CathyGo7280

The more overweight your bag is the more likely it is to be damaged or do damage. Those zippers can only contain so much and the porters back can only take so much. I would suggest you are probably overpacking by quite a bit. Even when I load up all my heavy work gear(including steel toed rubber boots) and what I'll need for 6 months on a ship I wouldn't fill a 30" suitcase and 2 carry ons. If you don't want to discard anything I still think you'd be happier with two smaller and lighter suitcases than one larger one. It's easier to move through smaller spaces and you won't be risking someone's health and safety.

It's only about $100 so I'm probably just going to do that. A few Cokes a day and I'm at the same cost.

The pools are heated and it's not far to get back inside. So it comes down to your comfort level.

Darn. Bringing a bottle of Mio flavoring and getting soda water is my normal hack for "free" soda.

I like some bubbles in my drink but I don't want to spend for a drink package. 🙂 My preferred drink is Coke Zero as well and I've found many places run out or give you Diet instead. Normally a row of soda dispensers will have a little toggle for plain soda water. Can anybody verify if those are present on the Sun and the staff will give you soda water for free?

I'm going to have to correct myself here and say that most alcohol based sanitizers don't kill noro. Purell and research directly paid for by Purell suggests that some of their products like VF Plus do kill noro. Unfortunately other studies that are not funded by Purell have not had as good results so you'll have to make your own decision on that. I'm sure they work better than the standard alcohol sanitizers but still should take a back seat to hand washing.

Which hand sanitizer are you using?

Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor and I haven't cruised in quite some time. What I'm seeing on ship videos is a bunch of purell hand sanitizer stations. Norovirus isn't killed by alcohol based hand sanitizer! https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3168661/ Ships need to be providing hand washing stations and emphasizing that hand sanitizer does not kill noro. Of course, that's much more expensive so probably not going to happen unless big fines start being handed out. And we'll just ignore the fact that outbreaks outside of cruise ships are commonly traced to a food service worker with bad hygiene habits. 😉 It's much simpler to blame the passenger but if the food or water is contaminated the passenger can't do much about it. When a large number all get sick at the same time you can be pretty sure it's a worker who doesn't wash properly. Remember having a separate large prep kitchen is common so even if people ate at different locations they may still be eating food prepped by the same worker. Also, most surface sanitizers have a longer contact time than people actually let the product sit on there for. If the product takes 60 seconds to kill noro it needs to be on the surface and wet for 60 seconds. 30 seconds is about the lowest you'll see. Bleach is actually a 10-20 minute contact time to kill noro. Spraying and then immediately wiping is insufficient and may actually be spreading the virus to more surfaces.

Yes, a dawn and vinegar mix is our go-to around here. That powder espresso machine cleaner is amazing though. It gets hard water scaling off that vinegar can't get. Temp will probably be fine for green tea. I'm fine with one less than ideal cup of tea every day if it allows me to make it in my pj's. 😁

It's fairly close to clean when you do that. I've used these at hotels a lot. You can taste the coffee flavor in green tea really easily so it's still there. Plus there's normally that stale low quality coffee smell. I'd rather just clean it.

That should work. I have espresso machine cleaner at home so I can probably get it cleaned up enough. Thank you!

I'm going on an Alaskan cruise on the Sun in October. I like green tea in the morning and I don't want to have to get dressed to go get it. 😁 Most recommendations I've seen have centered around the higher priced staterooms and ordering hot water but I've seen a few mentions of electric kettles provided. Has anybody gotten an electric kettle on the Sun in Alaska? Would I be able to request something like that ahead of time with an oceanview room?