US Healthcare/Insurance is TERRIBLE

I HATE the healthcare system/insurance companies. Last month we got a letter from our dr's office that they were merging with Advocate Medical Group. I know Advocate is not in our insurance network. So we assumed we would, irritatingly, have to find new primary care doctors for all of us. But before we could do anything about it, the very next day the office called needing to reschedule our appointment. And we told them to just cancel it because we knew they wouldn't take our insurance. However, they assured us nothing was going to change. Okay fine. But I figured I knew better, and called the insurance company anyway. They backed up the office's claim, said we were all good. Referred us to their website, because it is 'updated daily,' Yup, website said we were covered. Cool. I have been periodically checking the website, still says we are covered.

G3's 15 month appointment was today. Called the office to verify we were still all good. This was confirmed. Called insurance one more time, they said we were covered. Got to the appointment, filled out all new freaking forms, was getting ready to take the kid back to see the doctor, when the receptionist came over to us, apologized and TOLD US THEY DID NOT TAKE OUR INSURANCE ANYMORE. I am fighting the head cold of death right now, so I was in a bad mood already. This enraged me. Seriously, what happened in the five hours between when I hung up with them and that moment? I started to lose it, at which point G2 stood up, grabbed my hand and told them we would be finding a new doctor, and got us all out of there before I made a huge scene.

So now we have to find new doctors. And G3 needs an appointment fast so he can stay on schedule with his shots. This is going to be a major pain. As of right this very second, Blue Cross's website still says covered, so I'm sure their provider finder is going to do me no good. Grrr.   

Foosa's 4th Cruise!

We have successfully made it onboard the Jewel. Indications are good that this will forever be known as ‘the trip of the fussing.’ Let’s hope not. The G’s are napping, and there is a bit of time before the muster drill, so I’ll try and get all of my pre-cruise notes jotted down now.

It is Saturday, day one of our cruise, but departed for San Juan on Thursday. After a long night of packing, our cab arrived far too early at a little after 6am. By 6:30, we were packed up and on our way to O’Hare. (Shout out to the good folks at American Taxi, who always arrive right on time.) Traffic was no worse than usual (actually better than it has been lately) , and we arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare.  Check in was quick and painless. Security was ultra fast too. I don’t know if it was because of G3 or if the first security lady read our boarding pass wrong. JetBlue has a thing where you can pay an extra $10 per person and skip ahead of the line – we did not do that but were ushered into some type of express lane anyway, as opposed to the really long regular security lane. Had some breakfast from McDonalds and before we knew it we were boarding. As the loyal reader may remember, our flight to Tampa in November was a disaster, so we were really hoping for better luck this time around. Things were pretty good from takeoff to just after Indianapolis, when the fussing began. And at age 14.5 months, fussing really equals screaming. This continued over the rest of Indiana, through Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Carolinas. Sigh. Shortly before the Atlantic appeared beneath us, G3 finally calmed down. He fell asleep for a little over an hour before waking and resuming the fussing. Out of what turned out to be about a 4 hour flight, he screamed for well over half of it. [I didn’t get puked on, which was an improvement.]

Upon landing, we had a bit of a wait for our bags before shuffling out to the curb to grab a taxi. I had rented us an apartment in Old San Juan for the first two night of our journey. My instructions were to stop by Hospital Veterinario to claim the key before proceeding to the apartment. I told the cabbie this, and even gave him the address of the place. He seemed confused, even though my instructions stated that ‘Taxi drivers will know.’ I repeated the information several times, before he said, “Oh, hospital – I thought you said Veterinarian.’ I began to second guess myself and felt pretty stupid. The notes must have said Veterans, I figured, and I almost sent us to the vet. Great start. I kept my mouth shut. Shortly I realized the driver was not taking the exact route I had notes for, but since he was a taxi driver, I rationalized that he was taking a shortcut. We were relatively near where we were supposed to be, so I didn’t think much of it. He soon pulled up next to a building and announced we had arrived. I hopped out and went inside. It was labeled as ‘Medical Center.’ There was a reception desk, but no one was at it, and it honestly didn’t look like anyone ever was. I waited for a bit, but no one came back to the desk. There was a directory on the wall with all the different doctors names, and the guy we rented the place from was not listed. Granted, he could have just worked there, but I still had a bad feeling. I went back outside and asked the cabbie if he was sure we were in the right place, and he informed be this was the only hospital he knew of. G2 checked the street sign…we were definitely not on the right street. A call to the owner of the place we were staying sent us a few blocks away, to, yup, a Veterinarian. Taxi man was dumbfounded. After quickly grabbing the key, we headed to Old San Juan. Apparently it was this cabbies first day or something, because he didn’t know his way around there either. I ended up having to give him step by step instructions to get us there.  But we made it!

We dropped off our bags and set out for an early dinner, having lost two hours on the flight. We walked down to a restaurant right by the piers where ships in just for the day docked. As we flew over I saw both Carnival and NCL in port, but by the time we arrived at the restaurant Carnival had already moved on. The restaurant was Punto de Vista,  and the food was excellent. Coconut mojito and shrimp mofongo for me (hereafter referred to as T1, as I just realized I haven’t been typing in my usual  third person style for trip reports) and raspberry mojito and steak mofongo for G2. G3 sampled both dishes and seemed to enjoy them.

After dinner we strolled along the waterfront, reminiscent of our after dinner walks on our honeymoon in ’08. We saw a lot of the usual locals…feral cats. There were so many. G3 loved it! ‘At!’ is one of his favorite ‘words,’ and even though it basically refers to all animals, at least this time he was accurate.

Exhausted from our day of travel, we trooped back to the apartment. It was still really early, especially if you consider that our bodies were still on central time, but we didn’t care. Bedtime for all! G3 did not take kindly to the tent, even though we had practiced with him at home. He screamed for quite awhile before settling down for about an hour, then getting all upset again. Took another to get him back to sleep, which lasted only about an hour and a half. At this point we gave up, pulled him into the bed, and G2 stayed up most of the night making sure he didn’t wake up and fall out. (Prior to this T1 attempted sleeping in the tent with G3…nope, not happening. He screamed even louder when we tried that. He only wanted daddy. Thank you, child who I gave life, I love you too.)  [I don’t understand how the kid didn’t like the tent.  It is freaking sweet!]

The next day we were up early and headed out in search of Mallorca’s, another Puerto Rican favorite. The best place in town has been closed for several years for ‘remodeling’ (yeah, it will probably never reopen), so we went to the next best, Cafeteria Mallorca. Three cheese Mallorca and one butter Mallorca, two strong coffees. Delightful. G3 also enjoyed them, thank goodness. After breakfast we walked further down the water’s edge, as the path was extended much further than we remembered it being, but the new section was only open during daylight hours. It was a lovely and hot walk. Amazing that we were sweating in 90 degree heat, meanwhile it was about 5 degrees back home. We had a tasty passion fruit shaved ice to cool us down en route back to the apartment.

Thorough sunscreen application and then time for the beach! About a two mile walk, it was a lovely hike. It was a yellow flag day, which meant we couldn’t use G3’s floatie…understandable, but it would have been nice if we had been informed of that before G2 unpacked and filled the thing up. G3 was not as confident in the water without it, so he and T1 spent a lot of time on the beach waving to G2 in the water and at the ‘At’s!’ on the beach. (Not cats this time. Pigeons. We’re working on it.)

An ice cream treat and another lovely walk returned us to the apartment yet again, where G2, exhausted, took a nap. G3 played unpack all the suitcases. Strangely, his duck tub in a box fascinated him. G2 had also picked up a chocolate pastry type situation at breakfast that morning, so we ate that for a snack.

Dinner that night was at a place that has been on my list since our first trip to San Juan, and four trips later we finally got around to it. Sadly, we couldn’t enjoy ourselves because G3 pitched a major fit and we spent all of dinner taking turns removing him from the restaurant and letting him scream outside. And had to skip dessert. Depressing. And of course as soon as we left, he was fine.

We walked back down to the waterfront to take pictures of Grandeur of the Seas in port, and were surprised to see another ship approaching. It was Explorer, 18 hours ahead of schedule. Apparently there was a Noro outbreak, and she skipped Labadee and came straight to San Juan. So we took pictures of both ships and then walked down to Pier 6, and brand new area that has been built since we last visited. All the activities were already closed for the night, but among them are trapeze lessons…

A few blocks from our apartment was a kiosk we had seen earlier in the day that advertised Mallorca’s, so we thought we would take a chance and see if they were still open, since we had missed dessert earlier in the evening. They were! Mallorca and coffee for a night time snack – yummy!

Upon returning to we decided to use the laundry machine to rinse all the sand out of our clothes. This did not go well, as without thinking we tossed T1’s red shirt in with the white towel that we borrowed from the apartment to take to the beach. Yup. Pink towel. And the Walgreens in town did not sell Rit dye remover, so the next day we had to go out and procure a new towel to replace the damaged one. Now, aside from the Walgreens, Old San Juan is not an area that has chain stores. Little restaurants and souvenir shops, that’s what the town has. And yet somehow, sandwiched in the middle of all of them, lo and behold, was a Marshall’s. New towel was obtained, and the day was saved. Also, despite his dinnertime freak out, G3 calmed right down at bedtime and actually spent the whole night in his tent.

The next morning we attempted to have a nice breakfast at Café Manolin, but Mr. Meltdown freaked out again. I don’t understand the positive reviews on TripAdvisor. The food was terrible (no mallorcas!) and service worse. Plus, G3’s oatmeal never arrived, and they tried to charge us for it anyway. Yuck. Will never return there, that’s for sure.   [Eh, the food wasn’t terrible.  Nothing special.  I wouldn’t go there again either as long as Café Mallorca is still around.  Or heck, even the little kiosk.]

Back to the apartment to pack up and head to the ship. T1 knew from previous experience that cabs line up a block away from where the apartment was, so she walked over and asked one of them to collect us and our luggage. The ride to the pier was uneventful, unlike the initial ride two days before. 

(The rest of this was written after the conclusion of the cruise.)

Embarkation was ultra fast, which was surprising because last time we cruised out of San Juan it was an absolute nightmare. This time we were onboard in minutes. Our cabin was not ready yet, so we headed up to the Windjammer for some lunch. After lunch our room was ready, but our luggage had not yet arrived. So we waited. And waited. And waited. Wandered around the ship, checking back periodically. No luggage. Finally at around 7pm, T1 went to guest services to inquire about it. They said they would call a supervisor. She returned to the cabin to wait. And happened to look all the way down the hall and saw suitcases resembling ours. Sure enough, it was them. Started to haul the two regular bags to the room, and then said supervisor appeared and assisted with the stroller and car seat bag.

Later in the evening, we tried to enjoy some time at the Diamond Event, (if you’ve read previous trip reports you know this means free drinks) but some random j@ck@$$ decided to make a ridiculous scene about there being a (silent) child in the lounge. Seriously, you would not have known he was there if you hadn’t seen us walk in with him. But this individual just ranted and raved like we had ruined his entire life by having the audacity to bring G3 into the room. It was asinine. People came up to us and told us to not let him get to us, but he was truly disturbing the whole room with his antics, so we left. He was still screaming while we waited at the elevator. I don’t think he had even noticed we had left. One woman we spoke with had the best line of the night regarding his behavior, ‘Please, if I ever get that old and cantankerous, shoot me.’

The next day was our first port, Tortola. Armed with a ferry schedule just in case, we set off in search of Egbert, a local with a boat that provided a transfer to Virgin Gorda and ‘The Baths.’ Schedule was not needed as Egbert was right outside the security gate. There was bit of a wait while he filled the boat, but then we were on our way. A prearranged taxi was waiting for us in Virgin Gorda, and a short ride put us at the ‘Top of the Baths.’ The hike down was fun, and G2 can add ‘crawled over and through boulders’ to the list of things he has done with G3 strapped to him. The Baths are beautiful, truly a must see to anyone visiting the area. There were wild chickens that G3 took quite the interest in. Chased them all over the beach. Later, exhausted from chicken chasing and splashing in the water, he passed out on a rock to exclaims of his sheer adorableness from just about every single passerby. I’m biased, but I agree.

We didn’t know how long it was going to take to walk back up, so we ended up leaving a little bit earlier than it turns out we needed to. We got to the top about a half hour ahead of schedule. We saw our taxi driver and he directed us to another taxi. (Taxis are actually open air vehicles that seat about 20.) We asked him if he was sure, because we were with Egbert’s group and not due to leave for awhile. He said yes. So we hopped in. Next thing we knew, with only one other couple on board (not from our group) the taxi took off. Uh-oh.  It dropped us off at the ferry pier, which was a few minutes walk from where we had gotten off of Egbert’s boat. That in itself wasn’t a problem, but we were concerned about our group back at the Baths trying to locate us before leaving. Fortunately, when we arrived at the correct pier, Egbert was there – stunned to see us. He called his driver at the Baths to advise him of our location. Just about the same time, a friend of the driver came around the corner and told Egbert the driver messed up and accidentally sent some people early. So all was well. However, our early arrival meant extra time for Egbert’s super, super strong rum punch. (Made even stronger buy the fact that G2 had only a very small breakfast, and T1 hadn’t eaten anything since the night before.) Not good. Well, the punch itself was, but without going into too much detail, let’s just say that when we returned to the ship our night was over. Missed the captain’s reception, missed dinner, missed the whole night.  [Now, I know my tolerance has gone way downhill since G3 arrived.  But I didn’t think it had completely disappeared.  I knew it was a strong pour, but we come to find out later that he had been using 151.  So I basically had twice as many drinks as intended.  Whoops!]

We also got a late start the next morning. We were in St. Maarten, and the plan was to make three stops, Mullet Bay, Maho Beach, and Carousel. Our late start meant Mullet Bay was scrapped, and we headed straight to Maho. Instead of taking a taxi to the pier, we walked to town and caught the local bus. St. Maarten bus service is pretty fabulous. Busses are actually vans. We just looked for one that said Maho, waved them down and hopped in. There are preset stops with shelters, but the bus will stop anywhere, just like hailing a cab. And the ½ hour or so ride only cost us $2 a person.

Maho is a tourist attraction because it is located right next to St. Maarten’s airport, and the planes come in for landings right over the beach. We rented a couple chairs and an umbrella and spent a couple hours watching the landings. Even more entertaining was when a plane started at the very back of the runway and fired up its engine for takeoff. The jet blast is so strong you have to hang on to the fence if you are in its range, and the force will fly you like a flag. We did not do this, but laughed as people, without thinking, got themselves out of range, but left their stuff in the blast path. At least a half dozen people ended up having to swim out about 30 feet or more to collect their belongings that had ended up in the water. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits, and to my knowledge everyone got everything back, so all ended well yet again. [I think we captured some nice pictures from this.  We didn’t really go into the water here as the swells were a bit large for G3.  And I was recuperating from the day before.]

After the last of the large planes arrived, (more weren’t due for at least an hour) we walked back up to where we had gotten off the bus and waited. It wasn’t more than a few minutes when a bus arrived. Flagged it down, hopped in, and headed back towards town. We wanted to stop at Carousel on our way, and we knew there was a dedicated stop a couple minutes walk from the place, so when we saw it T1 told the driver, ‘next stop, please.’ But he didn’t stop at the next stop. He stopped right there. Directly in front of the place. It was great! Being a weekday and still early enough that school was still in session, Carousel was deserted. What is Carousel? It’s a gelato place with, well, a carousel behind it. We all shared two generous scoops of gelato, and then went back to the counter and told them we would like G3 to have a ride. Still no one else in the place, but they fired it up and he got a private ride. He wasn’t sure what to think about it, actually looked quite fearful, but it was quite cute. After the ride, it was back out to the street to flag down the next bus. One came along very shortly and soon enough we were back on the ship.

Our next port was St. Kitts.  We had been there previously and had done a really comprehensive island tour, so this time we decided to visit neighboring island Nevis. Research indicated that, much like visiting St. John from St. Thomas, it was easier and less expensive to actually book through the cruise line. (This rarely happens.) The transfer took about 45 minutes. G3 was very well behaved. We then boarded a bus for a tour of the island. There was a stop at Nevis’ hot springs, which lived up to their name. Definitely hotter than our hot tub, and actually painful to T1’s sunburned ankles. After the tour we were taken to Lime Beach Bar for lunch. (Lime means ‘relax’ on Nevis and some other Caribbean islands.) The barbecue chicken and rice that was served was quite good. We then had a couple hours at the beach. Chairs were included with our package, and we rented an umbrella that ended up serving a dual purpose, sun and rain protection. Both occurred, often at the same time, during our stay. G3 does not like the rain. When our time was up, the boat that had dropped us off on the other side of the island earlier in the day pulled right up on the beach to collect us and take us back to the ship.

An adorable moment occurred at dinner that evening. We placed our orders and handed the menus back to the waiter. G3 had a paper kids menu, and, having observed his parents behavior, attempted to hand his menu in too as soon as G2 had ordered for him. With a huge smile on his face. It was absolutely precious.

On to Dominica, the highlight port of the trip. We had booked the ‘Roseau Valley Treasures’ tour through Bumpiing Tours, and were lucky enough to have the owner, Levi, as our guide. There were three major stops on the tour, all water related, and G3 was an absolute champ, stunning everyone with his easygoing attitude and sense of adventure. The first stop was snorkeling at Champagne Reef. It really wasn’t as bubbly as advertised, but there were a lot of cool fish to see. Second was Titou Gorge. A scene from Pirates of the Caribbean 2 was filmed there. It’s really neat swim in relatively cold water. (Levi said he had never had anyone even remotely close to as young as G3 do the swim, and he’s been doing this particular tour for nine years.)  Our final stop was at Trafalger Falls, a lovely double waterfall view, and then a hike down from the falls to Dominica’s hot springs. Not as hot as Nevis, and not as smelly either since Nevis’s is sulfur based and Dominica is iron based. A nice relaxing soak was had by all. All too soon we were headed back to the ship. Dominica is a truly beautiful island, ranking right up near the top of T1’s list of favorite Caribbean locales.   [G3 didn’t care so much for Titou Gorge.  The hot springs were another story.  He lounged like a pro.]

Our final port was Barbados. Like St. Kitts, we had been there before and done an island tour, so this time we decided to stay on the water and spend the day snorkeling. T1 researched many catamaran companies, but ultimately decided to go with the ship’s vendor, Tiami, since they were well reviewed and had a larger boat. On our own we probably would have gone with one of the smaller ‘luxury’ cats, but not knowing how well G3 would do, we figured a larger party type boat would be better…if he started screaming hopefully he would be less noticeable. Turns out it all would have been fine, (we really should have more faith in our child) as he was exceptional yet again. A short bus transfer brought us to the catamaran dock, where we boarded and immediately were offered beverages (T1 was very excited that pineapple juice was an option!) and banana bread. Yummy! Our first snorkeling stop was supposed to be with turtles. T1 was spoiled after our stingray snorkel some years ago when they were absolutely everywhere, so she always assumes snorkeling with turtles means they will be all around us. Well, this was attempt #4 to do a turtle snorkel…and it was just about as wildly unsuccessful as the previous attempts. We both saw two turtles (perhaps just the same one twice). And unfortunately there wasn’t really anything else to see at this stop. G3 doesn’t like his life vest as much as his floatie, so when wearing it he clings to whoever is holding him and seems a bit scared, so T1 took him back to the boat a little early while G2 continued his unsuccessful hunt for more turtles. Everyone on the boat was again very surprised how well the little guy did. Before the next stop, we had a delightful buffet lunch. Chicken and fish with a variety of salads and sides. And lemon cake, chocolate cake, and red velvet cake for dessert! En route to snorkeling stop #2 we supposedly passed a ton of ultra expensive houses, but we couldn’t see them from where we had chosen to sit. One of them ran $30,000 per week to rent.  (T1 can’t wrap her head around the idea of having that kind of money to throw around.) The snorkeling at the next spot had a lot more to see, and there was plenty of room to spread out, so G3 got to use his floatie. Given a choice, I don’t think he or G2 would have ever gotten out of the water. T1 had long returned to the boat to catch some sun, but the two of them stayed in until the last moment. Once the snorkeling was complete, the bar opened and the music was cranked up for our return to the dock. The number of people aged 60+ who knew all the words to Shaggy’s ‘It Wasn’t Me’ and danced to it was actually kind of frightening.

Our last day was a sea day. We had grand plans to have both breakfast and lunch in the main dining room, but for the first time ever in our storied cruising history, they decided to just offer buffet brunch instead. This did not thrill T1. Who wants ribs at 9am? And who wants to eat at a buffet when you are expecting a nice sit down meal? (Nothing against buffets, T1 loves them, but this was just not the experience she had hoped for.) Displeasure was expressed on the comment card. Hopefully this was just a trial idea and will not become commonplace.  [Brunch was a disappointment to me.  There were no breakfast staples like pancakes, waffles, or French toast.  I would have settled for one of the three, but alas, I had to make due with a couple of sausage links and get a more substantial breakfast at the Windjammer.]

The highlight of our day at sea was unplanned. After returning back to the ship from Barbados, we entered our stateroom to find something T1 had dreamed off since she first set foot on a cruise ship almost 11 years ago. AN INVITATION TO TAKE A TOUR OF THE GALLEY! Thought we would need a ton more loyalty points before earning one of them, but no, there it was. SO EXCITING!! So after brunch, we assembled with the other lucky invite recipients and were ushered into one of the many galleys. And we were immediately handed mimosas. The tour itself was only about fifteen minutes, but it was fabulous. They demoed the roll making machine and it was fascinating. Getting to see everything was so neat!

The cruise actually ended on a bit of a sour note, as we were departing the dining room after our dinner, some crazy B&*#h decided to get in our faces a bit and tell us that our child had no right to be in the dining room. Bear in mind this woman sat nowhere near us, so there is absolutely no way she even knew he was there until she saw us walking out. It took everything in T1’s power not to punch her. We hope she and the idiot from night #1 both have karma bite them in the ass big time someday. Jerks.

The next day we headed off the ship and while waiting in line to clear customs it just so happened that the people right behind us in line were the folks in the only cabin we shared a wall with. If anyone would have been justified in making negative comments about G3, it would have been these people. He did not sleep well, and if he disturbed them they would have had every right to give us a hard time about it. And we would have apologized profusely. In fact, T1 started apologizing as soon as she found out who they were. However, they claim they didn’t hear him at all. We are not sure how this is possible, because he got pretty loud some nights. Perhaps they were just being nice, or maybe the walls really are just that thick. Either way it was a relief.

We had an afternoon flight, so T1’s plan was to locate a company named San Juan Happy Tours, who take people back to Old San Juan and do a quick tour and then hold all luggage so you can have free time to walk around town without having to drag your suitcases with you. And then they take you to the airport, all for less than two cab rides would have cost. Locating them turned out to be ridiculously simple, one of the drivers was literally the first person T1 saw, before she could even tell G2 who to look for. It was well worth the price. We were able to get one last Mallorca and one last mofongo in Old San Juan before having to go to the airport.

The flight home was less than great. If not for a wonderful flight attendant named Jodi, we’re not sure we would have made it through without someone nearby killing us. We wanted to kill us. G3 does not like airplanes one bit. There was an eight month old a few rows ahead of us that was much more well behaved. At least there was no vomit. We really wish we could sedate him to keep him calmer. Sigh. He’ll get used to it eventually, right?

Overall the Europe trip was still the easiest, but mainly because of the flying and the sleeping at night. G3 still does remarkably well on tours. A snack usually calms almost all bouts of fussiness, which is a relief. Less than four months until the next one! J