July 17-19, 2022, Reykjavik, Iceland - Overnight

 So they say that at some point everyone will get Covid, well after being very cautious over the past two and a half years, it only took less than week to get this thing after being back on a cruise ship - insert sad face :((. Our ship, the Zaandam, started out well but perhaps since this variant takes up to two weeks to infect anyone, there must have been some carriers either that came onto the ship or some crew that had yet to present themselves as infected. Regardless, mask wearing was loosely being adhered to in the beginning and has now become mandatory. There are now a number of guests and crew infected showing symptoms, mild symptoms or asymptomatic. Long story short, we are confined to our stateroom, fortunately a veranda suite. I tested positive on the 17th, Jan is still testing negative. She is being tested every second day while I am not to be tested again until day 6. How are we feeling, fine, minor symptoms, I’ve had worse colds with the exception of feeling a bit lethargic. Bottom line is that vaccinations work, Jan’s had her fourth shot and perhaps this is what is keeping it at bay for now. I am reserving judgment on the handling of this by HAL. So far it is as expected, isolate for 6 days and then retest. This is where issues may come up, why. Well in Europe (in the most part), after 5 days, even if you still test positive you are released back into public as they do not deem you to be transmittable, 10 days in Canada. If you still test positive after 10 days in Canada, one can get a letter of recovery good for 90 days. We have some friends that are in day 6 and they are still testing positive and were told that they will need to stay isolated until they test negative, that is not right. We will cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, pics from our veranda will need to do, if they are interesting enough, if not this blog will be put on pause until our feet hit the ground again. In the meantime, crew are great, room service is our friend, we have a decent room, so still no cooking or cleaning required and hey, I get to live in my bathrobe, lol. 

So not the best news but we remain positive, fortunately we have been in Reykjavik before as well as two of the next three ports. Oh, but don’t get me wrong, these are all great ports and are greatly missed, who knows if we will ever get back over to this side of the planet. So are we upset, you better believe it but we must move on what choice do we have. Well as long as HAL treats this fairly… we shall see.

A few pics of the past few day, hope you enjoy