10.22.2016 Update from the Star Princess

On Tuesday, October 18, we had a couple of firsts.  We were up early so John could do his two hour infusion.  We then packed up the car and were on the road by 7:15.  We arrived at Jen's work around 8:15 and called for our first Uber ride.  In about 20 minutes he arrived and we were off to Seattle to our first Bolt Bus ride.  It was fairly uneventful trip to Vancouver, BC, except that the onboard wi-fi quit shortly after we started.  At the bus station it was a easy cab ride to our Hotel.  We walked to Canada Place where our ship would be docked on Wednesday, then continued on to Gas Town, their Historic District.  It had been a long and busy day, so we decided on an early Happy Hour meal, then back to our Hotel for an early bed time.

Wednesday we took a quick cab ride to the ship.  A very nice gentlemen, Wen, noticed Johns mask and asked if we would like to be isolated while we waited to board the ship.  We thanked him, he grabbed two chairs and moved us away from the other 2,500 people.  He boarded us right after the wheelchairs  around noon.  We met our room steward, Ramon and explained our needs for the week. We will have a lot of extra garbage every day due to John's every 12 hour infusions.  Every infusion requires 13 gloves, two syringes of saline, one syringe of heparin, the medication in its bag and many other components, and a gown needs to be worn.  We have a three gallon 'sharps' container to hold the empty toxic infusion bag and its tubes.  We wanted to assure Ramon that he would be safe in our cabin.  Then we went to guest services to check in with them as we were informed to do so by Princess corporate.  A wonderful manager, Fiammetta, from Italy, took care of us and worked with the dining room staff so we could order off the dining room menus, rather than the limited room service menu, and have them delivered to our cabin.  Corporate Princess had already emailed us all the menus for the week.  That worked out perfectly.  While John is on the ship, but out of our cabin, he wears a mask to protect himself from any bugs that others might have.  It's difficult to eat with a mask, so this meal delivery works well for us.

Thursday was our 26th wedding anniversary and we woke up in Nanaimo, BC.  We took the shuttle into  town and then walked around for a few hours.  Near the end of our walk, Colleen noticed that one of the temples of her glasses was severely bent making it unusable.  We think it happened while putting on our day pack, the glasses just got squished.  Right across the street was an eye glasses clinic, Iris, so in we walked.  Michelle fixed it just like that, after warming it up so it wouldn't snap, used her professional tools to straighten it, then slipped on a new end cover.  She would take nothing for her skill and time.  Everyone has been so kind to us.  John met a man on the shuttle that understood the mask.  Charlie had a kidney and liver transplant four years ago.  We also ran into one of our favorite bar waitresses, Merlin.  We have been on two or three other cruises with her.  She recently came back from a two year "holiday" to have her youngest daughter.  Her husband is on a different ship, but will come to the Star Princess in March.  After taking her two year "holiday", she has to start her seniority all over again, so she wasn't able to join her husband on his ship. 

Thursday night the menus we received by email were not the items that were being served.  So,  after looking at the real menus, things changed.  Dinner was good, but we really look forward to the evening that had that menu which was emailed to us.  John hasn't been able to have French Onion Soup for decades.  He will enjoy it when they finally are on the real menu.  After dinner we went to see the comedian, one which we hadn't seen before, who was rather mediocre.  We usually have excellent entertainers on the ships.  Maybe we were just tired.

Friday morning we were at our dock in Seattle shortly after 6am.  It was a beautiful clear sunrise over the city.  Every Friday while John is doing these infusions, he needs to have the dressing over his line changed.  He went to the Medical Center on Thursday to arrange it, they said to come back Friday morning when they open at 8am.  He was there right on time.  They change the dressing very different than the visiting nurses that usually come to our home.  The procedure took just over an hour, rather than 15 minutes at home.  Then back at the cabin to get the infusion started.  It was like both lines were clogged, there was no way to start the infusion.  To complicate things, we were in the US, just coming from a foreign port, so we had to go through customs and immigration.  Our allotted time was 9:15, but we had to go back to the medical center to get advice.  The medical center was closing at 10.  We ended up getting to the front of the Customs line using the 'Heart Transplant' card.

Then we made a call to the University of Washington Medical Center to get advice.  How  convenient  is that when you are vacationing in your own home town.  About 11:30, Jennifer came to the ship to take John to the UWMC while Colleen stayed on board.  If  John couldn't be back on board by 3:30, Colleen would have to pack up our things and be off the ship by 3:30.  Miracles do happen. John and Jen left the UWMC at 12:20 and John was back on the ship by one.  Thank you, Jennifer!  We ordered room service for the first meal of the day.

While we were planning this cruise we decided we would play tourist in Seattle for this day.  We bought a City Pass to see many of the Seattle attractions (Space Needle, Experience Music Project, Chihuly Garden and Glass, Seattle Aquarium, and Argosy Cruises Harbor Tour).  We'll play tourists another day.

Friday was the day that had the menus that we tried to order from on Thursday.  There must have been a change from what Corporate emailed us to what the ship planned.  John finally got his French Onion Soup, which was delicious.

It was an emotionally exhausting day.  It was also our first Formal night.  For the first time ever we decided not to dress up.  We were going to eat in our cabin and weren't going to any of the shows, so we stayed in our jeans, upgraded the shirts and shoes, that's all we could do.  We left the cabin for about an hour so Ramon could service the room (take away our diner dishes,  turn down the bed and freshen the bathroom).  We went to the Art Gallery and bought some art from Barbara.

John & Colleen