At sea with Covid: a positive report about a positive test result

[Coral]

25 minutes ago, LidoLiz said:

Jilliebean28, I am sorry that your experience on Regal has been so much different than here on Emerald. But it’s great news that you have been released.

 

Hang in there Liz! Can you tell if the rooms are increasing? The ship definitely has a lot of people coughing everywhere. 

[LidoLiz]

Yes, it seems Aloha port side has a lot more activity, judging from the number of tables placed in the halls in front of both inside and balcony cabins. I wonder if they are still quarantining people, seeing there are only two days left in the cruise?

[Coral]

6 minutes ago, LidoLiz said:

Yes, it seems Aloha port side has a lot more activity, judging from the number of tables placed in the halls in front of both inside and balcony cabins. I wonder if they are still quarantining people, seeing there are only two days left in the cruise?

I just ran down to International Cafe and the 3 people getting food in front of me were coughing. My guess is people are not speaking up if they are sick.

 

My goal is to stay away from people the next 2 days. I am trying to find secluded areas (my balcony) to read.

 

Hope you are doing ok! You are free in 2 days!

Edited November 21, 2022 by Coral

[sunviking90]

1 hour ago, Coral said:

I just ran down to International Cafe and the 3 people getting food in front of me were coughing. My guess is people are not speaking up if they are sick.

 

My goal is to stay away from people the next 2 days. I am trying to find secluded areas (my balcony) to read.

 

Hope you are doing ok! You are free in 2 days!

I agree. Definitely a lot of coughing down there. There a lot of other nasty respiratory viruses going around too, so I don’t necessarily think all these people have Covid, but it’s just rude in this environment to be openly heavily coughing around others. My DH was getting over one of these viruses with a lingering dry cough when we boarded and managed to never cough outside of our cabin. 
I think a lot of people just don’t care or want to believe things are “normal”.

 

I will say, we have thoroughly enjoyed this cruise. The crew have all been wonderful. I can think of so many names to mention on the post cruise survey. The lectures have been really interesting. We have found the food in the MDR to be a little too “saucy” (one dish had 3 different sauces on one plate!), but overall very good. The buffet choices at breakfast and lunch are varied with lots of healthy choices, salads, etc which we love. This is our first transatlantic and we can’t wait to do another one.

[Keksie]

1 hour ago, bnickle said:

To make sure we were not endangering others. Thinking of others is a fun thing to do! It’s humane, it’s easy, and costs nothing! We highly recommend it! Call the hotline right now and we’ll not only send you some InstantConsideration (patent pending), but you’ll also get our gold-minted Map of the Universe in which no one person sits in the middle!*

 

*sideeffectsincludeanallergytotinfoilhatssuddenlossofnegativekarmaandabetterrealizationthatscienceisaneverevolvingprocessofknowledge. 

You do realize that a person could still be contagious and not test positive yet.  There is no way to be sure you are not endangering others.

[bnickle]

6 minutes ago, Keksie said:

You do realize that a person could still be contagious and not test positive yet.  There is no way to be sure you are not endangering others.

Indeed, but one can take all possible measures to the best of their ability. We have traveled the last two months, and this is our ride home. We tested continually to better our chances of catching it quick and early if it happened.  In the end it’s gonna be what it’s gonna be, but why avoid doing things that could help mitigate all factors?

Edited November 21, 2022 by bnickle

[Keksie]

7 minutes ago, bnickle said:

Indeed, but one can take all possible measures to the best of their ability. We have traveled the last two months, and this is our ride home. We tested continually to better our chances of catching it quick and early if it happened.  In the end it’s gonna be what it’s gonna be, but why avoid doing things that could help mitigate all factors?

Just didn't want you to think that a negative test would be sure way of not having it.  We have traveled, gone out to restaurants and activities since May 2020 and never felt the need to test.  

[bnickle]

13 minutes ago, Keksie said:

Just didn't want you to think that a negative test would be sure way of not having it.  We have traveled, gone out to restaurants and activities since May 2020 and never felt the need to test.  

Thanks for helping with my thinking, but I think we got it. Ya’ll simply take a different approach than we do. It’s all good. 

[RNRcruisers]

I am relieved to see Covid is being handled well for you. Maybe Princess will learn to do this for all their ships... We are supposed to sail in February and I am nervous about it. We went last January without problems but the ship was half empty and precautions were being taken, as opposed to now. Love your attitude and I am enjoying your posts 😁

[bnickle]

UPDATE UPDATE READ ALL ABOUT IT!!! And that sounded way more chipper than the direction this is going to go. 

 

So they have been testing me every morning since Friday, and every day the test has come back positive. So we are still in quarantine, and today the ominous words were handed down, “Guest Services will be contacting you to talk about disembarkation.”

 

So that’s where we are at, and we have been brainstorming scenarios. Foremost in the brainstorming is the idea that I am not even thinking about boarding a plane if I have a positive test Wednesday morning (we have self-tests left) because…other people. Also, our chances of getting an air schedule readjusted the freaking day before TG are probably non-existent, even if I do test negative. And my understanding is that testing positive buys you a Last Off Of The Ship pass at disembarkation. So even under the best of circumstances on Wed morning, we will not make our flight.

 

So…car rental may be eminent. We’ll see. I’m really not going to worry about it, because it’s going to be what it’s going to be. A nice road trip from Ft. Lauderdale to Kansas City, MO sounds…well it sounds like what we may have looming on our horizon. We’ll see. Plan B is to try to find a hotel room in Ft. L and hunker down a day or two, and Plan C is that we just drink heavily and let the next few days pass in a blur. I’m open to all three plans. In any case, now we get to notify our adult aged kids that this is all happening (didn’t want to worry them, and two of them are coming for TG dinner to our house), and that will not be pretty. All of that parenting of teenagers (“We just want you to be honest with us. Be open. You will never be judged for being honest” is going to come back to bite us in the behineys big time.)

Edited November 21, 2022 by bnickle

[bnickle]

20 minutes ago, RNRcruisers said:

I am relieved to see Covid is being handled well for you. Maybe Princess will learn to do this for all their ships... We are supposed to sail in February and I am nervous about it. We went last January without problems but the ship was half empty and precautions were being taken, as opposed to now. Love your attitude and I am enjoying your posts 😁

Not gonna lie. From our perspective Princess has stepped up for this. Guest Services has called at least twice a day to check on us, the Med Center has been in daily contact via phone in addition to the face to face testing, and everyone has been understanding, cheerful, and empathetic. 

 

There is one more thing I think Princess could do to help. We have the dining plan that I am too lazy to look up that you pick the time and place and yada yada yada. We had, until the positive test, standing reservations at the Botticelli every night at 6, at table 56. (Good lord we miss Dennis. He was delightful.) our table for two was placed uber close to other tables for two, and any hope of social distancing is gone. The cruise is 2/3 full, leaning towards 1/2 full, so losing some tables to spread people out for this cruise would not have been a bad idea.

Edited November 21, 2022 by bnickle

[PescadoAmarillo]

20 hours ago, memoak said:

There is a tab on the main screen marked Dining. Each days menus show there. Makes it easy to know if you want to go to MDR or not

Honestly, we had never previously ordered room service via TV, and I don’t even have the TV on in the cabin if my DH is not there.  Again, written instructions that don’t assume prior knowledge would be helpful. There are always people who are not familiar with what we might believe is commonly known, especially when it comes to technology. 

[Coral]

19 minutes ago, bnickle said:

 

There is one more thing I think Princess could do to help. We have the dining plan that I am too lazy to look up that you pick the time and place and yada yada yada. We had, until the positive test, standing reservations at the Botticelli every night at 6, at table 56. (Good lord we miss Dennis. He was delightful.) our table for two was placed uber close to other tables for two, and any hope of social distancing is gone.

OMG - I refuse to sit at those tables! We had to speak to the person when we first entered the dining room (same dining room) and had to adjust our dining time to get out of that style of table. I refused to sit there during any meal. I completely agree with you! 

 

I completely agree with you. Princess needs to get rid of those row tables.

[bnickle]

17 minutes ago, PescadoAmarillo said:

Honestly, we had never previously ordered room service via TV, and I don’t even have the TV on in the cabin if my DH is not there.  Again, written instructions that don’t assume prior knowledge would be helpful. There are always people who are not familiar with what we might believe is commonly known, especially when it comes to technology. 

Totally get you. We had the capability to look at daily menus for a day or two, then that link stopped working on the tv so up in Isolation Land we’ve had lunch and dinner menus sent to us daily. We had to explain a few times that yes, we know how to reach the menus link for daily info, but that no, it does not work on this tv for some reason. Also, some of us “of a certain age” are tech immigrants, those born later are tech natives. And it wouldn’t hurt to please remember that when offering helpful tips.

[RNRcruisers]

22 hours ago, Coral said:

OMG - I refuse to sit at those tables! We had to speak to the person when we first entered the dining room (same dining room) and had to adjust our dining time to get out of that style of table. I refused to sit there during any meal. I completely agree with you! 

 

I completely agree with you. Princess needs to get rid of those row tables.

 

I didn't like the arrangement of those tables even before Covid - now they just make no sense.

[Jilliebean28]

On 11/20/2022 at 4:12 PM, memoak said:

You should have been able to see the menus on your tv

Thanks and yes I realized that but on my TV I was unable to scroll to see the menu and they it still showed me as being in my original cabin not in my Covid cabin.  It was a disaster all around!  

[Coral]

2 hours ago, Jilliebean28 said:

Thanks and yes I realized that but on my TV I was unable to scroll to see the menu and they it still showed me as being in my original cabin not in my Covid cabin.  It was a disaster all around!  

I have to say I found it difficult to scroll also. I somehow managed but I can't tell you how I did it.

Edited November 22, 2022 by Coral