Wednesday, August 18- Shipbound

 

At 6:45 AM we got the good news that here were no further positive tests.  Still, we were staying in Juneau.  We could stay on board till lunch tomorrow.  If you left the ship you had to stay off, to protect everyone on board.  Well, Juneau looked pretty miserable from my window and I had no mad urge to go look for gaudy tanzanite jewelry. 

Juneau Harbor.  This view became VERY familiar.  Note the tram up the mountain at upper right.

With the Internet fading in and out, I checked my flight options and THOUGHT I’d changed my flights on Alaska Air’s site but didn’t get a confirmation. I called and after a reasonable hold time I found that it had not gone through.  A friendly agent booked it for me.  Leaving Juneau tomorrow at 6:42 PM, overnighting in Seattle, leaving Seattle 6:41 PM, getting into Kansas City at close to midnight.  Not optimal, especially since the Juneau-Seattle leg was in Coach, but she gave me an exit row seat.  I felt better with everything confirmed. We received letters under our doors- we’d get a refund for half the cruise fare plus a 15% credit on future trips in the next two years.  I’ll say it again:  UnCruise is a class outfit.

At 10 we were finally allowed out of our rooms and we met with Dan Blanchard, the owner of the company.  He’s a good, credible, down-to-earth guy, just like his company. He told us they’d carried over 4,400 passengers and crew since late May with only 9 positive cases.  They believe the first positive passenger was infected while in transit, possibly in a restaurant or bar where people keep their masks down while seated.  From here, meal times would be staggered and all meals would be plated to keep crowding down.

I was not only impressed with the crew but with the passengers- not a whiner in the bunch.  This is a group of people who travel enough to know that Stuff Happens beyond your control and you just deal with it.

Just before lunch I engaged in a little epidemiological gossip with passengers; they’d determined who Patient Zero was.  He and his partner had been bar-hopping before boarding the ship. He wasn’t feeling well Monday but was still at the bar before dinner (very irresponsible), then skipped dinner although his partner was at dinner.  I’d talked to her for awhile Monday afternoon.  Scary.

The CD set I’d borrowed yesterday had the one CD I really wanted to watch-Animal House- missing.  I switched it for a boxed set of Gilligan’s Island episodes.  Yes, I DO have highbrow intellectual tastes.

Another wonderful dinner with maybe 10 people left on board.  We watched the slideshow the crew prepared, a feature of every cruise.  I felt a bit wistful when I saw the views from the top of Gloomy Point on the hike I couldn’t take (I don’t handle uphills like I used to) but enjoyed the shots of our kayak paddles. Every time we saw a picture of the “COVID couple” one guy had to call it to our attention- especially the picture of them in the hot tub.   He said he didn’t use it after that.

As evening fell, we suddenly saw a humpback whale breach-very unusual right in the port.  It was an unexpected blessing.  I had my wine glass refilled and settled into my room to watch Gilligan’s Island.