My cruise on the Carnival Dream was set for May 16, and this morning an email greeted me telling me it was cancelled. I wanted to go on this cruise! I’m not afraid.
Cruise ships have always been great at taking care of getting rid of germs. The crew works hard to get you to wash your hands, use hand sanitizer, and clean, clean, clean! If I catch something on a cruise ship, it’s not because the crew hasn’t done their part.
Granted, you can have some people who get on the ship when they are sick (they lie about it, please don’t be one of those). But that happens everywhere – a plane, a hotel, the grocery store, the park, etc. It’s just you don’t always suspect those things, because you aren’t there very long.
There are also some who get on the ship not knowing they are carrying something and may be about to get sick. Strep is one of those things with an indefinite incubation period, for example. You can be a carrier for months (or years) and not know it. Go to the mall and you could infect a lot of people, but it would never be traced back to you, or probably even that mall.
With COVID-19, a good percentage of the people who are infected will never show any symptoms or have such mild symptoms they will never even realize they had it. This makes it difficult to avoid exposure. Even the grocery items you bring into your home could carry the virus to you. Someone had to touch those items, and even if they are wearing gloves, it only protects them, not the things they touch.
Ok, that’s my rant about wanting to go on my cruise!