“Live with no excuses and travel with no regrets” ~ Oscar Wilde
“Little by little, one travels far.” J.R. Tolkein
“Live your life.” Dr. Regina Kohls

“You worry too much.  Stop worrying.  It will be fine,” said my older daughter multiple times as we planned the 12-day family cruise we were taking to celebrate our 50^th anniversary. My younger daughter, no doubt in collusion with her sister, echoed the advice that I should Just. Chill. Out.

The cruise sailed in and out of Southampton, England, and stopped at ports in Spain and Portugal.  What could go so wrong, really?  My daughters, their spouses, my husband and I were all vaxxed and boosted.  Every one of us, except my husband, had gotten the virus less than six months during our Covid Christmas.  I had even received monoclonal antibodies at the time.

Stacey explained in that measured tone of an elderly person’s long-suffering offspring that Royal Caribbean had strict Covid protocols.  Every guest over 12 had to be fully vaccinated and boosted.  Every guest, regardless of age, had to test negative prior to boarding the ship.

My daughter’s exasperation when I pointed out the loop hole—the unvaccinated snotty vectors under 12—was followed by the edict that I was not to worry.  It would all work out.

But what if, I argued, we all rendezvoused in London the day before the cruise—my younger daughter’s family from their home and Norway, and the older daughter’s family and us from the U.S.—and somebody tested positive?  Would we all ditch the cruise?  Would some of us go, waving goodbye to the afflicted family members from the lido deck?  And would the coughing, gasping family members be stuck in the airport hotel foraging meals from the vending machines with their diminishing pound sterling for 10 days of isolation?

“It will be fine,” my daughter said.

As our departure date loomed, I packed N-95 masks and antigen tests and cough medicine, and an oximeter and our Living Wills for good measure.

The nightly news did nothing to tamp down my anxiety.  Even as Omicron was building up steam again, airlines eliminated mask mandates.

And about the airlines—flights were being cancelled and delayed.  “What if we arrive too late to join our cruise?  We had built in a one-day buffer, but still.

The day of our flight from Cincinnati and our Norwegian daughter’s flight from Oslo was replete with flight delays and cancellations.  We had planned to fly with our Cincinnati daughter so we could help with their toddler, but when we rebooked, Stacey had a layover in Atlanta, and we had one in Detroit.  There was a speedy hair-raising Uber ride to the CVG airport to catch our rebooked flight, only to be delayed a couple hours.

It was a long day, but in short, we all arrived at Heathrow a day before the cruise.  We all connected to the wobbly Internet at our hotel to do our telehealth Binax covid tests.  Our phones binged with results as we all reported our single-line Negative.  My husband, who was the only adult among us who had escaped the plague for two years crowed, “I’m always negative.”  True enough.

By the time we made the two-hour van trip to Southampton and checked in, we were starving.  We raced to the 14^th deck.  The ship was equipped with a washing station—six sinks where diners were required to wash their hands with hot soap and water.  I noticed that every waiter and bartender was fully masked.   Once we were sanitized, we feasted our eyes on the toothsome buffet that included passion fruit, shrimp cocktail, sirloin steaks, and chocolate mousse.

After lunch, we went to our staterooms.  The halls were lined with cabin stewards, all completely masked like every other ship employee.  They greeted us warmly in anticipation of our tips 12 days hence.

Stacey had planned it so thoroughly:  inside rooms without balconies because of the toddlers; three cabins, two of them adjoining so we could babysit and allow the adult children to party.  “I know I shouldn’t worry,” I said to Stacey when I peeked into the rooms, “but there are no beds for the children.”

“There were supposed to be couches that fold out,” she said.  “Oh, well, it will work out.  They’ll bring in cots or something.”  I pointed out that there was one vacant spot of floor in the rooms, one that might accommodate a dog crate.  If the dog were a dachshund.

After a two-hour wait in guest services and a somewhat heated discussion with an employee who couldn’t understand why one additional room for the toddlers to share wouldn’t solve the problem, two cabins with beds for the kids became available, probably because some distraught potential guests had just tested positive and were eating stale Doritos in their airport hotel rooms.

“See,” Stacey said.  “Nothing to worry about. It all worked out.”  And she was right.

If Stacey ever decided to quit her job as a middle school history teacher, she could become a sought-after travel guide.  Each day I’d ask, “What are we doing tomorrow?”

“Look at the itinerary I provided,” she responded through clenched teeth.

At each port, she planned all modes of transport:  vans, public busses, cable cars, toboggans, tired feet, and, of course, camels.  There were port tastings and food tours, beaches and volcanos, playgrounds and merry-go-rounds.

On day nine, we had a wonderful time on the lush Portuguese island of Madeira.  We all agreed it was a place we could spend a week to explore the dining, drinking, and cultural offerings.  Our guide identified flowers I had never seen.  “Man,” I said, “those beautiful flowers are really making my allergies kick in.”  The guide said that all tourists said the same thing, and even most locals suffered from seasonal allergies.  I sneezed, despite my morning doses of Claritan and Flonase.  I tossed back a few Advil for my sinus headache and enjoyed the day.  By the fifth stop of the food tour, I just couldn’t eat another bite.  Let me repeat:  I couldn’t eat.

When we returned to the ship, my husband confided that he had never been so tired as he was that day, from the very beginning.  We told the girls we were going to skip dinner and turn in early.

Looking back, the fact that I was turning down a meal should have been the first clue.  I never miss a meal, especially one that might include lobster tails.

There is an oft used literary device, foreshadowing, and I am sure my sophisticated readers are already hearing the thundering Dun Dun Duuuuuuunnn signaling encroaching doom.

The next morning, I had a little hollow, dry cough, and I felt a little flu-ish.  As I walked back to my cabin after breakfast I tried to banish that nagging fear, the one I’d been admonished by my daughters to abandon.  What if one of us got Covid?  Should I or shouldn’t I test?  By the time I got back to the room, I decided that I would test to reassure myself.  I counted six drops of solution with my myopic eyes onto the test strip.  Before I could even lay the strip on the desk, two blazing lines appeared.  I had Covid for the second time in less than six months.   I texted Rick to come to the cabin . . . 2 more blazing lines.  Within a couple hours, my symptoms were gone.  Rick had none.

Here’s the thing:  If we were going to get Covid on this trip, this was the absolute perfect day.  It was the last day of the cruise, and we were at sea.  The next morning we snuck down the stairs with our masks and luggage and left the tin can.  We had planned five days in London.  Amazingly, the weather was a perfect sunny 70 degrees all five days.  We came down the hotel’s back stairs donning our N95, and we walked all day.  On the banks of the Thames, there are dozens of food trucks.  We put on our masks, got our food, and found a bench with a view.  For five days, we never went inside a restaurant, subway, double-decker bus, museum, or theater.  We were completely symptom-free.  One day, my infected husband walked 24,000 steps.  I tested negative on the seventh day after my symptoms started.  We flew home, masked, on Day 9 of Rick’s infection.

My kids had no symptoms and never tested.  After the cruise, my American daughter and granddaughter went to Norway for a week.

The next time I traveled, and the same symptoms appeared, would I test?  I want to say yes.  I want to think I am an honorable person and would want to know.  But here’s the thing:  By the time we tested positive, we may have infected hundreds of people.  As we slipped out of the ship among the 4,000 cruisers, I thought, “A thousand of them have Covid.”

Our flight from London to JFK was completely uneventful—which is the best thing you can say about a 7-hour flight, but when we landed and Rick turned on his phone, he had a text saying that our flight to Cincinnati was cancelled.  We were rebooked for the next day.  We grumbled but made our way to a high-priced, low-amenity airport hotel.  When we returned to the airport at 5:00 AM the next morning, I was still grumbling, until I saw all the people at our gate asleep on the floor.  Yeah, I have high class problems.

Our itinerary took us on a circuitous route from NYC to Atlanta to Cincy.  When we boarded the flight in Atlanta, the pilot apologized for the heat of the plane which had sat in the Georgia’s 101 degrees for six hours.  Passengers pulled off socks and sweaters, dabbed their brows with ice chips from their inflight beverages, and fanned themselves with sickbags.  About the time we made our initial descent into CVG, the temperature was probably only 80.  As we scooped our belongings to deplane, passengers looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders.  We were all thinking the same thing:  This is travel today.

So, with travel as it is in this pandemic/adjacent era worth it?

Rick and I have traveled the world, but we are not really very adventurous.  We are pretty risk-averse, in fact, and would never consider traveling far afield without a guide who spoke the local language and was dependent on our tips.

So what made us agree to a cruise, for heaven’s sake?  Talk about risk?

I was a bit shame-faced to tell my doctor that we were doing this preposterous journey on a floating petri ship.  You know what she said?  “Live your life.”

We are not risk-takers.  But we are parents and grandparents.  No risk is too great if it means we can be together. We eventually lowered our expectations for our flights and assumed they would be delayed, cancelled, and uncomfortable.  We no longer worry we are going to get terribly ill with Covid, and it doesn’t suck to have five days to walk around a faraway city, fueled by greasy fish and chips and spicy noodles.

We do not regret for a minute taking this trip.  It helps to travel with enthusiastic, optimistic young people . . . and a detailed itinerary.

Other Blogposts About Traveling

Bed and Breakfast on the Farm
Do these chopsticks make me look fat?
How Facebook Almost Ruined My Trip to Morocco
How the Corona Virus Chased Us Out of Norway
How to Travel With Your Husband Without Killing Him
I Danced With the Maasai in Africa
Iceland:  Land of Fire and Ice, and the $18 Toothbrush
Lithuania:  A Study in Resilience
My Husband Travels Without Me.  It’s All Good.
Role Reversal on a Trip With Adult Children
Sleeping Around:  The Airbnb Experience
We Went to See the Saigon Jews and Other Adventures in Vietnam