Sea Day - Sick Day

 Thursday, February 27, 2025

Around 2:00 am I woke up not feeling great. My first thought was the Asian noodles were the culprit. (I had eaten spicy noodles at lunch AND dinner!) But within a few minutes I realized it wasn't just indigestion and I made a mad dash to the bathroom. It was pretty obvious at that point that this was not just a case of spicy food. 

I grabbed the trash can out of the bathroom and sat on the couch, hoping I would feel better. But that didn't happen. There was no way to be quiet when you are as sick as I was and Bob woke up. We had a spare blanket in the cabin so I spread that over the couch and stayed there for the next couple of hours. I also took a meclizine (Bonine), hoping it would calm the nausea. 

I'm not sure if that did the trick, but I did start to feel a little better and went back to bed and slept the rest of the night. When I woke up, the nausea had left but I needed to make another quick trip into the bathroom for "other" symptoms.

Bob went and met Jon and Michelle for breakfast and I just crawled back into bed. Michelle had a spa appointment for a manicure and pedicure and the guys went and played pickle ball. Bob came and checked on me afterwards and then he and Jon went to the lido to play ping pong.

I slept almost all morning long. I took one more meclazine and also added Imodium this time. Bob sent me a message through the Navigator app while he was eating lunch asking if I needed anything. I requested a can of Diet Coke. I had a headache which I attributed to missing my morning coffee and was hopeful a little caffeine could cure that.

Jon and Michelle went to the military meet-up after lunch (Jon is retired military) and took along the bottles of champagne that each of us had gotten as an apology for not having a mini fridge in our rooms. We knew we wouldn't drink the champagne so Jon made up a couple of random categories to pick winners among the vets to receive the bottles...longest service, earliest entry into the military, etc. 

Bob came back to the room and rested for a bit and then took off for yet more pickleball. I tried starting a couple of different movies on TV but couldn't get interested. Instead I worked on my favorite NY Times puzzles online...Wordle, Connections and Strands. HAL provides access to the NY Times website so I could access the puzzles without having an internet connection.

Bob returned to the room around 3:00 to shower and get ready for "dressy night" in the dining room. It was early, but he had made plans to meet Jon and Michelle for trivia at 4:00. He was ready by 3:30 so announced that he was going up to the Crow's Nest early and go to the watercolor class. 

My tummy had settled down and I was feeling OK (but hungry) so I took a chance and ordered some chicken noodle soup and a sandwich from room service. I ate most of the soup. The club sandwich was delicious but huge along with a massive amount of potato chips (I requested the order without the usual coleslaw.) I put the chips in a ziplock bag to enjoy some other time and ate half of the club sandwich hoping it would not upset my stomach. It tasted so good! Bob returned briefly before dinner and reported that they had a score of 13 out of 17 in their trivia game...better than I would have guessed they could have done!

After having the "do not disturb" sign hanging on the door all morning, I really wanted to have the cabin serviced and get some clean towels but knew I needed to get out of the room. After Bob left for dinner, I packed up my iPad and went down to the promenade deck to get some fresh air. Other than a few walkers, I had the deck to myself. The sea was calm and the sun was setting and it was so beautiful! A few thunderheads off in the distance were billowing into the sky, illuminated by the low angle of the sun.

I sat on the promenade deck until it was dark and the crew began collecting the chair cushions. By the time I got back to the room, it had been cleaned and there were fresh towels in the bathroom. I was feeling perfectly fine by then and decided to go to the evening show in the theater. Bob, Jon and Michelle were sitting in the very back row and I joined them. The theater was only about half full for the "Hey Mr. DJ" show with the full cast of singers and dancers. Most of the songs they performed were ones I knew but others were totally unknown to me. 

Seeing the others also gave us a chance to discuss plans for "turn around day" in Ft. Lauderdale on Saturday. A notice had been left in our mailbox saying that the ship was going to undergo deep cleaning on that day and any passengers staying on for the next cruise would need to get off the ship by 9 am and not return until 2 pm. The choices for folks like us were to just sit in the terminal for 5 hours, take a free shuttle to a shopping mall or sign up for an overpriced tour from HAL. None of the alternatives were great. Since Jon and Michelle had driven to the port, he suggested that we take his car and find something to do in the Ft. Lauderdale area. That sounded like a good solution so I told Jon he was in charge of the plan PROVIDED he got us back to the port no later than 2:00. After the fiasco at the beginning of the cruise I didn't want to worry about missing the ship!