Mama said there’d be cruises like this, Mama said

 Going to try something adventurous with this posting.  I'm writing this paragraph on Friday Feb 11.  We depart tomorrow for Galveston for our second scheduled, first completed Wine Cruise of 2022.  We've got  24 wine cruisers from Texas Heritage Vineyards and we're sailing on Royal Caribbean to Cozumel (of course), Costa Maya and Belize.

Since I got no subject for posting two weeks from now, I'm going to attempt writing, and more at risk, publishing on the two sea days we have returning.  If you see nothing more below, well...feel free to comment.

Ops check at sea…good! On with the post!

So, as you are no doubt aware, in order to get on board a cruise ship nowadays, one must be pure in spirit and body. And… have the papers to prove it. So Mrs J forks over $150 for two WuFlu test kits. One then scans the QR code with the “App”. Shortly thereafter, one is connected with a call center not in the US. A proctor then takes control of the cameras on your phone and begins to talk you through administering the test to yourself. Eventually, you get to shove a Q-tip like thing up each nostril and swirl it around. Then you’re instructed to insert it into the test kit. You then leave it there, with your phone watching it, for 15 minutes. When that’s up, a proctor comes back on (this point in time is crucial) and tells you how to read the test results. One pink line? Welcome aboard! Two pink lines? No cruise for youse! Oh and this process can be done no earlier than 48 hour before sail time. So….ain’t much room for error.

Mrs J goes first. Her proctor speaks English…somewhat. Positioning the phone is problematic but is resolved. Swab done, Timer elapsed. Results read. She’s going on a cruise.

I’m up to bat. My proctor speaks pretty good English. Nose swabbed, timer elapsed, one pink line. I’m going cruising, just gotta wait on the proctor. She comes on. Speaks excellent English, asks me how many lines I see. As I open my mouth to answer, the app displays a message that says 500:Internal Server Error. I am no longer connected to them, their server crashed. Call their tech support, get told I’m screwed as far as that test is concerned, I’ll have to get another kit and start all over.

Suffice it to say, I used up 4 years worth of my swear word allowance in about 30 seconds.

Tech Support  thanks me for the report and say they’ll get the server up ASAP, but I’ve still got to start over from scratch.

Another decade of swear words down the toilet. We don’t have another test kit on hand, nor do we have the time to get one online, as we had planned to be on the road by noon. So, I drive into town and go to Walgreens. As I’m asking the pharmacist if he’s got kits on hand, he gets a funny look on his face and says “why don’t you get a test here? All you need to do is use our app and make an appointment. Results will be emailed to you in about an hour.”

Thinking Mrs J now has a slightly better chance of not cruising alone, I download the app and start to fill out the appointment form. First available appointment is Monday morning. Hope once more comes crashing down. The ship will be in the gulf.

I explained this to my friend. He replied “ No problem, The appointment is a formality so we can get reimbursed. The test is free to you. As soon as I see the appointment request in the system, we’ll administer the test and email the results to you.”

BP went down quite a bit. Head back home, and since I knew from the online test that I was negative and it was unlikely I had been infected since, Mrs J and I saddled up for Galveston.

Couple of hours later, the phone beeps with a new email from Walgreens. Results are in and can be viewed from the app. I (actually Mrs J) pull them up and I’ m negative. 

Yippee! I’m going cruising. A few minutes later Mrs J says “I can’t figure out how to print or email this report to confirm WuFlu status for clearing Galveston.” Since she’s way better at iPhone use than I and thus it’s unlikely I’ll do better, I then start pondering my solitary return to the ‘burg after dropping her off.

We go out to dinner at Landry’s, when she says “Hand me your phone.” Recognizing the tone, I do so. She opens up the report, expands it as much as possible. Then with her phone takes a picture of it. Opens that up and, miracle of miracles, the pertinent info is legible. When we get back to the hotel, we ask the front desk lady to print out the picture.

BP back down again, I spend most of the night wondering how things are going to get screwed up now. NEVER challenge the Fates like that!

Check in is normal. The person at the WuFlu desk didn’t bat an eye at the documents and waved us through. 10 minutes later, we’re in our cabin. Unpack and head out to check on the wine tour events status.

We meet up with our assigned events coordinator, a very nice young lady from Romania named Ramona. Speaks English quite well. We ask about our wine. 

Now, let me set the stage. Texas has THE stupidest alcohol regulations on the face of the planet. Prove me wrong! In this particular case a winery cannot transport their product to any venue. It has to be delivered through a bonded warehouse. 

Beans, you get one guess, who paid TABC to put that particular regulation in place?

So, if say, a winery was hosting a wine cruise out of Galveston to places in the Caribbean and wanted to provide the wine for consumption on board by its wine club members, they would have to transport the wines to the bonded warehouse ($), and pay them to transport it to the ship ($$$). They cannot transport it even if they are going on the cruise themselves.

But, until the law, stupid as it is, is changed, it’s the law.

So, our hosting winery ships it to the bonded warehouse in Houston and get a receipt that it has been received by the warehouse. Included with the wine is the the sailing date/time documentation, AKA deliver absolutely no later than this point in time. Mrs J calls later in the week with the receipt tracking number and reconfirms receipt and the delivery date time.

The above picture is of the venue about an hour prior to the first tasting. Notice what’s missing?

Mrs J, Ramona, and the winery owner have a quick confab on disaster recovery. No good answers until Ramona calls the ship’s beverage manager and explains the problem. He quickly leaps to hero status when he asks “How about we provide the wine?”

He achieves superhero status when he adds “At no charge.”

The tasting went quite well.

The next day was at sea also, so the activity was a tasting also. Royal Caribbean allows 2 bottles of wine to be brought on board per stateroom for personal consumption. Which meant the owner, the winemaker and the winery manager could bring 6 bottles of wine for “personal” use on board. That was almost enough for a tasting. 

Mrs J and I had inherited my Dad’s wine collection when he passed about 15 years ago. I had always said we’d drink them at special occasions. It was stored in our wine closet with “our” wines.  It has always been difficult when special occasions came round to pull one of Dad’s, so I’d pull one we had bought.

Dumb I know, but…

In any case, as Mrs J and I prepped for this trip, we decided we’d bring two of Dad’s, a 1996 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon and a 1999 William Selyem Pinot Noir. Both are getting long in the tooth and should be consumed soon. But…still hard to do.

We bite the bullet and hand carry them on board. 

So, when Mrs J and the winery folks discussed the logistics of the second tasting, I asked if it would be ok to bring the Cab.  I didn’t want to seem like I was implying their wines weren’t good and mine was. Their wines range from very good to out-fricking-standing. I told them I’d just like to share the Cab with people who would appreciate them. 

“Oh, hell yes!

The second tasting went well. We tasted 7 REALLY good wines. I think Dad’s up there smiling.

One thing I did learn about posting at sea.  Text updates OK, not great.  Pictures?  Not so much.  And using an iPad to compose a post is solidly a PITA.  Think I'm going to upgrade to a notebook.

We had fun and got small.