San Juan, Puerto Rico

This was the turn around day for the ship, and the day that we were meeting Tom & Francie at the entrance to Fort San Cristobal at 9:30am. Enter Plan B! Just as we arrived at the Fort by taxi we received a text from Tom "At the hospital with an eye emergency, will contact you at 10:30".

Needless to say we spent an hour worrying while paging through Spanish language newspapers at a coffee shop. We did take advantage of the "Free Hugs" being offered in the main plaza!

Tom & Francie made it back at about 11:30 and then we heard about the horrors of their experiences since leaving home!

Tom had woken from a nap on the plane to no vision in one eye. Being a nurse, Francie flew into action at their first stop in Charlotte and started tracking their Opthalmologist. By the time their connection was boarding, as Tom was somewhat improved, they decided to continue on to San Juan.

However, just after checking into the hotel, it happened again prompting them to set off for the Emergency Room! At the advice of the hotel desk manager they went to a private hospital but, it turned out that they didn't have a specialist so they referred them to a specialty clinic--who sent them to the major trauma hospital. They spent the next 17 hours in what sounds like a bad movie: endless waits, a CT scan which irradiated half the corridor as well, hard flat gurneys without even a sheet---in a freezing cold cubicle, a guy across the aisle handcuffed on both sides to the gurney being guarded by two cops, endless people lined up in the corridors in various stages of distress. No food, no water, no pillows or blankets (the locals bring their own), not even a plastic chair, and no specialist until the morning!

Luckily it wasn't a detached retina which could have caused a permanent vision loss, but, they believe a mini-stroke which caused blood vessels to burst. After many texts and emails to his doctors at home Tom is set up with a follow up appointment when he gets home. In the mean time, we have offered to get him a white stick or dog. He is doing his best to look suave as he wears his sunglasses everywhere!


By the time we met up with them T & F had been up for three days and hadn't eaten in 24 hours. We were planning to go straight to eat, but we did meet them at their hotel armed with a cold beer and Twix bar--just to keep them from collapsing.

After some sustenance we spent a couple of hours wandering Old San Juan and marveling at the beautiful architecture.


It was nice and warm and I think T & F were just glad not to be in "a big concrete building".

Once on the ship we did our life boat drill. Not quite as useless as last week. We did know enough to get there early for a seat, but you would think that this was the first time that the ship had done this drill, not something they do week in, week out! In addition, we had the same screw up at dinner. Despite my having spoken to the Maitre D at dinner the night before, we arrived at our assigned table for 8 and it was set for 6--with 4 people already at it! The 4 of us said we would take any table, but it still took them 15 minutes to figure that out. To be fair, we did discover that 2 of the people at our table were friends of the other 2 who had decided to sit together even though they were not assigned to the table--plus, they didn't offer that up until the waiter started checking cabin #s against table assignments--good grief!

We will not have that problem tonight as we have been invited to sit at the Captains Table with some of the Senior Officers! Last week we got friendly with the woman who manages the Captain's Club and she called to invite us. When I said that our friends were now on board, she extended the invitation to all of us!

We should be bursting at the seams tomorrow as today is also the "at sea" brunch which we just munched our way through on Thursday! It consists of every food known to mankind---stations for pasta, omelets, fish, sushi, meats, cheeses, breads and of course desserts! They have two large chocolate waterfalls for swirling fruit under and, my personal favorite, a crepe Suzette station--with plenty of liqueur in the sauce!






We are trying to pace ourselves, so this morning we just ordered a light breakfast of fruit and pastries, accompanied by mimosas and coffee--served on our balcony. I know, I know---such restraint!!!



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