CruiseInd 2.0 » Norovirus

eeeek!..Crown Princess cuts cruise short due to Norovirus.

Greg — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 02:48:00 +0000

Princess cruises has announced that the Crown Princess will return to port early due to an outbreak of norovirus. The ‘cruise ship bug’ has already struck 114 passengers and 59 crew members. The 113,000 grt ship will arrive back in Port Everglades on Thursday, 2 days early. She will stay docked for 2 days while crew thoroughly sanitize the entire ship.

On her last cruise 364 passengers and 30 crew got sick.

photo: wikimedia

Almost 100 Sick as Ship Sails into Seattle

Greg — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 15:34:25 +0000

UPDATE 11:46: So it turns out that when I go to find a quote from Princess, their news site is down!

96 passengers became ill with the norovirus on Princess Cruises, Sapphire Princess. She was on the return leg of a 7-Night Inland Passage cruise in Alaska. Port officials decided to dock the ship at Pier 91 in Seattle as it offers easier access to the ship to commence extreme cleaning operations. The passengers disembarked and the vessel went into sanitation mode before starting the embarking process.

She set sail yesterday with 2,000 passengers onboard for another Inside Passage cruise to Alaska.

King5 in Seattle has some quotes from Passengers and officials:

Kym Boisvert, passenger in cabin across from an infected cabin:

You go on vacation, you pay quite a lot of money for this. It’d be nice if they gave you the courtesy, or at least get the sick people off. We didn’t mingle with anyone on the boat because we didn’t want to get sick, so we pretty much stayed to our room.

Cindy Hedum, Passenger:

All the time people were wearing latex gloves. They were being very careful and they made you sanitize your hands before you went into the food area and you weren’t allowed to touch any of the food utensils.

Joyce Jordan, a not so worried passenger:

I took all the precautions, I washed my hands a lot.

Rodney Liverman, longshoreman, props to King5 for getting a quote from them. We usually don’t hear from them:

We’re wearing gloves, latex gloves. You just take precautions. We’re handling money, touching luggage, dealing with people.

Robert Bowen, another Longshoreman:

If people are really, really concerned, they have the masks.

P.S. How weird is this. Right as I go to post this, the story is mentioned on CNN!

Norovirus on Indy

Greg — Fri, 28 May 2010 17:00:13 +0000

UPDATE SATURDAY: According to two comments below, the ship was not evacuated in Cadiz. Here is where I got the false information:
Round Town News

Thanks to Rosie and fudge for keeping us informed

UPDATE: This gets weird, according to British news, the ship was evacuated. This doesn’t mean a) lifeboats were used as she was docked in Spain or b) there was any breach of the integrity of the ship. It was only a precaution that the Captain took. The belief was that the best way to prevent spreading was to get everyone off, then send in cleaning crews. Only time will tell if this strategy works.

BTW, passengers are now back on and we’ll see if it worked.

Norovirus has struck onboard the Independence of the Seas. The Royal Caribbean vessel was originally thought to have 25 cases, but that has now risen to 134 passengers. The ship is sailing with over 3,800 guests on a 14-night voyage roundtrip from Southampton, England. The ship was in Cadiz, Spain.

via Cruisejunkie’s Events at Sea

source Dagbladet.no

Marco Polo’s Line Goes Bankrupt

Greg — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:56:58 +0000

You may remember the saga of the Marco Polo and norovirus. Well today, the Bremen, Germany based line, according to this Google translation, will go through a “restructuring.” This is also known in the U.S. as Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The Marco Polo’s Latest

Greg — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:07:13 +0000

As the vessel remains docked in Invergordon, Scotland, an autopsy of the one dead, revealed that he passed away from heart and lung problems that possibly lead to a heart attack. Three people are also at a hospital in Scotland suffering from the virus. The BBC reports that the vessels crew did a very poor job in handling the situation. Local officials claim that the passengers were allowed off the ship, some infected with the norovirus. This lead to panic and passengers claiming to be vomiting in the streets. There apparently were no protocols in place on the ship to handle ill passengers that reached almost 50%. This situation will be interesting to follow to see if any changes are made to the town, public officials, and the line/ship.

The Marco Polo docked in Scotland Yesterday.

One Dead after Norovirus Strikes Ship

Greg — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:31:11 +0000

Both the Telegraph and the BBC are reporting the death of a cruiser from the norovirus. The elderly man boarded Transocean Cruises Marco Polo for a cruise around the British Isles and Ireland. The man is thought to have had additional medical problems, as norovirus is not a serious medical condition.
The vessel is called at Invergordon today where the story broke. According to the BBC report, passengers were allowed off the ship, and able to freely roam the town, possibly still carrying the bug. Other reports say the ship was boarded by health officials and passengers were tested.
This is the first death of a passenger(If I’m wrong please comment or tweet me) from norovirus on a cruise ship. I’ll update with additional info if something comes up.
The Marco Polo made news in May when she had a near miss with a cliff in Norway.