First Cruise Since Pandemic

Pre-Hotel And Embarkation:

Because we've taken many cruises and are getting old, we had our travel agent book everything through HAL; air, hotel and cruise. It's just become easier for us than doing everything separate ourselves. HAL makes the decisions and if something goes wrong it's not my fault. Pre-cruise we were booked in the Sheraton Hotel And Marina in San Diego. I was a bit apprehensive about the hotel after seeing a majority of bad reviews on Travelocity but it was fine. We were picked up at the airport by a hotel shuttle, our bags were left in the room the next morning and HAL picked them up and shuttled us to the cruise port. We arrived at the port around 11:30 and embarkation was a breeze. There are several steps now, first a window to show our cruise ticket, Covid vaccination card and negative Covid results. She also took my picture because for some reason the one I uploaded didn't transfer over correctly. From there we went to another window where we were asked the normal "health" questions about having a temperature, being around anyone with Covid, etc. After that we went directly to the ship. Another difference on this cruise was our key cards were in an envelope just outside our cabin and we were able to go directly there instead of waiting like normal. I'm not sure what the reasoning with that is unless it's less hands the card gets touched by? Our room steward met us when we got there and another change was room service was only performed once a day unless you specifically request a night time "turndown." We tend to be neat so that was no problem with us. It'll be interesting to see if that trend continues to carry on after the Covid crisis is over as a cost cutting measure. Read more