As a followup I thought I would recap what our final plan is.

I was on the phone with my Dad and dropped some hints about desalinators and his boat and he was less than enthusiastic about them. I was going to get the desalinator and gift it to him after the cruise for his birthday but now I'm going to skip the desalinator. When we get onboard we'll just squirrel away some water bottles from the ship in our room. We have no baggage limit so I might throw in a case of water with my luggage - not sure about that yet though.

Of all the items listed in our gear list, the only items we have to buy are the biodegradable toilet bags, the smoke hoods, the tubes of zinc oxide, and the Vick's Vapo Rub. I also ordered two Scottevest Pack Windbreakers yesterday. We already have everything else in the list so this entire affair has turned out to be fairly cheap in our case - a little over $300 worth of additional gear for two people and that cost is mainly for the jackets and smoke hoods.

So our final list of gear has now been set at:

(Note most items will be x2 - one for me and one for my girlfried. For expensive items like the sat phone we'll only carry one between us and share.)

containers - Two Scottevest Pack Windbreakers, Two 18"x10" barrel duffel bags, Two hidden money belt/travel wallets
sanitation - biodegradable toilet bags, wet wipes, hand sanitizer, rubbing alcohol, nitrile gloves
health - first aid kit, common meds, zinc oxide, sunscreen, small amount of toiletries (in case we are dumped on an island without luggage), Vick's for under the nose smell prevention if the toilets backup
smoke - Safe Escape ASE60 60 minute smoke evac hood - one for each person
signaling/comms - sat phone, extra minutes, roll-up solar panel, power cords, PLB, mirror, whistle, strobe, two GMRS radios for talking around the ship, charger base, Radio Shack scanner (to monitor ship's crew comms), am/fm radio, cell phone, list of ship's frequencies
water - 32oz stainless water bottle, 32oz nalgene water bottle, collapsible bucket, 100' paracord, Aquamira water filter, chlorine dioxide tablets
clothing - Merino wool long johns tops and bottoms, lightweight shoes, hat with strap, mylar blanket
lighting - waterproof headlamp and small waterproof flashlight, extra batteries
food - Datrex 2400 calorie bars 4 bars per person, snacks, nuts, candy, drink mixes
money - several 1/10oz gold coins, $800 emergency cash, extra credit cards, money belt/travel wallet
papers - passport, list of phone numbers, travel insurance docs, map of islands
miscellaneous - lighter, boat matches, duct tape, ziplock bags, deck of cards, pipe tobacco, SAK with can opener, multi-tool, notebook, pen
fishing - hobo hand fishing rig with 1,000ft of line and a few hooks and lures. Might as well go fishing if the ship goes adrift with no power


Thanks everybody, and I hope this thread can serve as a good starting point for other cruise ship passengers.