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A Cruise, a Casino and a Canal

Discussion in 'Non-Vegas Trip Reports' started by fasbman, Dec 15, 2021.

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  1. fasbman

    fasbman VIP Whale

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    My Trip Report

    I’m currently at the Fort Lauderdale airport ready to fly back to Texas. I was on a 10 day Panama Canal cruise along with several stops along the way.

    I had booked the trip in the Spring thinking that surely things would be back to normal by now ( which obviously didn’t happen). The cruise line made be an offer I couldn’t refuse. Just pay for port fees and commit to a minimum $200 on board spend ( which wasn’t a hardship since the ship auto crew gratuity would almost eat that up anyway), and the cruise would be free with the understanding but not the requirement that I would play in the onboard casino. They also through in $100 free play and free drinks while I was playing in the casino ( on cruise ships free drinks is a very unusual perk).

    I hope that the above is enough to whet your appetite and you will stay tuned for Part 2, same bat time, same bat channel for those of you old enough to remember that TV tag line!
     
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  2. azlefty

    azlefty VIP Whale

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    I would love to read a detailed report on this trip! Hope to visit the Panama canal someday.
     
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  3. VegasGroove

    VegasGroove VIP Whale

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    More, please!
     
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  4. fasbman

    fasbman VIP Whale

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    I will try not to disappoint your expectations! My plane begins boarding in a couple of minutes, so this will be a short post centering on COVID protocols.

    I was required to be fully vaccinated (no booster requirement yet) to board. I also had to have a negative COVID TEST, no more than two days before the journey. Masks were required in all public areas on the ship, except when actively eating or drinking. Enforcement was sporadic and compliance was generally good but far from perfect. It also got more lax as the cruise continued.

    I thought for sure that I would require a negative COVID test to get back in the country, but for some reason that wasn’t required for cruise ship passengers. Customs was the usual breeze with total time with a customs official being only about 10 seconds. Well, I need to shut off my device now. I may post again later today, or it may have to wait until tomorrow depending upon how tired I feel after finally getting home in about another six hours or so. Flying was an anticipated adventure in my twenties, now not so much.
     
  5. smerrian

    smerrian View from Bally's

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    How did you go about having a covid test and provable results for boarding within 2 days of sailing? I have free testing at my local Rite Aid but the results can take 2-4 days (no guarantee on the timing) and it's not in writing.
    I leave on a cruise next month with NCL out of NYC. They require what you said you've done but I'm not clear on how to do it.
     
  6. fasbman

    fasbman VIP Whale

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    I just got home a little bit ago but wanted to address your question before I call it a night. I had my annual physical and blood work about a week before my trip and asked my doctor where I could get a rapid test. He said that they performed them at his office. My cruise started on a Sunday and so I made an appointment on the Friday. before for the test. It was a rapid antigen test, and I had the results (hard copy and email in about 25 minutes). The cruise company accepted either a hard or emailed copy.
     
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  7. Guardian

    Guardian High-Roller

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    Smerrrian, I plan on getting a rapid antigen test at CVS two days before boarding for my cruise in January. Should have results in an hour.
     
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  8. fasbman

    fasbman VIP Whale

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    I don't believe that all CVS' perform the rapid test. We have three large chain pharmacy stores in the fairly small city where I live (including CVS), and none of them did rapid testing (just the ones that would give you the results in 2 -4 days). It may be an overlooked resource, but if you can't find a place that guarantees rapid testing, you may want to check with your family physician to see if they provide that service.
     
  9. fasbman

    fasbman VIP Whale

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    Allright, let's see start the trip! Embarkation was relatively painless. I didn't need a Visa to any of the countries where we visited which simplified matters. What I did need was, 1) my passport, 2) my CDC card showing full vaccination, 3) my negative COVID test, and more importantly for the cruise line 4) a major credit card to link to my room key where you charge everything (including casino credit recorded as a room card). I believe that the limit is $3000 day for casino charges. but it is recorded as a room charge and not a cash advance which is a really good deal.

    The ship left Fort Lauderdale and docked offshore on a private island in the Bahamas. I didn't get off the ship for this stop for two reasons. First, I had already visited the Island on a previous trip, and there is relatively little to do there. Second, it is a tender port and I hate waiting in line to board a tender either coming or going.

    At this point, I should probably mention the only significant problem I had on the cruise. My room was Hot! After two nights of being told that they were working on it, I asked for another cabin. I originally had a small inside cabin (hey it was free). They moved me to a larger outside cabin with a nice window, so I can't complain about their responsiveness. The cruise was only a little over 60% full (due to both demand and the requirement to keep some cabins open for possible quarantine use), so getting moved was a lot easier than if it had been in normal times.

    In the next installment we will visit the Island of Curacao (the C of the ABC Islands).
     
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  10. Guardian

    Guardian High-Roller

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    We will be going to the ABC islands in January, on the NCL Getaway. What ship are you on?
     
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  11. fasbman

    fasbman VIP Whale

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    I sailed on the Holland America ship - the Eurodam. It could hold about 2500 passengers, but only had about 1600.
     
  12. azlefty

    azlefty VIP Whale

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    You can buy a test kit from emed.com. I know this is accepted by Carnival and I think NCL, check your cruise line but I imagine it is accepted for most travel purposes. They ship you a box of test kits, and you download an app to your phone and perform the test on yourself while someone is monitoring you through the app. These are the "Rx" (prescription) Abbott BinaxNow tests and when you buy them, you get a link to your prescription. A few months ago I got 6 tests for $150 + tax and shipping, and it took about a week for them to arrive; it could have changed because I think they were in short supply for a while and may take longer now due to holiday shipping congestion. I submitted the prescription form and my reciept to my insurance company and got back about $67 since it was considered out-of-network. The box may have an expiration date in the past but they have a letter from the FDA stating that it extended the expiration date by 6 months.

    ETA: the test is the same as the over-the-counter test, except the OTC doesn't have the monitoring through the app and is not accepted. It's also the same test as one we received at a drive-through testing center near our home. Basically you put 6 drops of a solution into a circle in a card, do a nasal swab in both nostrils, push the swab into the card, and wait 15 minutes. If you are positive, you see 2 lines; if you are negative, you see 1. Unofficially, if you are positive, you will probably notice the extra line in a minute or less so you have an extra 14 minutes to agonize that you can't go on the trip you were looking forward to.

    ETAA: My understanding is that the emed / Abott BinaxNow test is accepted for U.S. passengers vaccinated with Moderna, Pfizer, or J&J vaccinations. Please do your due diligence to check for sure. Another good place to check is the cruisecritic.com message boards, where this topic is discussed ad nauseam.
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2021
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  13. fasbman

    fasbman VIP Whale

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    Next installment - We had a sea day after the Bahamas, which was filled with trivia contests, too much eating drinking and gambling. I will cover the gambling results for the whole trip in a single post at the end.

    At Curacao, I took a sunset Harbor tour on a fairly small boat. The sunset was spectacular, and they provided a lot of food and drink on the cruise (I always eat and drink sparingly at most foreign ports since I once got sicker than a dog from failing to do so). What was interesting was that on the outbound leg of the cruise, the captain drove the boat like a bat out of hell. However, on the way back we just put putted on the way back. I heard the boat captain radio in that he was having a propulsion problem. We ended up getting back just before the ship was supposed to sail. However, even if we had got back later than sail time, we still would have been OK since we were on a ship sponsored tour and Holland America has a policy that they will hold the ship and never strand any passenger. However, if you are on an independent excursion, that guarantee does not apply.

    The next installment will be about Aruba and the Panama Canal.
     
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  14. azlefty

    azlefty VIP Whale

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    Normally i can survive without seeing photos, because one slot money shot looks like every other to me. However these are not normal times.....? Please help a brother out here. You are in one of the most beautiful places on earth.
     
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  15. fasbman

    fasbman VIP Whale

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    9FE50B91-57E0-4354-9134-384B46AF2C89.jpeg 5131E654-C38D-40DE-BE50-4CDCB4BA468B.jpeg 895BCBC2-0690-4F02-8391-9153C9A48BCE.jpeg 9FE50B91-57E0-4354-9134-384B46AF2C89.jpeg I have never posted pictures before, but I will give it a shot. Pictures of Curaçao
     
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  16. fasbman

    fasbman VIP Whale

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    More Curaçao photos
     

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  17. fasbman

    fasbman VIP Whale

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    Our next stop was Aruba. I had been there before, so I didn't go on an organized tour, or take many photos. I mainly just went ashore and picked up a few souvenirs.

    After Aruba, we sailed to the Panama Canal, which we entered just as dawn was breaking. This was a half circuit of the Canal. We entered the first series of locks, and then stayed in Lake Guyton for a few hours before going back through the locks again. Theyn had tours that you could take a tender ride to from the lake. However, the downside of that was you couldn't rejoin the ship until it went back through the locks on docked at the nearby port. Some people had to wait 2 to 3 hours at the port sitting on the bus (or shopping for souvenirs) until the ship catched up with them. Instead, I just made a quick run into the port and picked up some t-shirts and a cap.

    Coming next, I will again try to post some pictures of the canal.
     
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  18. fasbman

    fasbman VIP Whale

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    BE46B650-7078-46EF-985D-701EB137DCC2.jpeg 3C6D6FD6-639C-4222-B9B6-E0C927B23A28.jpeg BE46B650-7078-46EF-985D-701EB137DCC2.jpeg D72E2B49-EBC1-472C-A0FB-25BD386CA785.jpeg D72E2B49-EBC1-472C-A0FB-25BD386CA785.jpeg These are some pictures I took of the Canal. One of the photos is from my cabin of one of the gates of the lock. If the window glass wasn’t there, we were so close that I could have reached out and touched it.
     
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  19. fasbman

    fasbman VIP Whale

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    Apologies! It looks like I am posting some duplicate photos. I guess I haven't figured out all the nuances of posting photos.
     
  20. fasbman

    fasbman VIP Whale

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    The last stop on the cruise before we had two sea days back to Florida was Costa Rico. I took a bus tour of the countryside that featured a folkdance. It is an interesting country. Some of the landscape is beautiful, and I was surprised to learn that microchips are their biggest export (bananas are second). One downside is that apparently there is a fair amount of crime. We had a warning of it before we left the ship, and I noticed that almost every home and business had bars on the windows and/or was surrounded by a high fence frequently topped with razor wire. However, everyone we friendly.

    The next and last installment will be a summary of my gambling activities on board.
     
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