancing venues, specifically the Wheelhouse Bar dance area.  

We were just on the Royal and there is virtually no dance area left there and hoping that is not the case with the Golden.

Merry Christmas everyone!