Laurie and I just got off of a 16 day cruise, ship repositioning from Miami to Seattle. It was an experience...
We’re home. We’re recovering.
What was supposed to be the ‘vacation of a lifetime’ was turned into the ‘vacation from heck’ courtesy of corporate corner-cutting in every direction. The ship’s crew and hotel staff worked hard to try and get us all through the actual cruise, but they were consistently kneecapped at every turn by corporate inattention, penny-pinching, poor communications and conflicting policies.
Before boarding we have to complete the on-line checkin process, and had to make sure we met various other requirements around vaccination and screening. *These requirements seemed to be moving targets for us.
The FDA authorized a second COVID-19 vaccine booster for folks over 50 (us) about 2 1/2 weeks before departure. *A day later, before our state had authorized the booster and before our medical provider was ready to provide it to us, we got an e-mail from Carnival that indicated we had to be fully vaccinated including all booster shots we were eligible for by 14 days before sailing. That gave us a window of two days to track down booster shots. *My wife and I found appointments at two different pharmacies on Saturday, 15 days before sailing, and drove some 25-30 miles each to get the shots. *Phew! *(We received another mail about 12 days before departure with language clarifying that the 14 days before sailing requirement only applied to the initial vaccine series, not boosters. *Thanks, guys! )
We did a COVID-19 antigen test 2 days before departure and sent in documentation as required. At the port, there was another test, required by one of the countries we would be visiting from what I understand. The actual boarding experience was a bit of a mess simply due to the need to get 2,000 people through the Miami terminal, the antigen test immediately before boarding required for everyone, and the wait for results. *It took a few hours.
Once onboard, we were in a crowd, but everyone was fully vaccinated, mostly boosted, and had passed 2 antigen tests recently. Masks were recommended but not required in indoor venues, but most folks dropped masking by Day 10. We got sloppy. That would prove to be problematic.
It turns out the antigen tests require a certain amount of viral proteins to be present in the nasal sample to show positive. In the early stages of an infection there may simply not be enough there to show a visible indication in the antigen test. Several days later, however, that person who passed a test could have a rip-roaring case of COVID-19 and be coughing and sneezing up a viral storm.
Around Day 10 we noticed folks coughing and sneezing through dinner and shows. That had me worried, and we started masking up in indoor spaces. On the evening of Day 11 I had a scratchy throat, not uncommon for me in heavily air-conditioned spaces.
The morning of Day 12, I awoke with a massive headache, chills, sore throat runny nose and aches. Damn. We did what we were supposed to do, called the Medical Center onboard, and a couple hours later a medic tested us in our room. I was positive and Laurie was negative. We were not the only ones. The medic told us that they were not moving people to the quarantine deck at that time. We later found that they were full! We would be isolating in our cabin.
We called Room Service to see if we could get something to eat. After an hour of listening to the Happy Fun recording, the phone system disconnected the call. Try again. Dropped again. The system was overloaded. Uh oh.
We did have two of those paper strip order things for breakfasts, so we filled one out and successfully got breakfast on Day 13, ordering enough to hold us for a day. We repeated this for Day 14. That evening, Room Service called US to get a dinner order. They had figured a way around the overloaded phone system, calling quarantined rooms from a back office phone.
I was feeling much better when we got to Seattle, with over 5 days since onset of symptoms having passed. Disembarking and leaving the port was it's own disorganized comedy of errors, but we made it home and I am recovering well. We are still monitoring Laurie, and I hope she somehow escapes COVID-19.
The ship’s crew and hotel staff worked hard to try and get us all through the actual cruise, but they were consistently kneecapped at every turn by corporate inattention, penny-pinching, poor communications and conflicting policies.
Everyone else tested negative. Yeah, that was a downer but I was SO glad I got out and they refunded half the cost of the trip since we lost a couple of days. I wore an N95 on the flights and, more importantly, on the overcrowded trams at SEA. Tested negative when I got home.
