BeagleOne

Only until it enters the urethra. There, it pick up bacteria.

No, the urethra, which is the tube from the bladder to the outside world, is (or should be) sterile too. If it's not sterile, bacteria can ascend into the bladder and possibly reach the ureters and kidneys. Urine can pick up bacteria as it reaches the external opening and exits the urethra. Hopefully heading for the toilet and not the swimming pool!

I wear a little pouch around my neck, under my shirt. As for not looking like a tourist...I've been to every continent but Antarctica, and lived overseas for a total of ten years, and IME the locals can tell tourists a mile away, even if the tourist is of the same racial background as most of the locals. They might start to speak to you in their language simply because that's the only language they speak!

I hope you have a great trip! I would recommend reading/perusing "The Path Between The Seas" by David McCullough. Excellent book.

Bon voyage!

I was in Macy's a few weeks ago and it was coupon day. The lady in front of me at the check out did not have a coupon so I offered her the use of mine. (It is reusable all day.) She looked at it, commented it was only 15% off but the one she had left home was 20% and was angry that was the best I could do for her. She huffed and puffed and begrudingly used it without so much as a thank you to me. No manners.

 

Oooh! I'd have been VERY tempted to say, "Well, if my 15% coupon isn't good enough for you, I'll just rescind my offer, then." What a rude woman she was!

she announces that people need to watch their toes or I will run over them. She does the same thing when we get off. She walks behind me, where I cannot see her, and keeps repeating the toe warning to everyone. I hate it. I have asked her to stop. She wont.

You could announce in a loud voice that you have no idea who that rude woman behind you is, and people shouldn't listen to her. Maybe THAT would stop her. ;)

I'm not really "getting at" anything, I'm curious about an apparent contradiction in your posts and asking for clarification, which so far you have not provided. And of course, since we don't know anything about each other apart from what we post on CC, you have absolutely no idea what "dog" I may or may not have in "this fight". I thought it was a discussion and any CC member was free to participate.

My question was what you did for child restraint on the excursions where you were not able to use your own car seats. In my first post about it I asked "did they (your kids) go without?". In my second post I asked, "What did you do for child restraint?" I did NOT ask where you put the car seats, since you had stated that in one of your posts.

So I will rephrase. Did your kids ride on your laps, or did they sit unrestrained in the regular bus seats, or what? I'm wondering, because you have been quite critical of the OP for not bringing a car seat and potentially letting some driver they don't know drive them on unfamiliar roads with an unrestrained child. But it appears from your posts that you have done the same with your own children.

So if you could clarify, I would appreciate it, since my questions were perfectly clear. If you don't want to answer, that's fine too, of course.

You can't take a car seat on a bus. Years ago on an excursion bus we weren't sure what the excursion was using so we had the car seat and we had to stow the car seat under the bus. So if you know if advance that you are using all buses - you can leave your car seat at home. :)

 

We had to become experts at trying to figure out which tour company was using which *type* of transportation. If the excursion was using a bus - then we knew to leave the car seats in the cabin's closet. We also booked excursions using ferry/boats that allowed us to leave the car seats in the cabin.

This was the post to which I was referring. What did you do for child restraint on the excursion bus where you had to store the child seats underneath, and on the bus excursions where you left the car seats on board? Did the bus company provide car seats?

And that's unfortunate. Because your advice might not have an impact on YOUR child. And of course odds are stacked in your favor that you all will come home perfectly safe. But someone *reading* your review might say "Look, they did it. We don't need a car seat for our baby on our cruise." And then the odds start to multiply that THEY may be the ones who are in an accident while on vacation.

 

I see the balcony thread that some of the parents on this thread are "dreading a balcony" and NO baby EVER has ever fallen into the ocean on a ship. But they don't worry about a stranger in another country driving their baby around on a mountainous road where there aren't things like guide rails and animals are freely walk into the road and cars aren't inspected.

 

Maybe I misread one of your earlier posts, where you reported going on excursions without car seats. Did the excursion company provide car seats for your children, or did they go without?

The sanctimony of people who think they know everything about everything, and take every chance they can get to judge others, never ceases to amaze.

LOL! ;) Just watch for my review titled:

 

Carnival Liberty 9/2013: Two irresponsible, bad, cheap, uncaring parents and their choice to NOT take a car seat.

I will be looking for your review! With photos of your child in various dangerous situations, of course! :D

what exactly is the procedure for fitting three child seats in a vehicle while keeping full control of three young children?

Maybe it involves judicious use of duct tape? ;)

I'm finishing up nursing school this year and last spring I asked the cruise nurse what the hiring requirements were. She mentioned the "three years at least in an ER or ICU" requirement.

I think it's a great ambition you have! If you get the experience you need I think you should apply and see what happens. But keep in mind the excellent point that if you work on a cruise ship you might end up not enjoying cruising as a vacation as much as you used to.

*I* would suggest that you need to do some more research. You should go on a cruise or four sometime between now and graduation and make a point to talk to the medical staff in person. Yes, a cruise or four would be essential research for this IMHO! ;)

Good luck!

Princess? But...but...Ooster is coming and the Ooster Bunny will be making his rounds! Shouldn't you be booking a HAL cruise? ;)

I LOVE the tux photo! What a handsome man Wex is.

The one- and three-year rabies shots are generally the same "stuff". The first rabies shot an animal gets should be certified for one year, but after that, three-year vaccines can be used. In fact the subsequent shots can confer immunity for seven years or even longer, depending on the individual animal.

But, since rabies is zoonotic and 100% fatal unless you are an insanely lucky teenager from Wisconsin whose awesome doctors saved her after the bat bite she and her parents failed to report until she had clinical signs of rabies...the city, county, and state governments get involved. That's why some places require a shot every year and others use the three-year requirement...everyone wants to make their own rules! Eventually maybe regulation will catch up to science and the three-year requirement will go to five or seven years or longer, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

If your animal has had a vaccination reaction before, you might be able to get your vet to certify that s/he should not be vaccinated again, so long as blood samples show an adequate rabies titer. Not all local governments will accept that, and I'm not sure how cruise lines feel about that, and of course other countries will have their own laws...I'm only conversant with U.S. law.

 

I just returned from a cruise on the Holland America Zuiderdam.

I looked through your photos and I see you found that bizarre bench. I was on the Zuiderdam back in 2005 and my friends and I were all amazed by that bench (not in a good way) especially when combined with the carpet! :D

St. Nicholas Abbey is closed on Saturdays, FYI, in case that's the day you're in port. Found that out as I pulled up to the gate in my rented mini-moke. :)

I blame Kathie Lee Gifford.

Thanks, Roz!

That's very interesting about the hypoglycemia-alert dogs. People in diabetic ketoacidotic (DKA) states often have a fruity/acetone odor on their breaths, although not everyone can smell it, and the diabetic person is usually showing other signs by then.

I wonder what exactly the dogs smell in the perspiration? Did a few searches and couldn't find anything. Does anyone know?

First, I love the picture of your Beagle.

 

Thanks! The bigger dog is my Katrina-rescue foxhound I got when volunteering at a Mississippi shelter after the storm. She was an unbelievably mangy puppy and they were going to put her down but I said I would take her. I thought she was a beagle and then she somehow became a foxhound! :)

The puppy is a beagle who came to the shelter where I was working; he had a leg deformity. The minute I put him on the floor to watch him walk the foxhound started gnawing gently on his head. She's actually resting her head on the base of an IV pole in the picture! They've been inseparable ever since (5 1/2 years).

I call that pic "Are you my mother?"

I'm very sorry about Valentine.

There's an escalator story that happened just a couple of days ago. Fortunately the owner took the puppy to an excellent hospital and he only lost two toes.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/puppy-loses-toes-caught-escalator-article-1.1102416

I bet that kitten could take the police dog if she really wanted to. ;) Love how the tail is all puffed up in the photo.

Hi! *waving*

This year I will be 40 for the tenth time. :) I'm a veterinarian switching to human medicine (nursing) on an independent-study basis so I'm trying to do a couple of cruises before the real world hits again. Just did my first solo cruise and had a ball! I joined the CC roll call for my cruise, LOVED having my own cabin, made lots of friends, did some group shore excursions but also went off on my own (highlights: renting a mini-moke on Barbados and spending the entire afternoon at Maho Beach on St. Maarten with my air band radio), read 10 books in 11 days, was offline the entire time and loved it, and can't wait to go again!

My brother, SIL, and I are thinking of organizing a family cruise with me, his family, and my parents, but other than that, I plan to cruise solo for the foreseeable future.

I just went solo on the Maasdam and had a ball. Was thinking of booking a last-minute Titanic memorial cruise on the Journey but the prices were a little too steep, so I thought, hey, why not go to the Caribbean? So off I went.

Now I think I'll probably always go solo. I LOVED having my own cabin and I made lots of friends and had a ball renting a mini-moke and getting thoroughly lost on Barbados and getting sandblasted by jet exhaust at Maho Beach on St. Maarten. Hoping to go again next winter.

On a previous cruise, I did actually meet someone and had a shipboard romance. I certainly wasn't looking; in fact my friend and I were going to get in a hot tub and this guy was in it and I was initially annoyed that there was someone else in it. :) But I asked if he minded if we joined him in the Petri dish, and he laughed and said he didn't, and it turned out pretty well!

it was never going to go anywhere permanent even though we had a good time and saw each other a few times after the cruise. My advice to the OP (if she's even still reading) would be to join a roll call, go on the cruise and have a great time no matter whom you meet (or don't meet)!

It will be interesting to see what happens now that the ADA has been amended so that only dogs and miniature horses are covered under the act. I wonder if there will be further amendments to require some sort of official documentation or certification. Not that that will stop some people...

I'm a big fan of the scopolamine patch and have never had a problem with side effects. Even though it's indicated to work for only 72 hours for me it works for at least a week. Like any medication it has side effects and contraindications but the patch (transdermal route) has fewer side effects than the injectable or oral routes.

IMHO it's worth chatting with your doctor about getting a prescription...in the U.S., it is prescription only. Not sure about other countries.

You can't use soda or wine cards on the island, at least with HAL, because they don't bring their computers ashore. You can use your onboard card at the bars etc. but you will get a handwritten receipt.

The only SHOP that accepts your onboard card for purchases is the gift shop. The other shops at the "straw market", which are run by local people, do not accept those cards.