Our friends made it back from the flaming cruise this morning. They were able to do everything as planned. The only complaint was that the smell in the entire ship was terrible and never went away until they got off the damn thing this morning.
The news reports I've seen really did some damage control for the cruise industry. There were plumes of flames shooting out of the stacks on the ship at least 30 ft into the air. I showed our friends the newspaper article when they dropped off my truck this morning and they were laughing at how the extent of the fire was minimized.
Despite the smell, they had a great rest of their cruise and I was happy to hear it. I guess we're all getting some kind of partial refund check due to the whole deal. I will say that the Royal Caribbean staff was top notch in every way... their medical staff did a wonderful job for me.
Meanwhile... I found out yesterday that I will be having surgery on 2 herniated disks on Aug 6th. Apparently it is the exact same procedure that Peyton Manning had this last time. My pain is under control with some meds in the meantime. I'm still kinda in shock about it.