rimmit

So as many of you may or may not know, my wife was run over by a car in Zimbabwe this summer. Long story short we obviously cancelled a ton of trips, vacations, and it’s been incredibly stressful due an innumerable amount of complications. After 3.5 months and 13 surgeries she felt well enough to try and go on a much needed vacation, albeit in a wheelchair as she is still recovering and unable to walk. We booked this cruise last second and made final payment Oct 5 for a cruise leaving Oct 7th. Obviously given my previous experiences we bought travel insurance, but due to the closeness, the agencies I normally buy through did not have a trip cancellation option interestingly enough. Likely due to the closeness of the trip. We did have trip interruption but cancellation was not an option under the benefits. So unfortunately after driving to Orlando from KY and going to Disney for half a day, midway through our day at Disney, my wife started feeling bad. Just having some vomiting, h/a, muscle aches, fever chills, post nasal drainage. We left midday and she was in bed all of Thursday. We were scheduled to board the Indy out of PC today. I have tested her twice for covid and she’s been negative both times. I call this AM because she is in no condition to board, esp. with fever and chills, cough, etc. They tell me she is good too board as covid is negative. I state I dont think she is any condition to travel given her symptoms despite her COVID test being negative. They proceed to state she is perfectly good to board. I ask what my options are. They then tell me I can either board or lose all the money as their most recent policies require a positive covid test to get an FCC. So sadly we are our $2000 dollars for a 3 night cruise. We coulda forced her onto the ship but I felt that was just unethical given the current situation and her current symptoms as she could come back positive in the next several days. RCI clearly would just rather make a buck at this point regardless of passenger safety or pax that actually care about other passengers. I am not criticizing anyone that does board with those symptoms, as I personally feel at this point it is in one own self to do what they are comfortable with given covid and other infectious illnesses. Just makes me angry that RCI has changed their policies enough to wear they would rather just board sick people again and not give them ANY other options other than board or lose your money. Pre-covid I am almost certain they’d allow you some credit if you had symptoms of Rotavirus as they’d rather have you not board, but I guess they are just that desperate now. Oh well. Them’s the breaks.

So they never ran out? Or did you have to get there early?

Thanks. The staterooms are small enough that she can brace herself on furniture and the bed or use a walker. We’ll just collapse the wheelchair, and stick it in the room. She scoots around on her butt a lot too. Lol. How difficult is it to get a beach wheelchair at cococay?

Been a bit since I’ve been on here. As some in our roll call for the cruise we were we had to cancel this summer know, my wife was sadly run over by a an out of control car and sustained massive damage to her left foot when we were in Zimbabwe this summer on an African safari. After getting run over she was unable to get any decent medical care for over 24 hours until we were finally able to get med evacuated to Joburg, South Africa. It’s been a crazy long road of recovery that will continue for likely the next year that literally would take a novel to explain. Thankfully, 31 hospital days and 13 surgeries, 62 days of IV abx and over 3 months later she is alive and still has a foot. While not even close to walking she finally is able to have the stamina to potentially go on a vacation again. While I have spent over 350 days on a cruise ship I have never done it with someone in a wheelchair or mobility limited. Any advice or tips, specifically, related to the Independence are welcome. We will start out on a short cruise to get our bearings in this new wheelchair world. We have a 7 year old coming as our 11 year old will be in school, so just one kid this time around. She will be in a standard wheelchair and not an ECV. She can hobble around with a walker for short distances and a knee scooter as well for slightly longer distances. Thanks for any tips.

That is good to hear, this situation as a unique “slipped through the cracks” situation. From the timing of when it happened, our CCs not being accepted, not being under the care of a guide or operator for that portion of our trip, etc. I’d be impressed if a single phone call would do it, but once We got to Joburg, and got settled and finally got a hold of our travel insurance company, they activated a local agent, who then sent a GOP (guarantee of payment) to the hospital and all future bills were billed to the local agent. Once we activated that, I didnt make one further payment. I filed my travel claim on July 11th, however, and still hasn’t been processed….. ugh. unfortunately, the GOP was not good enough for the air evac companies. They wanted the money NOW.

The weekend was the big issue. The first evac company would only take cash or wire transfer and walked off when I said that was impossible. The second thankfully took CC, but was 6000k more (not that I care or that it mattered), but there systems just refused to process our payment. And for reasons I don’t understand to this day, they REFUSED to let us either tap or insert the card into a machine to make a payment which is much more likely to go through than an internet link. We begged them to try it on their machine but they REFUSED. All I could think about this whole time was if you were a solo traveler you were screwed. The physician is not an advocate. Unlike in the US if I have a patient that I am not equipped to handle, I am transferring it out as fast as possible. The physician here didn’t care. If I didnt demand a transport she woulda laid there until she died, or ran out of money and they kicked her out. due to the money situation in Zimbabwe, the physician will do nothing for you. If you dont have someone who’s health advocating and making payments for you, you are screwed.

Hi! Well, it’s been a looon road. Where to begin. So we got back to the US, July the 5th. Getting out of Joburg was a nightmare and the travel insurance screwed up our repatriation so bad I can’t even begin to start. There are a lot of moving parts to a medical repatriation, the actual patient and family, a local agent that is assisting you, and then the travel insurance agency somewhere far away. There is a lot of politics between the local agents and the actual agency and needless to say it was a total disaster getting out of Joburg, but we made it out… barely. So here’s the cliff notes version. After 5 surgeries in Joburg, and 1 more in A Level I trauma center right when we got back to the US she got home for two weeks as she waited for her skin graft to heal. She the got her skin graft. 5 days later spiked a fever. Took several days to figure it out but she had osteomyelitis (bone infection) and she had 7 different bacteria growing. She had to go back to the OR 6 more times to get rid of the infection at which one point they thought she was gonna lose her foot. She got discharged after 2 weeks and 6 surgeries with a PICC line, 6 weeks IV. Abx, 6 months po abx, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and a wound vac. She has had multiple complications with the abx and due to their being 7 different bacteria has now been on 15 different antibiotics. She is now 2 days from the end of her IV abx course, 7 days from the end of hyperbaric, and her wound is almost closed. Due to being non ambulatory for 10 weeks she lost a massive amount of ROM. She was cleared to bear weight 2 weeks ago and has been killing herself in PT. She is a fighter and it’s been hard but we’re getting there. Thats the SHORT version.

I am a Capital One Venture X Guy myself. 2x miles on all purchases and the miles transfer to a fair amount of travel partners. I am not a huge fan of using the travel eraser where every mile/point can has a value of 1 cent as you can get much better redemptions by transferring points/miles to partners. The best value for redemptions is on biz class seats by far but You can find some good redemption for economy as well. Just not the same level of value on your hard earned points.

It really is. If you were at the scene, you'd for sure thought she was dead, given what happened. I definitely did as did my mom. Kids are ok. A little traumatized and my youngest who is 7 is definitely a little anxious about cars and being on streets, but she seems to be getting more comfortable walking around cars again over the last week. My son who is 11 doesn't have the same level of anxiety about cars, but is still anxious. My youngest still gets concerned that she's gonna be in bed forever, but we've assured her that's not the case and she's gonna get better and it'll just take time. It definitely seems like an eternity from their perspective that she's been down and not able to do much and in pain. She is home now, as she is just managed by wound care and oral pain meds until she is ready for the graft. She inadvertently got addicted to some pain meds right prior to the pandemic for some back pain, and didn't even realize it until her script ran out at the beginning of the pandemic and she didn't bother to refill it. Little did she know her body had become reliant. Took us several days to figure out she was withdrawing as we couldn't figure out why she was so sick given we had contact with practically no one. She toughed it out for 7 days of misery as she withdrew and swore she'd never get on opiates again and would rather take the back pain before being on an opiate. This is obviously an exception, but for that reason after 3.5 weeks on some Oxy, we stopped it before she has the skin graft to try and keep her body from getting addicted again as she'll need some pain management obviously after the skin graft. It's a fine line to walk between pain and avoiding addiction. Yes, you can plan all you want, but you can't plan for everything. We do a ton of travel and this was the most logistically complex trip we've ever planned. By the end my kids had been on 10 plane flights ranging from A350's, 787's and 777's to small puddle jumpers. They had done more border crossings than I can count, and excluding the US had been through 6 countries. There were endless car transfers, house boats, and nights in a safari camp and hotels. It was all meticulously planned, but one mistake (leaving behind my contact solution) led to everything unraveling in seconds and it all came crashing down. I am definitely glad they got to complete the vacation, despite there being a cloud over the remainder which was still 12 more nights, but man plans and god laughs.

She’s doing ok. Some days are better than others. Her wound is still open, but we are hoping it will be ready for a skin graft this Wed. The pain comes in waves, and some lights are better than others. She can get up and get to the bedside commode without assistance and get to the bathroom with a walker and assistance so that is good. All things considered it is an all out miracle how well she is doing. She should make a full recovery aside from a foot that will look like Frankenstein and some scars on her legs and arms. Considering she was run over by a car we truly consider it a win and I just keep reminding myself that whenever she has a bad pain day. The fact she didn’t break any bones and didn’t hit any major arteries is truly a miracle. If she was actively bleeding she woulda died as they dont have blood in Vic Falls. Also a miracle she didn’t get an infection and go septic. The issue is that the air evac company just wouldnt take a guarantee of payment. They wanted payment NOW and wouldn’t schedule it till they had a receipt in hand. Netcare Milpark Hospital did do some irrigation of the wound and some pain meds and some labs in the ED before I paid, but to get the OR and bed I had to make a payment. We did call our insurance company at the hospital in Joburg at the time but at the time for some reason I can’t remember they wouldn’t guarantee the payment. I didn’t push the issue as at the time I was still under the assumption my only option was to pay out of pocket and file a claim later, I did not realize that for admissions of this level the insurance company can get directly involved just like if we were in the US. The next day when I went to the international patient liason we called the insurance company together in her office and they then agreed to send a letter of guarantee of payment and I was finally absolved from future payments. In actuality, the insurance company I think prefers to be involved so they can get some control of the situation and reduce cost. Every single email from my insurer after they were directly involved always stated at the end anything beyond basic labs and tests (X-rays, cbcs, etc) must now be preapproved. Surgeries must now be preapproved before they could be done.

Mistyped. I mean travel insurance. Thanks for catching that.

Yes. Although I go for bourbon myself. 🙂 The communication from the physicians was non existent. They don’t even round on WEEKENDS!!!! What physician doesnt round on weekends! They never answer the pages as After the first surgery I desperately wanted to talk to someone about prognosis, recovery, what they did in the OR. It was absurd. Like 1950s level physician communication as in NONE.

I just took the suggestion of the doc in Zim on where to go. Since I paid out of pocket we coulda picked anywhere. We coulda gone to Christian Bernard in Capetown if we wanted. I picked Joburg as it was only 2 hours and I wanted a surgeon on her foot as soon as possible as I was very concerned if it went to long it may need amputation.

This is all accurate. We fell through the cracks as we were part of a privately chartered safari. We had some free time that was arranged in Vic Falls and CPT, but in the middle would have been under the operator umbrella. All the tours were arranged in Vic and CPT but the issue was while we had arranged tours we did not have a “guide” at this time. It would have been better to have been injured on safari as then the tour operator would have been able to assist as I assume they have some protocols for this as I have no doubt people have been injured on safari before. We would also not have been evacuated to a small local “hospital” but to a real hospital with facilities and meds. We hit every hole I Swiss cheese model of when safety protocols fail. I honestly don’t know what we coulda done differently as I have gone over it in my head 100s of times.

Yes. Pay now, money later. No amount of money can replace a lost life or limb. We tried to get the insurance involved early on but the evac companies didn’t care. We activated the local agent the day after arriving in Joburg and at that point we’re instructed to stop making payments and to refer all future bills to them at that point. I obviously was already knee deep in payments but at least the medical repatriation and some other separate bills were deferred to the local agents for payment as they were then responsible for all future payments. i am now in the process of submitting receipts and documention for reimbursement of the evac, care in Zim, and trip interruption.

Actually, in a situation where a large amount of cash is involved, the travel agency can submit a letter of guarantee of payment and the hospital will use that without you fronting large amounts of cash. For some reason we couldn’t get that initially when we got to Netcare Milpark in Joburg, and I lit up 38k just to get her a bed. They did call my insurance in Joburg but they could not get the letter at the time. Once admitted the local agents for the insurance took over and sent a letter of guarantee and supposedly they will now pay the hospital directly for the care and the hospital will refund my 38k. I am still waiting on this to happen. The repatriation was a debacle, but long story short we paid nothing for it and we’re able to get business class back to the US from JNB-EWR and then an air ambulance back to Columbus oh since narrow body jets do not have space for her to keep her leg elevated. A med jet was on the table for a bit as the biz class seats were all sold out, but some space opened up, but at one point we were looking at a medjet to get back.

Millpark was great. We got great care there. The only negative and this is likely a cultural thing, is that physicians in South Africa do not communicate with the patient. In 14 days in the hospital my wife talked to a doctor 6 times and I talked to them 4 times. We were in the dark the entire time as to what was happening. It was maddening. There is no post surgery talk from the surgery. I went 36 hours after the first surgery without talking to a doctor. It was maddening and incredibly frustrating. The hospital was very clean though. Not the best part of Joburg, but I stayed 10 min. Away in melrose arch at a Marriott autograph hotel which was gorgeous.

The company didn’t take American Express so that was no help. We tried any and all cards to make payment and her uncle was the one who finally got the payment through. He was initially denied, but made some calls and got it through, which is impressive as we tried everything. When asked what he did differently, he simply said, “I’m a big deal.” Which he actually is but he has not told me what he did to get it approved. I am just grateful it did.

My takeaway is that I am not sure what I could do differently other than maybe carry 20,000 dollars on hand at all times. You can’t not travel only when banks are open so you can do wire transfers, as that is not feasible. They don’t take checks. Maybe travel with 5 different credit cards with high credit lines to improve the chances of one going through. I think maybe buying an international phone plan could help, but even when I could make international calls it didn’t make a difference. That’s the hard part of all this. I honestly don’t know what we could do to prepare differently. My wife was walking about 5 ft from the road, so she really couldn’t walk much safer. The police want to press charges. We don’t think that will accomplish anything. Maybe not forget contact solution? Ultimately, that’s what’s so hard to process. I am not sure what we could do differently to expedite the process of getting her transferred. Wire transfers on weekends just aren’t possible. I left out some details for brevity, but we even attempted to contact the embassy but being a weekend that got us nowhere. They did get back to us though two days later and took the info of the evac company so they could try and prevent this from happening again. Really travel with more cash I guess in 3rd world cash based companies. Cash is king and the only thing people want. They avoid “swipe” (that’s what they call it here) like the plague. Traveling with 20k in pocket is dangerous though and not something I’d recommend on a regular basis.

My parents took the kids and continued on with the vacation to Botswana. Per my mom, my youngest, Lucy is apparently very scared of cars now sadly, and is very anxious getting near them.

Thanks. Just thought people should know that just because you have travel insurance doesn’t mean you can get care expediently. There are still some significant barriers to care if the country is cash based.

So my wife unfortunately recently was run over a car in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. We have travel insurance and it will pay out for the air evac and the several surgeries that she has had thus far here. I am posting here because even with travel insurance, in a cash based system, in an emergency there are still a ton of barriers to getting care quickly and efficiently, which resulted in a nearly full day delay in care for a Level I trauma. I wrote a mini novella on our blog and for anyone that takes the time to read it, I promise you will be astonished at what transpired and have a new appreciation of the US healthcare system despite all it’s faults. This is not monetized and there are no ads. http://thesmallworldfamily.com/2022/06/24/so-what-exactly-happened/

It varies by ship and age. You can request a phone though from my experience on all ships. It is random though as sometimes I was handed a phone. Sometimes I was offered one if I wanted one, sometimes they made me take it. We have used AO extensively over the course of 12 years and there has been no consistent rhyme or reason when they give out a phone EXCEPT if you use the nursery. If you use the nursery they will definitely give you a phone no matter what as if your baby is unconsolably crying for an extended period of time they will call you to come pick your baby up. Our kids always loved the nursery and had no issues, but I know some parents who had some unconsolable infants. Most ships definitely do not have enough phones to hand out to every single family that has a child in AO. They just dont have enough phones for that. We’ve been on Ovation twice, once in 2015 on the inaugaural repo to China and in 2019 in Australia/NZ. In 2015 they handed out a phone in the nursery but none for AO as we gave them the number of the phone we were issued by the nursery. In 2019 my kids aged out of the nursery and were just in regular AO and we had a phone about 50 percent of the time. It was rather random. If you asked about another ship it’d be a totally different answer. Also, if you dont have a phone and they need to contact you, they can check your charge record for the night and where you’ve scanned it and track you down thay way or leave a voicemail in the cabin phone. If you have a dining reservation they can track you down that way as well. Over the years we have been tracked down a variety if different ways. You can always request a dectphone (I think that is how they spell it) if you like though if you want them to be able to contact you at all times and they should have one available. Before the days that cell phones were common place on boats, we got some strange stares when we’d answer the ship issued phone. Hope that helps.

My kids have been cruising since 9 months ans 15 months respectively, and my 15 months old first cruise was a 14 night TA. They are 7 years and 11 years now. My suggestion is stick with Cococay/Nassau. With a baby you’re really not going for ports and just to kinda chill on a beach or be on a boat with a baby. More important than the ports is making sure the boat has a nursery. The majority of RCI ships have them, but not every one has one. If you dont have a nursery than there will be no child care available, as your kiddo cant go to the kids club yet. Going any place with excursions you may be tempted to do, but would be difficult if not impossible with a baby (unless you use the nursery while you gonon excursions) would just leave you disappointed in not being able to do them. Really, with a 1-1.5 year old I’d keep it simple. It’s hard to predict what they’ll tolerate at this point and every baby/toddler has a different affect and things can change monthly with babies/toddlers When we did more complex excursions in ports when our kids were young we’d hire private tours, so we’d be able to control bathroom breaks, stops if they were having meltdowns, skipping things that were less kid friendly, and really cater to their food and nap needs. It did cost more, but lowered our anxiety abour potentially having a meltdown on the bus. We did not have to do that with our first child, but our second was a little more difficult to tour with so thats when we started doing private tours. Our first child was very easy going and had no issues on long bus tours.

They used to have adventure time dining on select nights precovid. It would bridge the 5-7 gap. Had to presign them up and they’d go to the WJ to get pizza. They also used to have My family time dining where they’d get the kids like 30-40 minutes i to dinner or something like that and bring them to AO. AO has never been open from 5-7 and that is standard across all cruiselines except disney. Disney has a continously operatinf kids club all day and a kids dinner. NCL does not have any kids dinner at all. X has a kids dinner every night. I am not sure of HAL or PCL as I have not been on them since we have had kids so not sure of the current dining situation there.