Is It Smart to Once Again Choose to Mask Up for Your Next Packed Cruise!

My wife often says that I am good at a great many things, but being sick is not one of them. I have to agree as I really am a terrible, and needy, sick person. On our recent, and pleasantly surprising, nice Carnival Cruise I came down with a cold about half way into the 14 day cruise. I clearly caught whatever it was (not covid, BTW) from someone who came onboard sick with the bug. Frustratingly this is the 4^th time I have been sick over the past 6 months. Every other time I got sick after a trip not during. This time we were ill for 3-4 weeks despite a trip to the doctor and a week of antibiotics. We even wore masks as much as possible during our travels to our port city of Bacelona.

In the news just last week a United flight from Vancouver to Houston landed with roughly 25 people in a group of 75  who had been on the same cruise feeling ill enough to prompt evaluations of 3 of them by Houston Fire Department upon landing. United even took the added precaution of taking the plane out of service for deep cleaning before returning to service. When a ship has an outbreak of norovirus, for example, the crew also do a deep cleaning prior to embarkation of new passengers. Often referred to as a “Code-Red” this measure may also prevent crew from leaving or boarding the ship while in port.

So what is the answer to these current risks? Stay home? Social distancing? Masks? All of these options have various levels of effectiveness as well as being complicated to fully implement as we all learned so well back in 2020. For me, in 2024, it comes down to basic common sense and human courtesy. I followed some steps when I got sick on my last cruise to try to reduce the risk of spreading the illness further including spending days on my private balcony until I started feeling better.

Be Prepared

I always travel with my travel first aid kit. This includes the obvious bandages and antiseptic ointment. I also have a good supply of Ricola throat lozenges, OTC cold medications, plenty of pain reliever/fever reducer OTC meds, cough suppressant tablets, a nasal spray, Immodium (paging the Hilton MEX airport), antacid tablets, and eye drops and chap stick. Another thing I also now always travel with is an Albuterol inhaler (RX) since one of my post trip illnesses resulted in bronchitis. I fit all of this into a TSA travel bag that I typically pack in my checked bag since I have smaller quantities of all of these items in my backpack. I also carry my own hand sanitizer and use it frequently, especially before meals after handling the menu.

Be Considerate

If you begin to experience cold symptoms on a trip try your best to limit your exposure to other guests if at all possible. I’m not saying you have to hide in your cabin for your entire trip, but if you are actively coughing or running a fever, maybe consider resting in your cabin (or on your balcony) for that day or two (or more). When you do venture out wear a mask to at least reduce the risk of spreading whatever you have. The biggest thing I see routinely that is simple to remedy is wash your hands especially after using the restroom. So basic and we all learned this in kindergarten, right?

Conclusion

Being sick is no fun. Being sick on vacation is even worse because you have so looked forward to the trip. Sometimes it is unavoidable that we must travel despite being unwell. Hopefully taking these steps can help to reduce the chances of spreading illness to others (show some kindness to your fellow man) and for you to make the ordeal a bit more manageable. – René