sanger727

bonine is supposed to be non-drowsy. For some people it can still cause drowsiness. I like the patches for long trips and bonine for short trip. However, be aware that the patches can have much more significant and severe side effects than bonine. It's worth trying at home first, especially if he is prone to medication side effects. I rarely have medication side effects and haven't had issues with patches.

You could try MSC. They have quite a few that stop in Egypt.

All the TA's I've used have taken my CC info for the deposit and saved it on file to use for final payment. There's never been a specific authorization other than them telling you that upon booking. I'm sure that fulfills any requirements they have. Not dissimilar to when I renew my satellite radio for the year and they advise me that they will keep the card on file and auto-renew at current rates the next year.

That's true. But if that is what they meant, it's extremely misleading to even include it. It would be much simpler to say, "whether at dinner, relaxing by the pool, or out exploring". The fact that they include "in your suite" strongly implies that you can get the drink "while in your suite".

Yes, on Celebrity you can. So that would be the rationale for charging it to your account rather than giving cash.

I agree with the title of this thread but for a different reason. We booked our last cruise via a travel agent we found from an online competitive cruise pricing website. The guy was great when we asked questions and booked. Then they charged us the deposit, he never sent an invoice, and I never heard from him again. I didn't worry too much at the time, I was able to confirm with the cruise company that we were booked and our deposit was paid, we still had over a year before final payment was due. Fast forward to a month before our final payment was due. I had sent him many e-mails with no response and called him many times with no answer or call back. I started to get worried that his negligent attitude was going to lead to our final payment not getting made. The cruise line wouldn't accept payments from us directly. I called the main line for the travel agency and left a message on the general voicemail which got me a call back from someone else. She promised that our agent would call us back. Course he never did. I finally had to file a complaint with the better business bureau to get someone to call us back and take our payment information! Yes, be careful who you book with!

There were coronaviruses before 2019, not COVID-19. We have never experienced a virus before where you are forced to test, forced to quarantine, etc over a cough or a runny nose. No, it's not the same and won't be until the world has a whole accepts covid as a cold/flu and stops reacting to it.

I haven't seen this documentary, however we had our own experience with an erupting volcano. We were Hawaii in May of 2018. We took an independent tour of Volcanos National Park the day we were in Hilo. Just as a FYI, at the time there was lava flow into the water and over a residential neighborhood in Hilo, but nothing new or spectacular. The ships tour took the same itinerary we did, just a bit later. We spoke with people on the ships tour at dinner. One of the first stops was the overlook of Kileauea caldera. We learned about the history of the volcano and saw a small amount of white steam coming from the caldera. We went on to the lava tubes. We then stopped at an overlook of a crater - really no idea which one. As I approached the edge, a significant earthquake struck. Then we saw a section of the walls of one of the craters collapse. We left the area and our guide felt that it was safe to continue the tour. Earthquakes are very common there. As we were driving a stretch of roach, all the buses and vans had pulled to the side and stopped. We looked back behind us and there was billowing grey and black smoke coming out of the Kileaua caldera now. We asked our guide if that was normal and he told us absolutely not and we immediately left. I was told at dinner that the ships tour was in the lava tubes when this occurred and didn't leave the park until the rangers closed it. As we headed out of the park there was a scheduled stop at a orchid farm that we decided to make. As we were there another large earthquake hit. We were concerned that the ship might decide to leave early if conditions were too bad. He said he didn't think so unless the earthquakes occurred at sea and there was a tsunami warning. The last stop was a black sand beach. When we arrived there it was closed for Tsunami warnings. We headed straight back to the boat and made it back without issue. Luckily, as far as I know, no one was hurt. But it certainly reinforces that nothing is without risk and unexpected natural disasters can occur without warning.

Some cruise lines allow passengers to use OBC to give extra tips.

We took a southeast Asia river cruise in November/December. A link to the review is here: Any information that you specifically looking for? We did Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. All three are fully open with no vaccination or testing requirements. We were required to show our vaccination cards to Avalon. We flew from Siem Reap to Phenom Phen and boarded the ship there. I don't think sailing from Sieam Reap vs flying is a deciding factor. I would not be up for a bus ride. Also, you want to go towards the end of the dry season. Areas of the Tonle Sap that are normally flooded will be dry. If that is a deciding factor, I would make sure that they can sail from Siem Reap to Phenom Phen at that time of the year.

I really don’t think you will see any response by the crew to ‘prepaid’ service charge. If it’s pre-paid you paid. most people who don’t prepay will be charged the service charge without incident. All the same for the crew. The handful of people that reduce or remove the service charge at the beginning or mid cruise may receive a decrease in services. I wouldn’t be concerned either way as long as you don’t plan on being in the last group.

I don’t doubt that this is a difficult situation. Our cruise director first told us that we would be quarantined until we tested negative. Which, as we all know, can be problematic if you take a pcr test. Not to mention that two of the ‘positive’ people had tested negative at that point with no change in their quartine status. We finally called the embassy for answers and were told that there were no quarantine rules in Vietnam, but that could vary by city officials. Our cruise director laughed with we told him what the embassy said and was like, that might be the official policy but it’s really up to local officials. my point is that, especially if local officials are hard to predict, they have no business giving anyone a covid test without a policy on what that means. I suspect they gave it thinking we would be negative. And everyone who took it thought they would be negative. Everyone on the trip was vaccinated and boosted. And the virus spread like crazy. We all assumed it was a different respiratory virus. And it may have been.

I’m not in that age group but my parents are, including one I travel with frequently. Based on my traveling, yes, that’s about right for the over 70s I have encountered. I have no doubt that you are. But we had one trip almost ruined by an over 70 couple that was completely unable to do Peru and Machu pichu. The trip was saved by our tour guide calling a second guide to stay with them.

yes, possibly. Our cruise director kept saying that this had not happened before on Avalon. Hard to believe. But hopefully they see the importance of creating a plan now. My job at my workplace for like 2 years was managing the covid policies, quarantines, compliance, etc. So I certainly appreciate the need for isolation/quarantine. But it needs to be defined through policy. When an illness spreads through the tour, a handful of people are picked out to be quarantined; and there’s no policy on who, what, why, and how long; it starts to feel targeted. For example, at one point the ‘positive’ people asked if we could go on the sundeck by ourselves, during an excursion or dinner; a time when just about everyone would be busy. The answer was, ‘no’; and not because ‘our policy is you can’t leave your room for this many days’, it was ‘well, a negative person may not do the excursion or dinner and may way to use the sundeck’. And like I said, setting us loose in Ho Chi Minh City with directions to the central market detracted from the validity of any of the ‘rules’ they put in place.

Sorry. No. They also said there are accessible cabins available in other categories. This is the only option on a suite. If you want a specific cabin category, you have to book early - disabled or fully abled. There's no reason the OP should be stuck with an inside when they want a suite when the exact same scenario tomorrow when a disabled person goes to book. They were too late, they can take the accessible inside room.

They are just playing the same game with specialty restaurants that they do with the beverage package. The beverage package is ridiculously overpriced - but all anyone is actually paying is the gratuities. The specialty dining is ridiculously overpriced - so they can increase the gratuities they charge for the "free" meals.

So, if it is true that the only cabins left other than insides are disabled cabins, are you suggesting the able bodied person shouldn't book the cruise and instead leave that only cabins available for a disabled person? That's a wholly different situation than someone parking in a disabled parking spot. The person can always park a bit further and walk. This person can't helicopter onto the cruise every day because the only cabin left is disabled and they want to leave it open. If that's what's left they have done their due diligence.

In my experience, for every 70 year old that is fit and able; there is a 70 year old that isn't but and either lacks the self awareness or self restraint to not book activities that they can't do. Lacking a physical exam for fitness, you can't blame them for creating and arbitrary cutoff number.

I've never done Atlantis, but check out the ports of calls forum. I've seen alot of people say that they get around the Atlantis daily pass by purchasing a hotel room. I'm not sure which hotel it is, but there is one that includes 4 daily passes to Atlantis in the room rate. People book a room, take a taxi, check in and get their passes. Then go to Atlantis, check out, and get a taxi back to the ship.

You are going to exit Cambodia and enter Vietnam on 2/21. We sailed to the border the evening before. We crossed the border in the morning. It looks like you are doing the same thing.

Just something to note. Some states make it so their birth certificates can't be photocopied. We can into this when we got married in Jamaica. I was born in Kentucky and was fine. My husband was born in Ohio. His birth certificate was a replacement one he had got from vital statistics. The paper they use to print them on turn to "void" if you make a copy or scan then. We had to send copies ahead to the resort to arrange our marriage license. I ended up having to take a picture with my phone to send it to them.

The rest of the tour proceeded as scheduled. We visited the war remnants museum and Cu Chi tunnels in Ho Chi Minh. We then flew to Hanoi where we had a city tour and then joined a Ha Long Bay ship for a 2 day trip. We flew home and it was uneventful. Again, this was a wonderful trip and I don't want to take away from that. But Avalon's lack of planning on 1. what to do if people display signs of illness 2. when and how to covid test 3. what to do if people test positive 4. how to arrange quarantine rules and who determines them 5. what to do if people test negative after all that was inexcusable. It was ridiculous to me that 4 people who apparently "had covid" were told to wander around town because the hotel wouldn't take them. And then there was no actual plan on where we would stay had our tests come back positive. Had policies and procedures been laid out, we still may have no liked the answer. But the stress of not knowing made the whole situation worse.

The next day was more of the same, they would bring any food or drinks we ordered to us. I was covid tested in the morning and tested positive again. I found out later that two of the "positive" guests had tested negative the second day. However, they were not released from quarantine. We were advised that when we arrived in Phnom Phen that evening a nurse would come onboard and administer PCR tests. The results would be available the next morning. We asked what would happen if they were positive and negative, and just got more of, we will call Avalon and they will decide. I had had an opportunity to speak to the other positive guests and we felt strongly that since our antigen tests had not been administered by medical personnel, the second test for two of the people were negative, and we had not received PCR tests that we weren't really sure we had COVID. I was also upset that no on had attempted to determine the length of quarantine if were were positive. No one had asked about symptom start date and no one had discussed when the "quarantine" would end. We still had more than a week of trip left, and under the US CDC's 5 days, we should have been released from quarantine the following day. We got our PCR tests in the evening and discussed what would happen the following day. The rest of the group would leave by bus and take a morning tour. We would leave separately and be taken into Ho Chi Minh city. We asked about going to the hotel and were told that the hotel wouldn't let us check in if our tests were positive. Also, if our tests were positive, they may require the entire group to get tested before checking in. I felt very uneasy the next morning leaving the boat, to essentially be turned loose in Ho Chi Minh city, with potentially nowhere to go. But that's what we did. We were dropped off near the hotel and given directions to a nearby market. We were on our own until 10:15 when we would meet our guide back at a cafe to get the results. So, with no other options, we walked around Ho Chi Minh city until the agreed upon time. We all received our results by e-mail and they were all negative. When we met with our guide he said that he would take the results to the hotel so that we could check in. We asked if we could rejoin the tour at that point, and he said he had to call Avalon and they would decide. It was really unreasonable at that point that Avalon hadn't predetermined that. There were only two possibilities, all of us would test negative, or not. There's no reason they couldn't have decided ahead of time. Our group had a morning tour only and free time in the afternoon. Our cruise director did work it out with the local guide that he would return in the afternoon and give us the group tour from the morning. So at this point they did do their best to make things up. Ultimately, Avalon did allow us to re-join the tour like nothing had happened.

I took the covid test. My friend/roommate had also developed symptoms at this point so she tested as well. As did most of the ship. We all lined up (no masks), took our tests, and then went out to the sundeck for drinks. Around an hour later, people started asking about the test results. They refused to answer, just said that if you tested positive they would let you know. Shortly after this they pulled me to the side. I had tested positive. They told me to go to my room and asked if I need anything. This was shortly before lunch so I asked if they could bring me lunch and they said sure. Some time later a crew member came back to my room to administer another test. I didn't know this at the time, but was due to the fact that my roommate was also sick but tested negative. They took the test and asked if I needed anything, I just asked for lunch again. Around half an hour later, the cruise director called me to tell me my second test was again positive. At this point I had had no contact with anyone except the ships crew. I had no idea that my roommate was negative and had been offered the chance to change rooms so she could stay with the rest of the group. And I had no idea if anyone else had tested positive. The wifi didn't work in the guest rooms, so short of someone calling me I was on my own. I again asked for lunch since they still had no brought anything. Shortly after this they did bring me a plate for lunch. I also asked for them to have my roommate call me. I was filled in one what exactly was happening at this point. 4 people had tested positive. The rest negative. A wife and husband, a wife (but he husband tested negative), and me (with my roommate testing negative). We asked what would happen next and they said we would take another rapid antigen test the next day. The husband had opted to be quarantined in his room with his wife. My roommate had been given the option to change rooms and not be quarantined. We complained about the lack of wifi and ability to communicate. So one thing they did do right, was move the wifi routers so that we could get wifi in our rooms. On the ship, dinners were served at 7. I received a phone call around 6:30 asking for my dinner order. At 8, I still had not received anything. I texted my roommate and asked her to check on when we would be served. The waitor told her that they would serve all of the guests in the dining room (all courses) before they served the "positive" guests. She put up a sufficient arguement to that which led to them finally brining our food to us.

The next day we entered Vietnam. This was a painless process. Our cruise director had collected everyone's passports at the beginning of the cruise and he handled all of the business with immigrations. When we arrived at our first port, we took a walk through the town to visit a local market. This was probably the least interesting stop in my opinion. I think they scheduled this as a quick stop because the length of time it takes to get through immigrations and customs can be unpredictable. In the afternoon we took a boat ride to a town and went to a temple. It interesting to see the houses on the ride, fishermen, and just how people live. The temple was much different than anything we had seen in Cambodia or Thailand. Vientamese people aren't religious, and the temple looked a little bit like a Las Vegas slot machine. Just very different. The next day we went to another small town and visited a gentleman that had fought for Viet Cong in the war. And then we went to a shop where they wove cotton. When we returned to the boat our cruise director told us that he had noticed that many people were sick and upon consultation with Avalon, had purchased at home test kits and requested that anyone with symptoms volunteer to get tested. This is when things started to really fall sideways. It became very apparent throughout the trip, that Avalon had no actual plans on how to handle a virus on a group trip/cruise. Up until this point nothing had been said, no masks were worn, and no policies had been stated. One woman asked "if someone tests positive, what will happen" and his answer was essentially "we will call Avalon and figure out what to do". This became his line throughout the rest of the trip. There were no plans, no policies, no forethinking into what should be done. Just "we will call Avalon and they will figure out what to do".