GeezerCouple

This ^^ (No surprise; Gardyloo is among those who tend to "know" 🙂 ) As an additional check, and to make sure that you feel comfortable when/if you are actually getting ready to be ticketed, take a look at the seating plan. Use seatguru.com to find that using your flight number. Chances are you will only see one "type" of business class seat, even if there is a break in the business class sections. (In some planes there are two sections, in others just one, but the seats should all be described the same way, etc., and have the same diagrams.) And when you have a flight number, if you have any questions, you could post that flight number here to get someone else to confirm, etc. You should be very comfortable on JAL Business class for a long-haul flight! We are in a similar situation: at our ages, our bodies just can't handle sitting up for a long flight. Fortunately, we are able to use awards. (And getting bonus points for opening affiliated charge cards jump starts the point count. Depending upon when you need to get ticketed, perhaps you'd want to check into this? We tend to use American Airlines linked cards, and use the AAdvantage points to get ticketed on partner airlines like JAL.) GC

If you got travel insurance, this should qualify for full coverage, so it won't be a financial loss. But it can still be a huge disappointment for everyone. I can't imagine the ship would be eager to have others come aboard if they had possibly recently been exposed. IF it's chickenpox, I hope it's a mild case! GC

Thanks for mentioning this. I'm not sure if we would have thought to dispose of any testing in such a "discreet" way. But what is this about hiding things in your socks and shoes!? Are you suggesting that this is like summer camp and the counselors/crew are looking for forbidden candy or other "contraband" - such as... unused test kits - in socks or shoes!?! (I guess I have smaller feet! 😉 ) But seriously are you suggesting they were *searching* through one's things? That is so different from "noticing something in plain sight"! 😱 GC

Just as a reminder (to others, also), even *if* there are sundries ordinarily available somewhere on the ship, that doesn't guarantee that just what you want or need will be in stock when *you* need it. It's not necessarily like they can get another <whatever> from another branch for you, or like you could go across the street to the competition to get the item. OTOH, we have travel insurance, so IF we needed to get something like aspirin or decongestant from the ship medical center, we'd be reimbursed for the visit and any supplies. However, even *that* has now become an incredibly more complex situation with COVID and any restrictions that might occur if one simply wanted some routine med that one ran out of, lest it trigger some disproportionate response from the powers that be on the ship... 😠 A lot of things have changed, alas. We can understand the need for caution, etc., and we are among the more vulnerable due to age and pre-existing medical conditions. But still... decisions can get made by mistake, or for "incorrect" reasons, and on a ship, "their" decision must stand. GC

We *always* travel with our own OTC meds (plus the various Rx meds). In foreign countries, it might be difficult to know which item is the right match for something, etc. And on ships, even when they had these things (we haven't sailed yet post-COVID), they were silly expensive. A small quantity of the types of OTC meds we might need doesn't take up much space at all, and if we don't use them, we'll use them later at some point at home. And we *know* we'll have just what we want, and when we want it, just in case... We do double check the drug laws of all countries we'll be visiting, to avoid any unfortunate events, whether we sail or fly. It's not always obvious. Japan absolutely prohibits original formulation of Sudafed or the generic, for example. GC

This is what we do sometimes. We've especially done it in the Caribbean. We tend to take private excursions, from something carefully planned in advance to just a taxi at the port ("please drive us around the island and can you include places like..."). We've sometimes asked either to have a couple of specific hotels included for a quick look, or just "could you include a couple of nicer hotels". In two cases, that helped us to find islands we liked, and hotels that we especially liked on those islands. And we had great excursions each day as well. We've also stopped at some ports that we realized were probably not going to be at the top of our "revisit" list. We may do the same for Hawaii, and use the cruise as a sampler, or 1 week cruise, 1 week land, once we are there... GC