5 Ways to Keep Healthy on a Cruise Ship

As a frequent cruiser (88 cruises and counting!) I've picked up my share of germs on ships. Most cruises I come away A-OK. Other times it might be a sniffle or a cough or a good ol' cold. And then there are those times I wind up flu sick. Oh so very sick.

If you cruise enough, it's almost inevitable you'll pick up something at one time or another. You're exposed to new people coming from new places who may or may not use the same preventative measures that you do. You will find fellow passengers licking their fingers just before grabbing the tongs in the buffet. In the elevator you might find another choosing not to cover their cough. Any chance of seeing someone walking out of the bathroom without washing hands and then using the handrail as they go down the stairs? Yep.

While the cruise lines do what they can to encourage healthy practices and sanitize ship surfaces, it's really up to us as passengers to protect ourselves. Here are a few practices you may find helpful for keeping healthy on a cruise ship.

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional and am not dispensing medical advice. Instead I am sharing those practices I've found to be helpful in reducing my exposure to germs while cruising. This article was written before COVID really took hold, but whether we're talking pre-COVID times or post-COVID, these guidelines still hold true.

1. Wash your hands.

It should go without saying, but you'd be surprised by the number of people who don't wash them. Don't be one of them. Wash those hands thoroughly with soap and water any chance you get and definitely before eating and after using the restroom. And it certainly wouldn't hurt to wash them before using the restroom, either. Just happen to be walking by a sink on your way to somewhere else? Wash those hands!

2. Use hand sanitizer. A lot.

See one, use one!

Cruise ships have hand sanitizer stations all around the ship. Along with handwashing use these sanitizers after holding the handrails, after touching other surfaces, and before and after eating. Even with the abundance of hand sanitizer stations on the ship we still carry our own. We also take our pocket sized sanitizer in port as handwashing facilities may not be available.

3. Keep your distance.
From other people, that is. Heard of social distancing? Leave space between you and the next person whether you are in the theater,

You'll never find a theater this empty so be particular about where you sit.

in any of the dining locations,

 or even when you're in a line getting on or off the ship.

Walk slower or faster if you need to, but leave some space
between you and the next person.

4. Seek out fresh air.

Choose outside spaces over inside spaces whenever possible. Fresh air is always a good thing and is preferable over enclosed spaces.

5. Assume every surface isn't clean.
You know how they place paper towels by the restroom door so you can use the towel to open the handle instead of opening it with your bare hands? Think about other ways you can protect yourself from surfaces that might not be clean. You most likely won't be able to carry paper towels with you everywhere, but you can be mindful of what you're touching. Hand railings and restaurant menus. Door handles, chair backs, and table tops. Even think about your cabin. The steward cleans the surfaces but sometimes the stewards themselves are coming down with something so think about those light switches, telephone receiver, and the TV remote. By assuming everything is not clean, you will find yourself washing your hands, grabbing the hand sanitizer, and spraying your cabin with some disinfectant spray before ever touching your nose, mouth, or eyes.

While these five ways can't guarantee you won't get sick, I have found them to help me in staying well onboard.

Make Easter Egg Coasters from Fabric Scraps - Tutorial Tuesday

If you're looking for a homemade drink coaster idea for your Easter or spring decor, check out this how-to tutorial. These Easter Egg drink coasters are made from fabric scraps and sew up pretty quick. It's an easy Easter sewing project!

For this project you will need:

• Piece of backing fabric
• Piece of cotton batting
• Contrasting cotton fabric for stripes
• Cotton fabric for top and bottom
• Cotton fabric for middle
• Package of rick rack
• Egg template downloaded from here
• Iron
• Rotary cutter or scissors, optional pinking shears
• Cutting ruler
• Cutting mat
• Sewing machine
• Matching thread
• Glue stick

Disclosure: Deb's Days is a participant in affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to affiliated sites. This means that, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. Your purchase helps support my work in bringing you new sewing and crafting content.

Now available in my Etsy store as a digital download with the written directions, step-by-step photos, printable template, and link to the tutorial video. Click to find out more!

Looking for something else? 

Check out some of my other Easter sewing and crafting projects!

Otherwise you can watch the tutorial video for the fabric scrap Easter Egg drink coasters sewing project right here:

Royal Princess February 2020 Wrap-Up

Sometimes I struggle with doing these cruise wrap-ups. I'll usually go back and see what I said on my previous wrap-ups and either try and write something different or new or exciting. Unfortunately, I happened to read my 2018 wrap-up before I started this one. Not the smartest idea.

Back then, on December 1, 2018 I wrote:
We had a great week on the Royal Princess and always love this itinerary. There were so many good things I don’t know where to start so I’ll just jump right in.

My, how times have changed. The itinerary is different (Caribbean then and Mexican Riviera now) and so is the experience on the ship. I guess that's what happens when you spend 72 days on the same ship within nine months time. The novelty wears off and the warts start to show.

Heck, we're not even done with this cruise yet and I'm ready to put it behind me. But as several of you have been asking how the new Medallion wrist band is working out, I need to you give an honest answer. First, I love the wrist band. It's flexible, it's stylish looking, lightweight, and much more comfortable than the sports band. Big plus there.

As for how well it's working? I still don't know what the deal is, but it took several tries to get it to scan as I was going on and off the ship today. And getting into the cabin? Well, after multiple trips to the Passenger Services Desk (I'm calling it what it is - a huge waste of my vacation time) and a Medallion reprint and hearing more than once there is nothing wrong with it, I still can't get into my cabin without waving my arms around the sensor. When I'm at the door I'm starting to look like a big ole' goose flapping some big ole' wings on takeoff.

Do you ever have one of those conversations where you feel like the person really isn't listening to what you are saying? I've had several of those conversations over these last three cruises, and obviously I'm not getting through to anyone because the most recent response from them was this:

Seriously, a cruise card? I don’t want a stinkin' cruise card. After 14 Medallion cruises and you're telling me I have to put my pretty new wristband away and stick a cruise card in my pocket instead? What the heck? Do you not know how much I really want the Medallion to work? How much time I've invested in making videos for other passengers, showing them how great it is? How I really believed it had great potential? (For everyone but me it seems. Mr. E, the anti-tech guy gets to breeze into the cabin just fine. No flapping wings required.)

It's not the Medallion update I wanted to give, but I guess it is what it is. I have three more days on the ship and while I'm crossing my fingers for a miraculous Medallion recovery, I'm not holding out much hope. 

Update: Finally after many more trips down to Guest Services over the past several days and begging and pleading and more begging and pleading they finally sent someone to the cabin last night. More Medallion reprints, the sensor panel taken apart, batteries checked in the door itself, and multiple system resets (I think it is what he called them) I can finally get into the cabin this morning. 

Except I no longer exist. Beggars can't be choosers, I guess. (And believe me, I was a beggar!)

Update to an update...

Now that I have a few days off the ship, my frustration and disappointed from the cruise is beginning to wane. (Sort of.) So let me share some of the better things we found happening around the ship.

Since one of the cruises occurred over Valentine's Day, our door panel was prettied up as was our TV screen.

 
You can now watch some of the on demand movies under the OceanView section of the MedallionClass app. I could only find a few and only on the app on my iPhone, not on my iPad app.

There is now a "deals" section in the OceanNow portion of the app. We found both drink and retail specials. The special drinks changed daily and were only $7 when ordered through the app. As the app gave me fits most of the cruise I hardly ever opened it so I didn't discover these until late in the cruise.

Other good stuff? We still had a good time, I pretty much finished the presentation for my upcoming Cruising with Confidence class, and we got ourselves a bit of a tan in the warmer-than-Idaho weather. And most importantly, we stayed healthy. 

We do have some other cruises coming up next month. (Not on the Royal Princess.) Not sure if I'll be blogging or not. If I do, I promise I'll work on keeping a positive attitude!

An Exciting New Ocean Medallion™ Accessory

I said if anything positive came up, I'd be back to share it. Well, something has.

If you remember when I was in Port Kelang, Malaysia back in December, there was a weird smoke smell in the air. With the number of factories nearby it wasn't too surprising.

Once we got home I started researching the area and found Port Kelang had a significant number of illegal plastic recycling factories - factories that many times just burned the plastic instead of recycling it. As I continued to find out more about the difficulties in recycling plastics, E and I made a decision to start working our way towards a zero waste household. We have oh-so-far to go, but we have made some changes in the right direction.

So when a special little package from Princess Cruises made its way to me on the Royal Princess today, I was quite excited.

You know I like my Ocean Medallion™ accessories. I've used the metal clip and the plastic clip. I've used the sports band. And now I'm using a brand-spankin' new band for my Medallion.

Made from ocean recycled plastics.

Yep, you heard me right. Princess has created the first wearable accessory in the world made from 100% ocean plastics.

100% recycled from all kinds of plastics collected from the coastlines and oceans. The plastic casing holding the Medallion is made from hard plastics like shampoo bottles and plastic containers.

And the wrist band? Two water bottles removed from the ocean are combined into fabrics to make one wrist band.

Can't tell it's from recycled water bottles, can you?

The bands are even numbered in increments of two to represent their impact. With a number of 0084 it looks like I'm an early adopter.

Thanks to Princess, I'm the first guest on a ship outside of Australia to get to try it out. There's so much more to tell you about it, but here's the shortened version:

I'll be using it for this seven day cruise and will let you know how it works out. I'll also work on finding out more details of when we can find these showing up for purchase on the MedallionClass™ ships in the US.

Such an exciting development for Ocean Medallion accessories!

If you have any questions about it, let me know and I’ll work on finding the answers. (I’m still learning about this new product myself!)

Royal Princess in Ensenada

Hello from a cloudy, windy, and chilly day in Ensenada. 

I wound up leaving E on the ship and went out by myself for a little bit. We have a favorite taco place ashore, but it was too cold to walk too far so I was back to the ship pretty darn soon. I was really looking forward to some great conversation with our crew member buddy from the Grand, but since they couldn't make the port I think I'm feeling a bit mopey.

Plus I knew I was going to have to give the Medallion update many of you have been asking for. I've not said much because I've been hoping things would improve. This was my 13th Medallion cruise over the last year and a half and some of the same issues keep popping up for me. Clearly 13 is not a lucky number for me.

Like most of the Medallion cruises I've been on, it doesn't want me to get into the cabin. Others can walk towards their doors and it clicks and unlocks, but not for me. I have to stand there and stand there and stand there while it keeps telling me it's verifying me. I'm eventually able to get in, but not without some delay.

Access being verified...being verified...being verified...being verified...

Not sure why, but starting last night it became even harder to get into the cabin. Now it won't even attempt to verify me. No matter how long I stand there, I have to take my Medallion out and place it onto the sensor and hold it there and then move it around and around and around. It must really be mad at me now. Believe me, the feeling is mutual.

Approach for entry?
Uh, I can't get much closer than this.

What can the OceanFront folks do for you? Tell you the battery might be dying and reprint you a new one. No thanks, not again. I'm hoping it's just a cabin sensor issue. I'll find out tomorrow as we change cabins again.

I wish it was the only sensor issue I'm having, but nope. While I was able to go on and off the ship in Ensenada today with no issue, at Muster Drill there most definitely was an issue. The gal scanning Medallions had to scan mine and rescan and rescan and rescan again. She finally decided to manually enter my cabin number but thankfully at that same moment I popped up.

And the new MedallionClass app? I still can't get the shipmates section to find E. Quits every single time I try. It happened in October and it's still happening now. I've updated both the app and the phone, restarted, deleted and reinstalled. If I want to find E I go to the elevator bank and use one of the portals there. But I can't get too excited about that, either. The location finder isn't really in real time. It'll show me where he was five minutes ago, but not necessarily where he is currently. But a good thing with the app is the first drink is free. At least that's what the cruise director keeps telling us. But for me? Nope, not on my app. Grr.

Speaking of drink orders... around the ship you'll find the crew asking for your cabin number instead of using your Medallion and their devices to place the order. Some crew members do attempt to scan the Medallions but some don't even waste their time and just ask for cabin numbers right up front. 

I am so over it.

Actually, I'm over a few things right now so I think it will be best if I stop blogging this trip. There are too many of those everything isn't perfect in the cruise world things impacting my life of joy. (Some days it's hard work to be honest, yet positive, ya know?) So it's probably best I just stop. A new cruise starts tomorrow, and another one five days later. If anything positive and pleasant and joyful worth reporting comes up in those two cruises, I'll be back to let you know. 

See you sooner or later. Of course, if you have any questions, feel free to ask. You know where to find me!