Plague!

Well, not exactly. But apparently some of my fellow passengers have begun to suffer digestive distress. We got a letter about it with the Explorer daily newsletter last evening, reminding us to wash our hands and use the ubiquitous hand sanitizer dispensers and assuring us that our health and safety is a top priority for the ship's staff, yada, yada, yada.

But this morning, I can't serve myself at the breakfast buffet. The foods are displayed, but behind a rope line, behind which an unfailingly polite and helpful waiter in latex gloves fetches for me my bowl of mueslix and my raisin bun and the paper-wrapped pat of butter to smear on it. At the coffee urn, another rope line, another waiter hitting exactly the right balance of courtesy and discipline as he fetches my coffee with cream and Splenda. Even the salt and pepper grinders on the tables are replaced by little paper packets to keep Person A from any possibility of direct contact with the comestibles of Person B. All done so gracefully that there is no implication of dirtiness or danger.

They let people off the ship to go on excursions into Buenos Aires, so I assume we're just talking a minor stomach bug of some kind. I wonder what they would do if it really was plague. I feel sure they would handle things elegantly, efficiently, and effectively. Do you suppose there's a protocol for dumping all passengers at sea and steaming rapidly away? I am sure Holland America would never do such a thing. Costa, on the other hand...