Ann Taylor Midi Dress (Size Medium), Gray Anti-Nausea Wristlets
Do you ever get seasick while on a boat? I have been very seasick on a largish sailboat in the past. I never wanted to get on a boat after that.
BUT I DID!! I got right on a big boat (ship), Royal Caribbean Cruise Line’s Adventure of the Seas, and went sailing and was not seasick one day.
I told the travel agent we were using at the time about my fears of becoming seasick while on the trip, recounting to him my terrible trip on a sailboat on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and throwing up a lot before I got the dry heaves and spent the remainder of the three-hour trip dry heaving while everyone else was having fun feeling the air blow through their hair, the water spritzing up on their faces, and the hot sun shining down on them.
The hot sun just made me sweat more, but I was afraid to go below for fear I would throw up even worse down there, or the dry heaves would heave up some important internal organ from my body.
I’ve made great strides since then.
Our travel agent then (we are now our own travel agent) told me a few simple tricks:
Make sure your stateroom is midship – not towards the front of the ship or towards the back of the ship. At the front of the ship, you hear the anchor banging and feel much movement of the ship. The back of the ship might sway like a sexy woman’s hip in rough seas. Sway, sway, sway.
Always pack anti-nausea medications, just in case
Wear anti-nausea wristlets (acupuncture pressed points on the wrists).
We did as he recommended. Midship, packed anti-nausea meds, just in case, and wore the wristlets.
I was not seasick one time and have never been seasick after more than 35 cruises with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines.
Have we been in rough seas? Yes, a number of times. The captains avoid bad weather as much as possible, but it’s out there, and sometimes it’s too big to avoid.
We were once in Bermuda. A large hurricane was coming toward the islands. Our ship left port a day early from Bermuda, taking a course almost straight across to South Carolina to keep us out of the roughest seas.
All cruise ships will divert to avoid bad weather. The cruise industry wants to protect the people onboard and also protect their very expensive cruise ships.
You do run into rough sea times at times, though. It can’t be avoided.
When that happens, barf bags are placed all over the ship. They are placed on the end of the stair railings, left on tables at eateries in the Promenade, and every location on the ship where a passenger can see them and use them. They are very visible and everyone knows what they are.
We’ve been tossed about some, staggered down the hallway occasionally, but never had anything fly around our room or topple off a tabletop. We’ve heard loud thunder and saw the flashes of lightening outside, and were moved around a little in our bed, but that was all. We’ve been lucky.
We have never got seasick, never even felt queasy.
Here’s why:
We always select our own stateroom where there is little movement felt. We look on Google for a diagram of the ship we are going on. Midship rooms can be easily found — between the elevators.
We choose our room exactly in the spot where we want to be and on which deck. We pay more, but doing so ensures that we have the kind of cruise adventure we planned for.
I wear acupuncture wristlets (see in above photo). My husband does not. I don’t know if the wristlets are working on my pressure points or on my psyche after all this time — I think I’m not going to be seasick because of the wristlets, so I am not sick. Like a placebo, possibly. I will continue to wear them because I believe in them. They work for me. Or my psyche lets them work for me.
Royal Caribbean has a program called the GTY Stateroom System. This means your are guaranteed a stateroom (interior stateroom, ocean view stateroom, balcony stateroom or a suite. Suites cost more money and are quite luxurious).
But, and here’s the big BUT, you do not get to choose your room number or the location on the ship under the GTY system. You could end up right atop that noisy anchor or bar or be swaying like sexy hips in the rear.
We never ever get a GTY room.
This is how the GTY system works:
You choose a category of stateroom – Interior, Ocean View, Balcony, or Suite Deluxe.
Royal Caribbean then assigns you your room. You will not know your room number or location (deck) until the day you check in at the port.
Surprise, surprise.
You get what you pay for.
If you go with the GTY rooms, the price is lower. Many cruisers opt for the GTY rooms for that reason.
With the GTY rooms, you might get a luxurious room or you might not.
You take that gamble on a GTY room. We don’t take that gamble.
Having a sense of security is having control of a situation. If we went the GTY route for our cruises, hubby would be going alone.
With the GTY rooms you lose control of your cruise, to me, lose control of your personal sanity. Not everyone feels the same.
I know there are staterooms right above noisy areas. I know there are staterooms with partial views. I know to never ever have a stateroom that has a balcony over the promenade. Noise, noise, noise!
If you are traveling as a family, will be using multiple rooms and want to stay near one another, the GTY option might not be for you. You could end up at different ends of the ship.
What causes seasickness is your vestibular system, within your inner ear, is affected. The vestibular system affects your vision, the proprioceptors in your joints and muscles together, which tells your brain your body’s position and any movement relative to a stable environment.
When you’re on a cruise ship, these receptors become confused. Your inner ear feels the rolling and pitching of the cruise ship. With that inner ear confusion, you feel seasickness.
You eventually get your sea legs because your brain slowly learns to integrate that off-balance sensation. Your brain then re-sets your balance system to that shifting feeling of a cruise ship. You unconsciously adjust your posture and gait to match that of the cruise ship.
Here is a list of over-the-counter medications for seasickness that you might want to take with you:
Dramamine (This would make me sleepy. I don’t want to sleep through a cruise.)
Meclizine (We always pack this to be on the safe side. Just in case. I don’t want the dry heave business to ever raise its ugly head again. It doesn’t make you as sleepy as the Dramamine.)
Benadryl (This will definitely put you to sleep.)
Ginger Chews
Prescriptions from your doctor for seasickness:
Transderm Scop or Scopolamine. It’s that patch you see behind someone’s ear. (It does not cause much drowsiness, from what I’ve been told.)
Promethazine. (This causes a lot of drowsiness.)
When taking any type of anti-nausea medication that you purchase over the counter, you need to check with your doctor or pharmacist before taking. If you have an underlying medical condition, even over-the-counter meds could cause a serious reaction. As well, there could be drug interaction with any prescribed meds you are taking. Your doctor or pharmacist can advise you.
You really want to avoid alcohol when taking any kind of anti-nausea medication. Alcohol and medications do not mix.
We’ve all been to the ballet at one time or another in our lives. You see the performers twirl around and around and around until they become a blur to someone watching them.
Ballet dancers do not get dizzy or sick. That’s because they’ve been trained to focus on an object, a point in the room where their eye returns to over and over. Once around, you see the object. Whizzing around more and more, you keep seeking the object in your vision that you’ve focused on. This process helps the brain reconcile conflicting signals.
This small technique used by ballet dancers can help you. Focus on an object when the ground beneath you feels like it’s tilting. Focus on that object, and the feeling of your equilibrium being off will probably go away.
Don’t overeat. Eat light meals, non-greasy meals.
If you ever become seasick to the point where you are upchucking continuously, use that phone in your room and call for medical assistance. You will be checked for dehydration and be give medication to calm your body.
Always seek medical help from the medical staff on the ship for any prolonged illness.
When you get off the ship at a port, walk around, take in the views of a new land. Get your land legs back.
Land legs means you’ve adjusted your sense of balance and motion to ground that isn’t moving.
You feel unsteady and uneven on stationary ground at that time, because after having been at sea for an extended period of time you sometimes continue to feel the sensation of rocking or swaying even though you are back on land.
Land legs is usually temporary. Your body slowly adjusts to the lack of motion of a cruise ship.
Some call this land sickness or sea legs on land. It usually lasts a few minutes or up to a couple of days.
We’ve wobbled in the parking lot of the supermarket after a very long cruise. We still had sea legs. Because on a ship, you learn to move with it.
When you get on land, your legs and feet still think that what you are walking on something that might have a little movement. Land does not give movement unless during an earthquake. By the time we’ve reached the entrance of the supermarket, our land legs have returned. We look at each other and smile.
In rare cases, land sickness can continue for weeks, months or years. There’s a medial term for it: Mal de Debarquement Syndrome. That is a French term that means sickness of disembarkation.
MDB Syndrome is a neurological condition. Seek medical help from your doctor if this is an ongoing problem for you.
There are cruisers who have spent many many years on a cruise ship. You read about them, and they do have this French-named condition on a permanent basis. But living at sea is more important to them than suffering from land sickness.
Practice makes perfect. The more cruises you take, the more easily your body adapts to the movements of the ship. The day will come when you get onboard and don’t even notice any movement. That’s where we are now. In fact, we have never experienced seasickness while cruising. We are very fortunate. (But I still wear my wristlets!!)
The good thing about sea legs is that you are unconsciously using muscles to move with the ship when walking anywhere. Those little movements of the muscles strengthens those muscles, uses energy, burns calories. So having sea legs is A-OK.
Wear your wristlets, take your meds, do whatever works for you to prevent any discomfort in your tummy when cruising.
The above is a photo of my wristlets. They were purchased on Amazon, but you can find them behind the counter of the liquor store on a Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines ship.
You can tell from the photo above that I’ve used the blue ones so much that they stretched out. I’ve switched to the gray ones now. Psyche or actual effectiveness, I don’t know, but they work for me.
You will find that seasickness is very uncommon on a large cruise ship, and there are so many ways to prevent it ever happening.
Safe travels!! Have fun!!! We only have one life so enjoy it to the fullest!!
Always be kind!! Kindness is spreadable — spread it!!!!
And don’t forget the forgotten, neglected pets out there that need our help through your local SPCA. A can of dog food or cat food or bag of kitty litter helps them so much!!