Cruising during COVID

We will board the Royal Princess at Canada Place in 24 days!  A 12 day trip to Alaska, one of my favorite destinations.  Are we worried about catching COVID?  We can catch it anywhere we are both tired of sheltering at home.  It's time to start travelling with obvious precautions.  Both of us are triple vaccinated.  Our fourth shot will be available to us soon.   Will I get it?  Probably, but I will check with my family doctor.  

Cruise ships are exceptionally clean.  The first cruise to Canada was cancelled and the media reported some interesting information about huge COVID cases.  This information was given to Global Television News by a tourism employee in Victoria.  Then two passengers also reported huge amounts of COVID on board.  Here is a You Tube from a travel agent from Ottawa.  He researched the Caribbean Princess and I thought what he reports is very interesting:

Don's Family Vacations

If you are interested in the CDC Cruise ship COVID website and information, here it is.  The Caribbean Princess was not in code red, so it wasn't as bad as the media reported.

CDC Cruise Ship Report

Not yet kitty but hopefully soon.....

 

Congratulations Stephanie Cadieux

 

Stephanie Cadieux first ran as an MLA in Surrey in 2009.  I had no idea who she was and in researching her, I was very impressed with her and she got my vote.  She's held many cabinet posts and served on many committees.  She has a fantastic track record in Victoria.  She has worked with the BC Paraplegic Association as director of Marketing and development and was manager of accessibility for 2010 Legacies Now.  She has been an active community volunteer and was president of Realwheels Society, a member of the advisory panel with International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries and a mentor with the Y.W.C.A. With the redistribution of the electoral districts we lost her as an MLA but she still represented another district in Surrey.

Stephanie is disabled and uses a wheel chair.   She was the first woman with a disability to serve in the Legislature and executive council.  Yesterday she handed in her resignation as an MLA to accept the new position of Federal Chief Accessibility Officer.  

What a fantastic opportunity for an admirable lady.  Victoria's loss is Ottawa's gain.  

This was part of the press release:

“Stephanie Cadieux’s wealth of experience will be a tremendous asset to the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion,” Gould said.

“With her support, the Government of Canada will continue to build an inclusive and barrier-free Canada where persons with disabilities have the right to greater equity in society, and to play a greater role in the economy.”

Beautiful animal photography

   

     



     

Caribbean Princess

The Caribbean Princess was scheduled to be the first ship into Victoria on Wednesday and Vancouver on Thursday.  The cruise started in Fort Lauderdale with 1,452 passengers.  It has the capacity of 3,142, so it's less than half full.  The cruise from San Francisco to Vancouver was cancelled yesterday.  After departing passengers in Vancouver, she was scheduled for a major refurbish in Portland, Oregon. 

Rumour has it, there are multiple cases of COVID and Canada won't let the ship in.  However, reading the boards of passengers posting on board, there are a lot of problems.  The ship is almost 20 years old.  It's had major engine problems in the past that I thought were fixed but they are not saying what all the problems are.  Passengers say toilets are overflowing and the ship needs a lot of interior updating.  

Here is the letter the passengers on board received:

Caribbean Princess – Voyage B214N 

April 1, 2022 

Dear Princess Guest: We are very sorry to inform you that your Caribbean Princess cruise departing April 3, 2022 has been cancelled. Caribbean Princess is scheduled for an extensive dry-dock in Portland, Oregon beginning on April 7, 2022. With regret, we have made the difficult decision to cancel the coastal portion of the cruise from San Francisco to Vancouver in order to allow added time to prepare for dry-dock operations. This additional time will help assure the vessel is up to our highest standards in advance of the busy summer season. 

All guests will receive a full refund of their cruise fare, Princess Air, Princess Cruise Plus pre- and post cruise hotel packages, prepaid shore excursions and other prepaid items, and taxes, fees, and port expenses. Your refund will be processed automatically via the method of payment used to pay for your cruise. As your cruise has been cancelled so close to departure, each guest will also receive a 100% Future Cruise Credit equal to the cruise fare paid on this voyage. The credit may be applied to any future Princess cruise that is booked by November 1, 2022 and sails by November 1, 2023, or any existing booking not yet paid in full and is non-refundable and non-transferable. 

For Guests Already in San Francisco 

 • Guests booked on Princess Air If you purchased your air travel through Princess Cruises, please contact our En Route Assistance Desk at +1 (661) 284-4410 so that we may rebook your homeward flights. 

 • Guests who booked their own Air or have alternative homeward travel plans If you did not purchase your air travel through Princess Cruises, we are unable to change your flight arrangements. Please contact your travel advisor or the airlines directly to revise your travel plans and secure your homeward travel. 

We understand this change may cause you to incur unexpected expenses. Un-reimbursable air change fees, increased flight costs, and transportation expenses will be reimbursed. Other expenses will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Reimbursement requests may be submitted via our website at http://www.princess.com/refund-request; please complete and submit this form and any relevant receipts and documentation for our review. If you purchased Princess Vacation Protection or independent vacation travel insurance, please submit your claim through your carrier before submitting a reimbursement request. Again, we extend our deepest apologies and hope we have the opportunity to exceed your cruise vacation expectations in the near future. 

Kind regards, 

Princess Cruises

By cancelling, the ship can proceed directly from San Francisco to Portland, Oregon.  That gives it more days in dry dock.  It's unfortunate for those waiting to board, but like an airplane, you can't complain when it's getting repaired!

It wasn't scheduled to sail to Alaska but returning to Fort Lauderdale on April 26th until mid July when it will reposition to New York where it will offer Canada-New England cruises.  Lexie and I were on the Caribbean Princess three years ago when we sailed from Quebec City to New York.  She's a getting a little tired and needs a good refresh.  Princess has certainly been fair to those affected by the cancellation. 

A unique little town in Newfoundland....

 

The origin of Dildo’s name is uncertain. As early as 1711, it was being used for a tiny offshore island there, but the island’s connection with any kind of sex toy is uncertain at best. At the time, “dildo” was a word used for any cylindrical object, from nautical pins to test tubes. It was also a type of tree and a nonsense syllable used in song refrains, so the island’s name could have referred to any of these.

The whaling and fishing industries that built the town have mostly dried up, so today Dildo relies on its unusual name to draw in most of its visitors. Every summer, the town holds a Dildo festival, in which the parade is led by a wooden statue of an old fishing-boat skipper called Captain Dildo. Souvenir T-shirts, which disconcertingly read “I Survived Dildo Days,” are hot items.

But not everyone in town is in love with the Dildo brand. Many other places in Newfoundland have toned down their odd names of late (Cuckolds Cove is now Dunfield, Silly Cove is now Winterton, Famish Gut is now Fairhaven) and in the 1980s, a local electrician named Robert Elford believed Dildo should get on board. He circulated a petition hoping to change the town’s name to Seaview or Pretty Cove, but neighbors mostly scoffed and his crusade went nowhere. Dildo pride is a force to be reckoned with.

In August 2019, Jimmy Kimmel made a joke about this little town and then visited it.  We watched the episodes and he was treated like a king.  The town made him honorary Mayor!  We've never been to Newfoundland but I think it's about time.  I have some friends who were born in Newfoundland but moved to the west coast.  They loved it there.  It's a different way of life.

These fellows did a wonderful song of their town.   Enjoy

 

Watch your online accounts!

Here is an email I received from someone I know very well.  This is her story and it's always good to share this information.  Because she works full time, she does a lot of online ordering.  Good thing she's on top of everything!

On Nov 30/21, I received an email from Wal Mart stating that my order is in progress.  I logged into my Wal Mart account and discovered that someone ordered $300+ worth of stuff (mostly grocery items) to be delivered to a business in Montreal, QC.  I live in BC, and was certainly not travelling at the time; I do not know anyone in QC.  I did not place the order and no one else in my family orders from Wal Mart.

I tried to cancel the order on Wal Mart's website, and there was no option to allow me to do it, so I called them.  I explained to the man who answered that there is someone who hacked into my account and is in the process of ordering goods, and they cannot ship the order.  He advised me that he would take care of this.  I did not get the feeling he would take care of it, so I called Visa and advised them that the pending charge was fraudulent, and they stopped the charge from going through on my account, cancelled my card and issued me a new one.

I then went back into my Wal Mart account, deleted my saved Visa information and changed the password (to a complete nonsense password, about 16 numeric, and alphanumeric characters that I had to write down to remember).

The kicker is that when I went back into my Wal Mart account the next day, after the Visa information was deleted and the password was changed, there was a TV sitting in the shopping cart.  The fraudsters hacked in again and tried to shop some more, but obviously couldn't get very far! 

I then called Wal Mart back and they suspended the account.

To add icing to the cake, On Jan 21/22, my husband received a phone call from Visa.  He got the phone call rather than me because he is the primary holder of our account.  They said that Wal Mart was disputing our dispute.  My husband told Visa the story, and the Visa rep chuckled and thanked him.  We never saw the charge go through on our Visa card.

After this occurrence, I have deleted all saved payment information from my store accounts, and have just learned to enter them in manually every time I shop on line.