When Cruise Insurance Actually Saved Us: A Real Story from Scarlet Lady

I'm not going to lie – when we booked our seven-day cruise on Virgin Voyages' Scarlet Lady last October, I almost skipped the travel insurance. My husband Mark and I have cruised before, we're relatively healthy, and I figured we were the type of people who'd never actually use it. You know, those people. The ones who buy insurance and waste money. I was pretty confident we'd be fine. Then, two days before we were supposed to sail out of Miami, Mark woke up with a 103-degree fever. I remember standing in our kitchen that Tuesday morning, watching him shuffle back to bed, and just feeling this sinking sensation in my stomach. We had paid good money for this cruise – it was supposed to be our big trip to celebrate ten years of marriage. We'd booked it months in advance, gotten time off work, arranged for his mom to watch our dog. And now Mark could barely get out of bed without getting dizzy. Our family doctor got us in that afternoon, and after some tests and poking around, she delivered the verdict: a pretty nasty case of the flu, complicated by a respiratory infection. She said absolutely no flying, no traveling, nothing for at least five to seven days. Maybe longer. She handed u…