Preparing to Travel

 

As excited as I am to be cruising again.  Cruising during Covid does take a bit more planning.

I am sailing as enrichment lecturer on a 16 night Canada Greenland Cruise.  

Last week we received notification from Princess that due to the length of the cruise everyone would require a booster dose of the vaccine. So now you need the initial Covid two dose (or one J and J) and one booster. 

This was provided two weeks prior to departure.  Now both of us have our first booster.  So we are good, but others who may of not gotten the booster would have to hurry and get it.  The 2nd booster has just come available to my age group recently in Nova Scotia.  But they are also asking us to wait until the Fall to get the 2nd booster for better protection.  So we are waiting for the 2nd shot till then.

We have scheduled our Covid test.  Thankfully getting tests for travel is much easier and much less expensive than when we did our travels in the Fall where the prices were crazy and slow.  

Now we are doing a test through On-Point Testing at a prices of $16.99 each.  We can do it from our home via Zoom.  We did similar in April and took no time and much cheaper. If you are not from the US, take note they require a US address to put in your booking but they told me just to put any address in the US, so we used the hotel address we are staying at.

We decided to drive down.  Airfares just kept getting higher and higher and higher.  $900 each to fly to New York!  Are you kidding me.  Plus who wants to risk their luggage not arriving before a cruise.  And since we can drive (takes about 14 hours) we will.  Plus add on baggage fees, night accommodation in New York, transfer to hotel, transfer to ship, transfer to airport after cruise.  Well it ended up being cheaper to drive.  Plus this give me an excuse to shop on the way back!

Actually we are trying out the NS Cat ferry that runs between Yarmouth and Bar Harbor.  Will save us 6 hrs of driving each way and 2 tanks of gas.   And it will be much more enjoyable sitting on a ferry for 3.5 hours than driving for twice that.  It isn't cheap but they had some specials and we jumped on it.

We will overnight and then travel the rest of the way to Red Hook, Brooklyn pier the next day.  Unfortunately we are going to have to park at the pier.  It is pricey but very convenient and we don't have any other option.  But still cheaper than flying!

We have the ArriveCan App already installed on our devices with all our vaccine information already in it.  All we have to do is update it prior to boarding with the health questionnaire.  

Take note that with the ArriveCan app no one really physically checks it.  It is connected to your passport and border patrol know who has done the app and who hasn't.  I say this because once we were reentering Canada and the agent didn't even ask to see the QR Code we got from the App.  I asked and he said no need I can see here from your passport on the screen you did the app.

So now I need to go and do another run thru on a few of the presentations.  Yes I keep procrastinating.  

Thanks for following!