Wanderung 27

Bob:

We received an official "Pacific Princess HEALTH ADVISORY" about the Norwalk virus (or more generally a norovirus) that was apparently circulating about the ship via the handrails, door handles, elevator buttons, and serving utensils in the dining room. The changes in the dining room procedures involved not only the wait staff requiring us to use the hand sanitizer before entering the area, but also a shift to being provided utensils and a plate, and having the wait staff serve all portions of food rather than being able to serve ourselves.

The precautions were necessary, of course, but they certainly also slowed up service. I was doubtful that the alcohol-based hand sanitizer and sanitary wipes could actually kill any noroviruses, as I think only high-temperature sterilization or direct exposure to concentrated bleach solutions can do that with any certainty, but they made us feel better, I suppose. We were also advised to just use the bathrooms in our stateroom rather than the ones in the public area, which made sense. But the ship didn't close the casino or curtail operation of the slot machines, which could equally well serve as a vector to spread noroviruses among the passengers, and that did not make sense.

The Gentle Reader may wonder what in the world we do during an "At Sea" day, so I will detail our plans for this day as fairly typical: Ballroom Dance Class on Slow Foxtrot at 10:00 a.m., Meet The Captain session at 11:00 a.m., lunch 11:30-12:00, vocalization warm-up 12:00-12:30, Princess Pop Choir from 12:30-2:00, Art Auction 2:00 (might win free art there!), Arts and Crafts watercolor class at 3:00 p.m., then collapse in our cabin until dinner. On other "At Sea" days we would generally have a different type of arts and crafts class, and a port lecture or an educational lecture instead of the "Meet The Captain" session, which only occurs once per cruise.

On most days we would also squeeze in half an hour of walking around the deck for exercise somewhere in our busy schedule. Of course, as my failure to attend the crew's variety show indicates, we were often so busy that one thing or another got left out.

In the event, things worked out pretty well that day. We learned some new moves for the Slow Foxtrot, listened to our very affable Captain talk about his experiences, practiced with the Pop choir, and made two nice watercolors of Mt. Vesuvius. Although Monika and I both painted the same topic based on our recent view of Mt. Vesuvius looming over the harbor at Naples, our paintings ended up looking quite different. Curiously, we each ended up liking the other person's painting better than our own! After we returned home, I ultimately did frame both paintings and put them on a bookshelf in our bedroom.

The art auction was not, however, successful as we decided not to bid on anything and also did not come up winners in the drawing for free art. So it goes. At dinner we noticed that the changed routine due to the Norwalk virus extended to the procedures for formal dining. Instead of a bread bowl and a bowl with pats of butter, those were distributed individually by the wait staff, which added to their tasks. But despite that the service was acceptably quick and dinner with Tina and Chris was still fun (Pat and David were trying out Sabbatini's Italian place, a specialty restaurant on board).