Our NCL cruise out of Iceland. Back to covid testing.
 

Got an email from NCL Monday inre to our Iceland cruise embarkation June 23rd. Among other things this notes " All vaccinated guests regardless off age must provide proof of a neg. COVID 19 antigen or NAAT (i.e. PCR) administered by a verified 3rd party within three days of the embarkation date for cruises originating from non US/Canadian port. "

I think that's a good idea. There has not really been a good test of COVID transmission on ships since Omicron/ dropping testing and masking. Andecdotes of many cases detected after the passengers disembark.

Good luck!

I have only been on a different smaller NCL ship, the Sun. We liked it at the time.

The ship is the Star. The itinerary is amazing. We leave from Iceland and plan to stay there three days ahead of time before we go. The ship has three stops in Iceland itself, two stops in Norway and two stops in Scotland before disembarking in Southampton.
As this is in June we will certainly have a lot of daylight too.

Not just anecdotes: https://www.cruzely.com/cruise-ship-...ossible-cases/
Thank goodness for vaccines. I never dreamed we would still be dealing with this after two years. I have just given up trying to travel at all for now, too stressful for me to contemplate.

I really hope the trend is downward in the next few days and your cruise is wonderful as it should be.

Thank you.
I too thought by now we would be well past this but not so obviously.

Just be as safe as you can be.

We are double boosted BTW,.

We're on the exact same cruise on the Star... same dates and everything. We're also arriving 3 days early. I was a little confused on the testing though after I finished check in. I already scheduled the home proctoring to be done hours before we get on our flight to Reykjavik on 6/20, but during the check in process it looks like we're also going to be testing on the dock. Does that sound right?

I just completed the check-in process and you can get testing on the dock. In fact you have to do agree to it before you can get on the ship and print your documents. However I did not know this before so I arrange for testing for us when we arrive on the 20th and it is scheduled for after 4 o’clock or Less than 72 hours before embarkation. I did call the travel agency and they called Norwegian because I wanted to know if we could use this test instead of theirs seeing as how I already payed for it anyway and the answer was you can. I am hoping this will save us some time in line when we embark.
The testing location was recommended by the hotel as they do a lot of testing for tourists and it is a government sponsored office.

F/U. Got it done. Quite easy really and we all tested negative. The results were both emailed and texted.

Bon Voyage. I assume F/U stands for final update!!!

Almost. Follow Up. 😂
BTW Reykjavik was quite chilly, rainy too. We are is Isafjordur now and it’s a little nicer though I hear it’s an abnormally cool summer. You definitely need to layer and bring waterproof jacket and a hat.

Have you been to Iceland before? It always seemed very interesting, but we never worked out going when we had the chance. Some people say it is magical, others are not so enthusiastic. What do you say? Don’t want to take time from your trip, so don’t feel you have to answer right now.

good morning from the Norwegian Sea! We left Iceland last night and this was our first time here. Would I go again? Maybe or maybe not. I must say it was much colder than I thought it would be. According to one of the locals I met global climate change has affected them by making their summers colder than normal. The temperatures here we’re about 10° lower than what I looked up their normals should be.
That being said the natural beauty is really utterly amazing. It’s so green and there are waterfalls just about everywhere. The landscapes are just stunning. I also must say that everybody we met has been so friendly I can’t believe it.
I do have to say it’s a rather harsh climate. However people here adapt like people in most places do and I would say if you get a chance to come here you should definitely come here. However just dress very warm. LOL

How did you like the Star, jacketwatch?

So far so good. It’s a panamax ship so smaller by newer ships dimensions but it’s clean, the crew has been wonderful and we are at less than half full so lines have been short. We’ve used 2 specialty restaurants so far and both were very nice. Steakhouse is next. :)
Larry.

Hope your cruise is going wonderfully.

overall we really like the cruise. The people on the ship treated us very well. This was one of the best levels of Customer Service we have ever experienced.
The port of Akureyri in Iceland was brutal. It was around 40° with gusting winds and I was frankly under dress for it so it was very cold. I did not know it would be this cold. I had a long sleeve shirt and a thick hoodie and a goose down vest but the next day I had to buy another thick hoodie to go over all that because it was just so cold.
We enjoyed Norway the best. It’s simply beautiful. There are lots of trees and hills and waterfalls and as opposed to Iceland which doesn’t have many trees at all so the visual experiences much nicer. We enjoyed Norway the best. It’s simply beautiful. There are lots of trees and hills and waterfalls and as opposed to Iceland which doesn’t have many trees at all so the visual experiences much nicer.
we went with another couple or actually two other couples and we picked excursions in Scotland that we all could agree with. If I had to do over I would’ve done things differently and got to see more of Edinburgh versus just a few stops here and there but overall we had a very good time.
leaving London Heathrow was a nightmare. Traffic got very slow once we got close to it. Then when we finally get in they were blocking the way to go to United Airlines to check in. No one said anything why. They were just blocking the way and I got very annoying because no one told us anything. And the crowd was getting restless! When we finally got to check in we had business class premier check-in so that went pretty well. Then because we are TSA approved we were told we could go quickly through security. Well that simply wasn’t true. We had to go way back in the security line which seem to stretch for a half a block or more and when we got to the gold channel for fast tracking it was extremely slow.! From the time that we put our bags on those trays to be checked and the time we actually got them back was at least 30 minutes. Yes 30 minutes they were checking everything with a fine tooth comb so maybe I shouldn’t complain but the entire process was laborious. then we had to walk about 15 minutes or so to get to our lounge which was fortunately near the gate.
conversely coming back to Chicago with Global Entry we were waiting for our car about no more than 15 minutes and most of that was just waiting for the luggage to be unloaded.
LHR is understaffed so it seems but if can avoid it please consider that.

Very informative. Thanks for posting.

My pleasure

https://www.reuters.com/world/norweg...es-2022-07-06/

Now testing is being relaxed.