Anderson South America Misadventure Day 29 – Between Cuba and Florida “Is the End in Sight?” April 1, 2020

I woke up this morning and I knew that the ship was holding still. We have been on the ship long enough that I know how it feels. I looked out of the window, yeah, the water was still. I told Rob that we were holding still. He asked if I was sure. I crawled up into the window to look down at the water. Yup, we are holding still. Rob turned on the TV to the cruise map channel. They list the speed of the ship, the wind, temperature and humidity. We were sitting still right off the Northwest coast of Cuba. Hmm, I wonder why. I called Victoria since she finds things out before we do. No, she did not know anything. Then I remembered, the captain had said the night before that we would be stopping briefly to transfer medical supplies from the Rotterdam to the Zaandam. Breakfast came and it was scrambled eggs again. OK, not that bad, ugh, they are cold, I mean, chilled cold. We split the plate and then we checked the other plate. There were two banana nut pancakes, Rob was excited and two small pastries. Oh wait, do my eyes deceive me? It is, a chocolate croissant. I know that this is on no ones diet but I am so happy to see this and it is delicious. I tell you, it is the little things that make my day. This morning our drink order form came. Yesterday we did not get one and as a result I we did not get our Coke Zero. We get these dinky little 8oz bottles so it is not a lot but I really miss it when it does not come. Since there is no ice service we are drinking it room temperature. You learn to make do. I get the form right out there, no excuse for missing us today. I was going to sacrifice one of my paper airplanes and make my own drink order form if I had to. We have a couple of interviews set up, in the morning we talk to a reporter from the AP and a reporter from the New York Times. I want to make sure that everyone sees a face when the story of the cruise is told. I want them to remember that these are people on here and we have family back home who want to see us come back. We get lunch. The first plate has a sandwich on wheat bread with avocado. Nice. Then I look at the chips. You know what chips look like in the bottom of the bag? Yeah, that is what we have, only it is not just one kind. We have a mixture of ripple potato chips and corn tortilla chips and the mixture is tiny little pieces. Yeah, I do not blame them, this is not a normal situation and it is hard to keep spirits up. Then we look at the other plate. The dreaded white rice. Rob said that it will be a long time before he asks for rice again. There are also carrots. We think that they finally ran out of green beans and we have carrots galore. Rob has also added carrots to his “we can wait a while before we have this again” list. The main course on this plate? The potato curry we had for dinner two nights ago. Yeah, they are giving up. We split the plates and Rob passes on the rice. In the afternoon we decide that it is nap time. We usually do not take naps but there is just not that much else to do. I do not sleep that long but read for a while, Rob needs the sleep. The captain makes an announcement and we are told that plans are in place to get us off of the ship and back home. They are not finalized but we should start to gather up things in our cabin. We pack more dirty clothes and weigh that suitcase. OK, it is full and put it aside. We pack clean clothes that we will not wear before the end and start to figure out what goes where. We do not know for sure when we will get off so we do not know how much to leave unpacked. They are going to run wellness checks on all of us. We did not pass the last one. We are both still coughing but neither of us has a fever. We are hoping that we pass and can go home. This afternoon the phone rang. Huh, who is calling? It was Amanda the activities director calling. She had seen the article in USA Today and wanted to check on us. I had submitted some trivia sites for her for the trivia contests so I figured that was why she was calling. We had a nice time chatting and I thanked her for all of the fun that we had and for checking on us. I told her that we did not get transferred because we told the truth. She thanked us for doing that and said that she did not see us as the kind to lie. That was nice. I do not know how but she learned my name by the second or third day of the cruise. I told her that I thought that I could see the Rotterdam out of our window. She told me that the Rotterdam was ahead of us, she said that what I was seeing was another large cruise ship that was joining our convoy. Wow, we will arrive en mass. We did an interview with Kerry Sanders from the Today Show. Watch tomorrow morning. Hopefully we sound good. We are also hoping that the end really is in sight and we might be home before Sunday. Dinner is a nice surprise, lamb chops and mashed potatoes. They also have two very nice mugs on the tray. They are Holland America mugs with a note to thank us for being patient and understanding. Nice touch. There is a video of the president of the company that they keep playing. In it he says “I know that this is not the trip that you planned on.” We keep joking that if this was the trip that you planned on you need a new travel agent. Some time overnight we will arrive near Ft Lauderdale but we will stay outside the territorial waters until after a 10:00 am meeting. The captain did announce that they would be delivering luggage tags to us tomorrow but to pack two days of clothes in a carry on bag. The end is in sight. Stay tuned…….