May 17, 2022

  This vacation will be our first cruise in more than three years. Our 21st and 22nd cruises were supposed to be along the east coast of Australia from Sydney to Cairns then to Bay of Islands and Auckland, New Zealand, then continuing on to Samoa, Fiji and Tonga. A week before we were to leave, in March 2020, Canada strongly recommended travellers stay put, due to a warning from the World Health Organization that became a declaration of a pandemic a few days later.  Since we cancelled the cruises, before the cruise company cancelled all cruises, we were given future cruise credits. This is the first chosen cruise that has not been cancelled since the start of the pandemic. It was paid, in part, by using some of the future cruise credits.  Out of curiosity, in late March 2020, we were watching the weather to the east of Australia where we would have been cruising. At the time that our cruise had been scheduled to visit, a major cyclone hit the Samoa, Fiji and Tonga islands.  If the cruise had occurred, the itinerary would have been drastically changed.

   Now that the two years of COVID-19 restrictions are being relaxed, we are venturing to cruise, but closer to home.  So much has changed for travel. Face masks are required for inside airports and cruise terminals and on flights within Canada but not any longer for American flights in the USA. To fly into the United States "passengers are required to present a negative COVID-19 test result or documentation of recovery." Airlines must confirm the negative test result or documentation of recovery for all passengers before boarding. Winnipeg pharmacies give these tests and documentation or you can buy a rapid antigen kit that requires that you sign on to a video link for someone, a proctor, to watch you swab the inside of your cheeks and/or your nose, then apply it to the COVID testing device and stay online until the device shows a result that you show the person watching on your cellphone screen, tablet screen or laptop. The proctor then emails you a written verification of the result, and if negative, to show the staff when boarding your plane within a day of take-off to the United States. Usually this test can also be used to board your ship, if it was taken within two days of embarkation. However, we are going to Bermuda. Bermuda requires a negative COVID-19 test four days before you arrive in the country. Our itinerary has the ship arriving on Day 4 of the cruise, which means that while we are in Newark, New Jersey, for almost two days before our cruise, we must search out a pharmacy or clinic that will perform, for a fee, the proper test with documentation that we can upload to our partially completed travel authorization visa to visit Bermuda!  I have been watching the Cruise Critic forum thread for this cruise, which is on page 22 today, as well as the two cruises to Bermuda before it. The previous two cruises had their itinerary rearranged so that the ship's crew did not have to test up to 2,158 passengers plus crew, two days before arrival in Bermuda at the Royal Navy Dockyards. Their original plans were to arrive on Day 5 or Day 6 after leaving their American departure port and visiting another American port before entering Bermuda waters. The Bermuda rules state COVID-19 tests must be given if the ship visits another port before arriving, which we are scheduled to do when our ship visits Newport, Rhode Island on Day 2 of the cruise before going to Bermuda. The passengers on the previous cruises were only notified, by the cruise line, four days before leaving that the order of the ports were changed. Our itinerary could also change, yet. Regardless, we will still need another COVID test unless the ship arrives on Day 2 of our cruise and our pre-flight test will be valid.

  Then there is the second cruise from Fort Lauderdale that includes a stop in the Bahamas. It also has some kind of visa requiring uploading a COVID test, but the Cruise Critic forum thread is only two pages long with not much information.  We have most of the cruise documents but they are missing the COVID and health protocols and there is no mention about requiring the Bahamas COVID visa which includes COVID insurance and costs $40US.  

  We are looking forward to some warm weather since Manitoba has been experiencing below average temperatures for most of the cold winter and wet spring. Just 14°C predicted for a high temperature today, instead of 20°C that is the average high temperature for mid-May.  In five days, we will be arriving in Newark, New Jersey which has a high temperature predicted to be 33°C, but cooling to 22°C two days later when our cruise begins.

  Well – finally a decision to change the itinerary so that Bermuda will be the first stop after embarkation.  Unfortunately, the Newport stop was eliminated and substituted with a Sea Day which means the ship will save fuel by cruising at a slower rate getting to Bermuda in two and half days rather than one and a half. The ship will be docked at the Royal Naval Dockyards for three days. There was a chance that the ship might need to anchor in the harbour if the dates of the visits changed, which would mean taking shuttle boats to and from the ship and crowding into a small space with over 100 people.  We just need to get the COVID tests to fly to Newark in four days and then take the test at our airport for getting on the ship and for Bermuda’s rules before we fly to Newark. No need to find a place to take a test while exploring Newark. We have the appointments booked.