wash your hands with sanitizer

Well, this week has been a bit weird.

Towards the end of last cruise, we had a few passengers & crew come down with norovirus (which causes gastro). One or two cases are expected, but on Thursday last week, numbers started to climb a bit higher. We went to “Yellow level” sanitation, which means we take more precaution with EVERYTHING to prevent noro spreading.

But on Friday we had a few more cases and, as an extra precaution, we went to red level. At red level ,we are doing absolutely everything to ensure the health of the passengers and stop noro spreading. For most, it means constant sanitising. Passengers must be served their food at the buffet – so the buffet staff all work really hard. For cruise staff, we had to take in all the sporting equipment and incinerate it (or sanitise it and lock it away). We then had to sanitise all our areas – ceramics and the library. For library, we had to take every book off the shelf and sanitise it.

Most importantly, we all lost our deck priveleges. No more shopping in passenger shops, eating passenger food or spending time on deck (unless working).
The measures were harsh, but I’m pleased to report they were successful and the ship is now back on green level (and I am back in horizon court, snacking hardcore). It’s a credit to Princess that we can handle such things so well. Passengers barely even noticed that anything was amiss (apart from the few who got ill).

Also, for the last week Mark, Dale (Chief of Production) and I have been playing biggest loser. We’ve all porked up a bit since being on the ship, so I threw down a 2 week challenge.We all put in $10 and The person who loses the biggest percentage of body weight in two weeks wins the money. So far we are all doing really well – I still havn’t weighed in yet, but mark has lost 3.5kg in the first week. I assume I’ve lost about the same (or maybe more- I did drink 2 litres of waters before I had my first weigh in heh heh

Salad, chicken, salad, chicken, “sweet & nutritious fruit plate”, tea – we are doing pretty well so far. I’ve been running 3k every day (which is 30 laps of the running track on sky deck- I could do more but I just get so bored), then I do full court lay-ups on the bball court for 15 minutes, then down to the gym to practice some body step or body attack and do some weights and conditioning.

Gym is hard with my jobs. Some days (like today – I’m IPM in st Thomas) It just isn’t possible. So tomorrow, I’m going double hard. I must win the… $20 prize.