I guess I'm both an optimist and a fatalist. When I heard about all the passengers getting ill from the Norwalk virus on the cruises, I thought that by the time we were ready to sail the virus would have moved on. I try not to let all that's going on stop me from travelling and my general philosophy is if something bad is destined to happen to me, it can just as easily occur in my own back yard and there's nothing I'd be able to do about it.

As a matter of fact, many of the hospitals and schools in Toronto were hit by the Norwalk virus in January and several emergency units in the hospitals closed down. My husband also came down with it and was violently sick for 24 hours and we hadn't travelled anywhere for months. Fortunately he didn't pass it on to me, although several of our friends got sick as well.

I haven't heard of any people getting ill on cruise ships this month, so I assume that all the scrubbing and cleaning did the trick, at least let's hope so. As for the 10 day cruise that only cost $249 US, I'd definitely be suspicious about that. I found that when we checked out the price of cruises on-line, the really low prices were being offered during hurricane season and the prices went up considerably in February. We ended up booking with a cruise specialist in Toronto and the price was very close to what was being offered on line for the time we wanted to go.

We leave for Florida on Wednesday and begin our cruise this coming Friday, so I can let you know how it went when we return.

Etta Toronto