Allergic reaction on ship?

[ohMom]

I was also on the WBPC this last spring (hi Linda!) and though I did not have an allergic reaction onboard, I had have a different medical condition and went into adrenal crisis (a life-threatening situation) very early in the morning on disembarkation morning due to contracting a GI virus. Anyhow, to give you an answer to my experience, I also travel well supplied and prepared, and recognized when it was going to be a visit to medical. My husband called guest services to ask how to get a wheelchair for me, and GS informed him that medical was not open yet. He explained the immediate need, and GS called the doc who opened up medical for me immediately. I keep with me at all times a crisis letter from my endocrinologist which details protocol for treatment, and the doc read the letter and followed his instrctuions. Adrenal crisis is a less common occurrence and very scary, and the staff did a great job of treating me promptly and monitoring me after giving me IV solu-Cortef (hydrocortisone) and fluids. They also were very good at listening to what my husband told them, which is not always the case unfortunately in some ERs.

My only complaint is that they put me in the general room initially instead of the ER setup room, and somehow
I managed to lean on my husband and shuffle/walk to the ER room to get an IV started. At the time it seemed like it took them long to asses and get an IV in me, but my husband said it was really about 15 minutes, which in all honestly for an unfamiliar situation is still acceptable to me.

Key for me —having someone in your travel party who can appropriately advocate and communicate for you when you are not able too. Do you wear a medical bracelet?

 

[bbel]

Did anyone have epi-pen requiring kids on the cruise and can tell me the procedure for that in regards to the kids club? Also, our travel agent noted the allergy with DCL, but I called DCL and they couldn’t tell me which form to fill out. I plan to bring a copy of our allergist’s treatment plan on board.
Any insight is appreciated.

For the kids club it's best to tell them all the info directly. Especially if going through a travel agent. If they pre-register your kids they sometimes put the basic notes on the system.

Whether you pre register or not, you have to complete the registration in the terminal/onboard. Then they should go over all the information with you and you can add more if needed and they can talk to you about what activities happen.
If it's complicated, I always suggest registering on the ship, in the terminal 99% of the time they're not the CM from the ship. On the ship, they're the ones working with your kids and actually do the activities and work in the venues so will ask the right questions.

Without knowing what the allergy is I can't really help you as for activities. Any food in the clubs are nut/shellfish free but with everything they can't guarantee traces ect.

If you want to check in an epi pen you have to fill out another form and it will get checked in and out with the child every time.
Any epipen has to be in date, sounds obvious I know, but you won't believe how many out of date epi pens I came across.

All CMs in the kids club are epipen trained in their first week and then every time they start a new contract as well as refreshers during their contract (much more than I was ever trained on land working in similar roles)

I'll just put it out there that I now work for a different company so this info could have changed.
But also, even though I prefer this company so much more in most ways, Disney are far superior when it comes to allergies/cleanliness/kids safety, even moreso than any kid care I've ever seen on land.