The Upstory

Alaska! Our 49^th state! Bears. Bald eagles. Northern Lights. Denali.

Off we went to cruise the Inside Passage. Glenn, my husband since 1984, and I were checking off another box on our bucket list.

But this is not a story about Alaska. No, no, this is a story about what happens when you don’t adequately prepare for Alaska. Mind you I packed insulated this and waterproof that. I had my Eddie Bauer outerwear and innerwear. Mukluks. Check. Thermal gloves. Check.

What I didn’t take was what I ended up needing most: Sudafed and Dramamine.

I have Category 5 allergies which I manage with daily Claritin D and seasonal doses of Sudafed when everything blooms and pollen starts shooting up my nose. I get mega-seasick on small boats that bounce around on the water so I don’t go on scuba dives without Dramamine.

Anyway, Glenn and I were exploring the Discovery, a brand-new cruise ship that apparently didn’t come with stabilizers, and it was shifting a bit as it worked its way north, up the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Alaska. Here’s a fun fact. Wind and waves cause a ship to move in six ways: Heave, sway, surge, roll, pitch, and yaw (thank you, Google). Mind you a cruise ship is such a mammathon that it would take something truly extraordinary for cruise passengers to dramatically experience any of these movements.

But the Discovery behemoth was doing motions other than going forward. And Glenn and I were ooh-ing and aah-ing about the way the water in the pool on the Lido Deck was sloshing around and watching the wind whip up what we landlubbers guessed to be four-foot waves.

At some point I began to feel weird. Kinda out-of-it. A little dizzy. My tinnitus (ringing in the ears) was blaring. And, sure enough, here comes Mr. Nausea with his friend Sir Barfs-a-Lot.

Thus, I missed our excursion to paddle a canoe to Mendenhall Glacier. It was a sparkling, sunny day, and the glacier was a brilliant white. I know this because Glenn showed me his pictures when he returned.

A fellow-passenger shared her Dramamine with me and that fixed one problem. Until I found a new problem once I went ashore at our next stop and got a snootful of Alaskan pollen. There’s a reason they call this place The Land of the Midnight Sun. During the summer, the sun shines almost 20 hours a day and the Alaskan plants put out gargantuan blooms. Everywhere you go there are hanging flower baskets blazing with color and microspores.

My allergies attacked. My nose ran. My sneeze activator kicked into gear. I coughed like a chain-smoker. My Claritin wasn’t up to the job and my Sudafed was at home. I needed help so I called the ship’s Medical Services.

I play a lot of Mental Chess, what other people call “Overthinking,” so I didn’t make the call right away. I thought about what Kraken I would release if I made the call. I figured that the ship’s medic would want to shove a Q-tip up my nose and test me for Covid. If I tested positive, I would be going to the Covid Deck, which is one entire floor of the ship set aside for passengers who catch the virus while on board and have to be quarantined.

But I was willing to roll the dice because I was that positive that my test would be negative. I made the call and explained I was having a severe allergy attack and needed Sudafed. Did they have any? I never found out. Instead, Nigel from Australia showed up at our stateroom. He started out by testing Glenn (who was wearing his Husband of the Year T-shirt. I had it made for our 36^th anniversary so the second line says Every Year for 36 Years. You can imagine the reaction the men on this cruise had to this message. Some told their wives, hey! they wanted their own T-shirt. One guy was sure Glenn bought the shirt for himself until his wife pointed out the back of the shirt which says My One and Only, RaMar. One good-natured husband waved Glenn to go into line first, in recognition of his Exceptional Husband Status).

Anyway, Glenn tested negative. Then it was my turn. Drum roll. I tested negative.

So, imagine my surprise when I was told I still had to quarantine. But not with the Covid people on the Covid Deck. I was confined to quarters. For 24 hours. Glenn, on the other hand, was free to go.

Thus, he went on the last excursion to Butchart Gardens and came back with pictures of flowers, which I could enjoy without more sneezing. I sit-stayed in my stateroom and let the Discovery staff fuss over me. Nigel brought me a bottle of cough-medicine (I was delighted at his thoughtfulness until we got home and Glenn saw the $25 charge) and assured me I would get super-dee-duper room service.

I didn’t know what he meant, so I ordered my first on-board room service. And yes, for those of you who know me, I ordered mostly off the dessert menu. While I was waiting for my caramel flan, cheesecake, gelato, peach melba, peanut butter cookies, and broccoli-cheese soup to arrive there was a knock at the door and Andre from Peru presented me with a dinner menu from the Skagway Restaurant (the white-cloth restaurant where we had reservations).

I told Andre I’d already ordered food and tried to hand back the menu but he was there to make sure I wasn’t suffering from confinement and nothing says “we’re sorry” like a first-rate meal. Andre really wanted me to order something more. So, I did. Which is how we ended up with a pile of 83 covered dishes. (I’m exaggerating. But just barely.)

I served out my sentence sitting on my sunny, cool, balcony dining, reading, and watching intriguing on-shore activity through my binoculars.

The cruise ended the next day. We were told we didn’t have to put our luggage outside the door the night before, like all the other passengers. We could have a leisurely morning, with a full breakfast delivered to our room, and pack at our convenience. The idea was that we would leave the ship after everyone else had left the ship. Presumably so that I wouldn’t sneeze on anyone on the way out.

We’ve been on cruises before and usually disembarking is a mob scene and a matter of fidgeting in long, brain-numbing lines. Then, eventually, you traverse the gangway (which is different than walking the gangplank, aye matey) and go on a search for your luggage before getting in another line to find transportation to your plane or hotel.

As it happened, we were hanging out on our balcony, soaking up the sunshine, when the call came to depart. Edward from the Philippines was our porter and he rolled our luggage along behind us as we made our way out through the ship.

What a moment! It felt like we were on our own private yacht. We had the elevator to ourselves. We were the only people not in uniform and, as we passed them, Discovery staff members would wave to us and wish us well. The gangway was all ours. And a car was waiting for us. Edward loaded our bags into our transport and our driver said he was there to take us where ever we wanted to go.

We could have picked a far destination and gone on a sight-seeing tour of the city. But we didn’t because our friends who live there, in Seattle, were on the other side of the ship’s terminal waiting for us.

And they had brought a medicine cabinet of decongestants and antihistamines.