By checking the Center for Disease Control's Green Sheet and taking a few precautions, you'll be able to choose a healthy ship and enjoy your cruise.

Cruises are an ideal way to vacation and get the feel for a large geographic region. Plus you don't have to pack and unpack. Most cruises also include the cost of air travel to get you to the boat and back.

Your meals are included on a cruise while on board. Beer, wine and liquor are extra and tipping is expected when buying drinks. At dinner, you don't have to tip. However at the end of the cruise you are expected to tip a large number of people like cabin boys, stewards, and waiters.

You can literally eat 20 hours a day and as much as you want. We don't recommend that you do though. There is a good selection of food so it's possible to watch your diet. We think that if you can get past the deserts or possibly share them, you'll be just fine. If you can't, there are fine exercise facilities aboard and a long deck to work off those extra calories.

We have cruised the lower Caribbean out of San Juan, Puerto Rico. We saw seven islands in 16 days - Aruba, Grenada, Barbados, Martinique, St. Lucia, St. Martin-San Marten, and the Virgin Islands. We even visited Caracas, Venezuela. Our favorites were Barbados and St. Martin (French side).

How Clean is your Ship?
Those frequent newspaper reports of sick ships and passengers are nothing to ignore. Keep in mind that your ship is a floating city. The newer ships are much larger and the trend is for even larger ships. For example, Jewel of the Seas is part of Royal Caribbean's Radiance-Class. Completed in Spring 2004, she is one of Royal Caribbean's newest ships. She can carry about 3,343 people which includes 2,501 passengers and 842 crew.

Why do people get sick?
There are many reasons that people get sick on cruise ships. These include:

• Large numbers of people in a confined space are an ideal population for germs. In fact the situation is so good that you'd think that the germs were on vacation. Still can't picture it, think of being in New York's Time Square on New Year's Eve for a week,
• Lots of elderly passengers (like us) escaping winter- some will have colds and some will be stupid enough to go on a cruise even when they're sneezing, coughing, blowing their noses, etc. Yuk! Why because they don't want to forfeit their money or did not take out Travel Insurance,
• Poor (or nonexistent) health screening of crew members that come from all over the world. Cruise ship hire people from all over the world. They handle your food, wash the dishes, and shake your hands, and
• Inadequate kitchen supervision compounded by a high turnover among the kitchen staff.

Ten ways to protect yourself and others?
Here are a number of steps to help you stay healthy on a cruise:

1. Choose a healthy boat. Before you book your cruise, consult the top 100 cleanest cruise ships on the Green Sheet courtesy of the Center for Disease Control to see how it was rated by U.S. health inspectors.
2. Wash your hands before and after eating, smoking, touching your face, and after going to the bathroom. Download these handy how to wash your hands instructions [PDF] courtesy of the US Center for Disease Control,
3. Avoid holding the rail of the escalator is you can, it's full of germs,
4. Try not to shake hands with people. Eighty percent of all infectious diseases are transmitted by contact both direct and indirect -- direct such as kissing, indirect such as shaking someone's hand," says Philip M. Tierno Jr., PhD, director of clinical microbiology and immunology at New York University Medical Center. Instead, pretend that you are from the Orient or related to Donald Trump and bow,
5. Take along an instant hand sanitizer and use it. Also take along a can of Lysol disinfectant and disinfect your bathroom and shower area and your cabin. Why? Because the cruise line hardly has time to clean the cabins. Ships come into port in the morning or early afternoon and discharge their passengers. Then they begin accepting the next round of passengers in the late afternoon and set sail that evening.
6. If some one near you is sick (vomiting, diarrhea) leave the area and report this to the crew-- that goes for the people at your table to,
7. Don't overeat and if something doesn't agree with you, go see the ship's doctor,
8. Drink water and liquids only from bottles and cans,
9. Bring sun screen and protect yourself, and
10. While on shore be very careful of what you eat or drink- do not eat or drink beverages from street vendors,

Before you go, take out Travel Insurance. If you come down with a cold or get sick right before your cruise starts, consider not going. Be considerate of other people’s health. Call the cruise line to determine if you can postpone your cruise. Your travel agent should have offered you cruise insurance for just this purpose.