Cruise from Hell?

Carnival Valor day five, San Juan, 12/13/12 (posted 12/15/12)

Is it because we went without Rudy and Georganne?

Is it because Mark never got around to putting the mezuzah back on the front door after the painters took it down?

We may never know, but last night Mark did develop a fever again, extreme fatigue, and was sleeping soundly by 9 p.m.

While I was typing some additions to the last blog around 8:30 last night, I started to feel a little sore throat.  By 9:30 I could not ignore the fact that the sore throat was getting worse.  By 11:30 I could not swallow because my throat was ON FIRE.

Fortunately, when Mark felt he had the sore throat before we boarded, he bought Chloraseptic spray. He never used it because his sore throat never developed much, but I sprayed it every two hours all night.  It says spray every two hours, and like clock work, I woke up from my sleep at almost exactly every two hours because my throat hurt so much.  UGH.

Now it is 6 a.m.  Mark is davening and I’m typing.  Our ship is due to dock at San Juan at 7 a.m., and we are supposed to be on the dock looking for our bus at 7:30.  Today’s tour is three and a half hours called “Fortresses of Old San Juan.”  We are supposed to tour both of the big forts.  I remember going in one of them when I was 18 on a small cruise ship called Izarra with my parents and Flyn.  We had taken the ship out of Miami in the summer of 1968 and sailed to San Juan and St. Thomas.  It was my first cruise on a ship other than a sailing vessel.  We thought it was very big and luxurious  By today’s cruise ship standards it was pretty luxurious, but it was TINY!  Even the smallest cruise ships are gigantic by comparison.  LOL!

Mark also has an aunt who comes from Puerto Rico.  All of her children, Mark’s three cousins, have visited here. He really felt that he wanted to see it and make a connection with them.  It will really SUCK if neither of us feels up to getting off the boat this morning.  We are going to go up to breakfast in a few minutes and then see what happens.

I’ll get back to the blog later in the day to tell you what we did.

After a hot shower, some hot coffee, and some Advil, I felt good enough to go out.  Mark did not have a fever this morning, so we went on our tour.

The tour of the two big fortresses in San Juan was excellent.  First we went to San Cristobal, the largest fort in the Americas, and then we went to El Morro.  Both have long histories and saw many battles. The weather today was a little crazy, sunny, then pouring rain, then sunny, then rain, and back and forth.  We got completely wet leaving San Cristobal, so it was cold in the bus and for the rest of the tour.  The last half hour of the tour was supposed to be walking around the shopping in the old area, but as soon as we got off the bus it rained harder than it ever had.  We just got back on the bus and waited for the thirty minutes to be up.  There was the option to walk back to the ship, which most people apparently did despite the rain.  Not many rode the bus back. 

We had lunch on board and played with our phones!  It turned out that AT&T works fine in San Juan just like at home.  We read emails, got caught up with the news on Facebook, saw our text messages, and even made a phone call to my sister Flyn.  I saw an email that her husband had a blood clot in his leg and will be having surgery to remove it.  Hopefully, it all goes well.  We are praying for his full and speedy recovery.

After lunch I got confused about the sail away time.  We were scheduled to leave at 3:30, and I really wanted to stand on deck and watch because we would be sailing right past the big fortresses.  Unfortunately, San Juan is an hour ahead of us, but we were told to stay on ship’s time, which was Eastern time.  What I forgot was that my cell phone would automatically update to the local time!  I looked at it instead of my watch and thought it was 2:50, only 40 minutes to sail away.  I got my book and decided to read in a warm dry place until the sail away party and then watch it from the deck.  At 3:30, or what I thought was 3:30 came and went, I looked at my watch and realized my mistake.  It was only 2:45 at THAT time!  LOL!

So I made the most of it. I got a pina colada, after all they were invented in San Juan, so I figured I’d better get it before we left.  I did a few more emails on my phone and basically wandered around awhile until it was REALLY 3:30!  Sailing out of the bay was as beautiful as I expected it to be, but just as we were rounding the point where El Morro was, the rains POURED again.  Oh, well...I had seen enough.  I came below to type the rest of the blog.

Tonight we will light the menorah in the main lobby again, have dinner in the dining hall, and watch a comedy show in the theater.  At least my sore throat never got worse during the day.

Ha, I was so tired I couldn’t drag out to the dining room.  Mark and I ate a low key dinner in the buffet, like we did when he was sick.  Then we skipped the show, too, and I went to bed early. It sucks to be sick on a cruise.