We finally made it on the ship…

Because of the rumor of about 75 passengers being sick with the Nora virus on the previous cruise, Carnival did a sterilization cleaning on the entire ship before we were allowed to embark. We actually got onboard a little after 1:30pm.

After getting something to eat, we went to our room. We could not get Rexie in the room with her wheelchair. Talk about a rude awakening.

We asked guest services for assistance and found that all the rooms had the same size door except the handicap rooms and they were all taken. We have never had a problem on other ships, and never even thought of this issue.

So, we finally figured out a way to transfer her through the door onto a bench and then pulled her into the room and got her to the couch or bed. I will be glad when she can put some weight on leg. Oh well, at least another 4 weeks.

I am writing this while she is still sleeping. I didn’t get up until 9:30 and had almost 12 hours of sleep. Better than the average of 5 hours I have been getting.

I must be off, as Rexie is now awake.

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Day 2

I got distracted after Rexie got up and did not get the post above actually posted. What happened is that I had an issue getting onto Blackboard, which is the program I use to teach. This semester I have 260 students and the only way I can keep cruising is to keep teaching.

So…. As I talked with the Internet Manager, I found that we have a routing issue aboard the ship. Many websites cannot be reached such as Facebook, Yahoo, Gmail, etc. Unfortunately, nether can secure websites (https:). They had hoped to have it fixed by last night, but the Internet Manager said hopefully it can be taken care of today, Monday.

I have several items to grade and a few items that I need to make sure are available for the students use. At least my university email is working, even though my personal email is not.

On to a different topic. It seems that the cruise industry has identified Grand Turk as the culprit of the Noro Virus. We hear that the entire island has been quarantined and no cruise ships are visiting until the virus dies out. That was to be our first stop, but now we have an extra day before we get to Cartagena, Columbia.

On another note, with some work we have developed a system to get Rexie in and out of the room and the restroom. Not easy, but doable. Otherwise, she would stay in bed all day. :-) 

Oh well, things to do and places to go, so I must be off!