Having her temperature taken several times a day for a few weeks wasn’t as annoying as it sounds for cruise passenger Beth Mohseni.

“It broke the silence,” the 86-year-old Colorado Springs resident said.

The practice became a welcome interruption to the monotony of being quarantined after she and other passengers were exposed to COVID-19 on the Grand Princess cruise ship. At least 103 passengers have tested positive for the fast-spreading virus and two men in their 60s who were on the trip have died.

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Earlier this month, Mohseni was confined for a week in a cabin on the ship and spent another week in isolation at a Marine Corps air station near San Diego.

“We definitely didn’t expect this,” said Mohseni, a retired travel agent who’s just finished another week of quarantine at her home.

She and her sister, Belva Lou, 78, who lives in Indiana, enjoyed a seemingly “perfect” cruise that departed on Feb. 21 from San Francisco bound for Hawaii.

“I wanted to get out of the cold Colorado weather,” Mohseni said. “It couldn’t have been better.”

The sisters spent their time sightseeing on four islands and relaxed on the boat, she said. But a couple of days before the ship was to return to San Francisco, the captain announced an unwelcome guest on board — the novel coronavirus.

A hovering helicopter lowered COVID-19 test kits to the deck and retrieved the kits the next day for lab testing, Mohseni said. She and her sister did not have fevers, so they were not tested at that time.

Before she left Colorado Springs in February, Mohseni heard about the virus that had broken out in China and briefly wondered if they should cancel the trip.

“I thought, well, we’ll be in the Unites States, so we shouldn’t have any worries,” she said.

When the ship docked in Oakland on March 12, more than 40 of the 3,5000 passengers and crew were removed first and taken to a hospital. The remaining guests who did not have any virus symptoms, including Mohseni and her sister, were sent to one of four military installations around the country to be quarantined.

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Mohseni and her sister learned they were going to be separated, and when they told their adult children via text and phone calls, their families enlisted help. Mohseni’s son called U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn’s office, and her sister’s son appealed to a Congressman from Indiana.

“Our Congressmen called the Centers for Disease Control, which was directing everything on the ship, and told them we needed to be together,” Mohseni said.

The request was granted. From the ship, the sisters took a bus to a military plane, which flew them and other passengers to Miramar Marine Corps Air Station north of San Diego.

En route, “Everybody was real quiet,” Mohseni said. “Nobody was talking or smiling, not knowing what to expect.”

At a base hotel, the sisters received daily updates, were assigned a case manager and offered mental health care if desire, and had food left at their door, she said. They were required to wear masks whenever they opened their door, including to retrieve food.

“We were just waiting, wondering,’ Mohseni said.

A tense week after Mohseni and her sister were tested for the virus, the results came back negative, she said. A private plane chartered by the military transported Mohensi and 12 other passengers from Colorado back home on March 20.

She was ordered to stay in quarantine at her house for another week, and now, “I still just want to stay at home,” Mohseni said. “I have no desire to go anywhere.”

A well-rounded traveler, Mohseni said the cruise was the strangest voyage she’s ever been on. While there were times of great frustration, she says she also has good memories.

Passengers were refunded the costs of the cruise, Mohensi said. While some have complained about how the cruise line handled the incident, Mohensi said she thought “They did everything they could.”

“It wasn’t their fault the virus happened,” she said.

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