Just seen this on FO Site BOUDICCA CRUISE D1006

[amberline]

Due to operational reasons, Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines can confirm that on the current cruise of its ship, Boudicca, the decision has been taken to shorten the cruise by two days.

 

Fred. Olsen has now re-arranged the itinerary to ensure passengers are given an interesting and enjoyable programme back to the UK. The ship is on a 23 night cruise to the Eastern Mediterranean and sailed from Liverpool on 6th April. It will now arrive back on 27th April, calling at Izmir, Santorini, Ibiza and Almeria en route to Liverpool.

 

As a gesture of good will, Fred. Olsen has given all passengers a £100 credit to their cabin accounts owing to the situation’s impact on the cruise as a whole.

 

Anyone any idea what the reason is???

[dthompsond1]

Have heard that there is another outbreak of the Norovirus on board, perhaps they are getting the ship back early for a deep clean.

[amberline]

If it is novo i hope thats why its coming back as i due to sail out of liverpool on 29th

[Parsman]

If Norovirus is the cause of the curtailment on the Boudicca's current cruise then I hope that they do a good job of deep cleaning. Otherwise this charming ship's reputation will be severely damaged. I didn't think £100 on board spending was very great compensation for the loss of two days' crusing. Perhaps passengers were given an additional discount on a future cruise.

[bossmum1]

Indeed norovirus was the cause for early return

Reliable sources have revealed that Boudicca's current cruise has been cut short after a yet another case of Norovirus. No comment from FO as yet. Thre has to be somethng really wrong with the ship almost every cruise on this ship there is norovirus. We are going on this ship 13th May so i hope its sorted by then and For Sue and Edd that go 29th April. having had norovirus on return from a cruise i dont wish it on my worse enemy.

[bossmum1]

statement from the company said: "Although there are only six passengers currently affected, Fred. Olsen has taken the decision to shorten the cruise by two days in order to allow for extensive cleaning and disinfecting to take place prior to departure on its next cruise." Boudicca is scheduled to depart Liverpool on April 29 for a 14-night voyage.

[highcbob]

statement from the company said: "Although there are only six passengers currently affected, Fred. Olsen has taken the decision to shorten the cruise by two days in order to allow for extensive cleaning and disinfecting to take place prior to departure on its next cruise." Boudicca is scheduled to depart Liverpool on April 29 for a 14-night voyage.

 

Six? try 600!

 

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/cruises/item.aspx?type=blog&ak=89146.blog&loc=interstitialskip

 

Could that be true? It must be the same crew members keeping it on board if that is indeed the case.

[pspercy]

70% have Norovirus.

[amberline]

We are sailing next thursday 29th april and will be sensible and adhear to all hygiene rules, we are determined to have a good time whatever, what people forget is that is is not just Fred, P & O had a massive outbreak recently and hotels, schools and hospitals are also affected. CARRY ON CRUISING I say xxx

[bossmum1]

statement from the company said: "Although there are only six passengers currently affected, Fred. Olsen has taken the decision to shorten the cruise by two days in order to allow for extensive cleaning and disinfecting to take place prior to departure on its next cruise." Boudicca is scheduled to depart Liverpool on April 29 for a 14-night voyage.

The UK's Daily Mail reports as many as 600 of 900 people on Fred Olsen's Boudicca have been struck down by the illness, which is marked by sometimes severe diarrhea and vomiting -- an unprecedented level. Even the worst outbreaks of norovirus on ships rarely spread beyond 10% of passengers. a big differance i think

[ISS]

Having just returned last weekend from my fourth Fred Olsen cruise - my second on BLACK WATCH - I have always been impressed by the rigour with cleanliness. Hand sprays on the gangway, before dining, before cocktail parties etc.

 

I am yet to sail on BOUDICCA thougth hope to do so in the none too distant future when I can find a cruise whose duration and timing fits my holidays.

 

This incident certainly wouldn't put me off.

 

John

[westmorland sailor]

This is so sad, Boudicca is a lovely ship and we have booked again for next April. It is the only ship going regularly out of Liverpool and these continual news reports of noro virus are bound to seriously affect the ship's reputation before long. I had the noro on our last cruise on Boudicca in October 09 and it seems to me that right through the winter there have been problems.

 

Continually, the company say it is a question of ' deep cleaning' which we know it is, but perhaps some 'deeper' investigation now needs to be made to ascertain why this keeps happening to this particular vessel. While other ships have the noro, the frequency with Boudicca this winter seems to have been problematic.

 

Cruises are not cheap, and having paid a lot of money for a cruise you want to be able to use the facilities and not fall ill. When noro hits a ship they have to close a lot of the facilities including swimming pools, which are a big part of the holiday. You are also confined to your cabin for two days, and while they really look after you, this means you have lost days of your holiday and what's more the poor person travelling with you is confined as well whether they get it or not!

 

Let's hope that Olsen sort this problem out - Scousers (I know I am one) won't be fobbed off with excuses and I don't think that £100 on board spend will placate people who have lost two days of a cruise they have paid for.

 

Hopefully, those of you going on the next cruise will really enjoy yourselves (we did despite the Noro) - just take plenty of your own hand gel!

[balf]

I'm sure it's covered in the small print somewhere, but come on, £100 to on board accounts for 2 lost days, which is not going to be much use anyway to the unfortunate passenger confined to the cabin.

 

I have done a few FO cruises in the past and am sad to see them having these problems time after time. And while it is true that Noro can occure in many other locations, it is obvious that FO gets far more than it's fair share in spite of seeming to apply much more sringent hygene than any other ship I have sailed.

 

Only six affected? - a little more honesty would appreciated.

 

David.

[Parsman]

I'm sure it's covered in the small print somewhere, but come on, £100 to on board accounts for 2 lost days, which is not going to be much use anyway to the unfortunate passenger confined to the cabin.

 

I have done a few FO cruises in the past and am sad to see them having these problems time after time. And while it is true that Noro can occure in many other locations, it is obvious that FO gets far more than it's fair share in spite of seeming to apply much more sringent hygene than any other ship I have sailed.

 

Only six affected? - a little more honesty would appreciated.

 

David.

 

I don't think FOCL said that there were only six cases. What they said was that there only remained six cases of people resticted to their cabins. The rest are presumably cured. For goodness sake if you catch this at home it is only a 24/48 hour illness unless you are in bad health.

[balf]

Well I've had it and it was a week before I felt 100%. It was certainly bad enough to depress the final days of the cruise.

 

David.

[Iceland]

Hi all, Have just arrived back from the cruise in question. I will post more later but quickly tell you what the situation was. I believe the 70% figure is wildly exaggerated. I think it is probably the other way round with 70% being unaffected. We were a table for six, and although our party of 4 didn't get the virus the other two did. The confinement is only for the affected person, not the person sharing the cabin. The company gave future cruise vouchers in the way of compensation to the person confined which I don't think is right as its forcing you on to Fred Olsen again and you may not wish to cruise with them again.

 

We were give two days pro-rata of the price we paid for the cruise for the curtailment of the cruise. This was in the post when we arrived back home. In addition, we were given £100 per person on board spend as compensation because of the impact on the cruise.

 

The debarkation was a bit of a shambles, we eventually got our luggage at 1.00 pm, our taxi driver (private hire) was waiting for since 11.00 am.

Luckily we had agreed a set price.

 

Will come back later but if you want to ask me anything, please do.

I'll post again with more details of the cruise but for now must get the washing machine on.

[amberline]

Hi all, Have just arrived back from the cruise in question. I will post more later but quickly tell you what the situation was. I believe the 70% figure is wildly exaggerated. I think it is probably the other way round with 70% being unaffected. We were a table for six, and although our party of 4 didn't get the virus the other two did. The confinement is only for the affected person, not the person sharing the cabin. The company gave future cruise vouchers in the way of compensation to the person confined which I don't think is right as its forcing you on to Fred Olsen again and you may not wish to cruise with them again.

 

We were give two days pro-rata of the price we paid for the cruise for the curtailment of the cruise. This was in the post when we arrived back home. In addition, we were given £100 per person on board spend as compensation because of the impact on the cruise.

 

The debarkation was a bit of a shambles, we eventually got our luggage at 1.00 pm, our taxi driver (private hire) was waiting for since 11.00 am.

Luckily we had agreed a set price.

 

Will come back later but if you want to ask me anything, please do.

I'll post again with more details of the cruise but for now must get the washing machine on.

 

Thanks for the infor, we are sailing out on Thursday, xxx

[bossmum1]

Have a fab time Sue Edd stay well

[ISS]

Hi all, Have just arrived back from the cruise in question. I will post more later but quickly tell you what the situation was. I believe the 70% figure is wildly exaggerated..

 

Thank you for posting the TRUTH about what happened on BOUDICCA.

 

Living in the north west I have been somewhat disturbed by the local media interest in this story. The compensation you report is in excess of that reported in the local newspapers.

 

Two years ago I was one of the passengers marooned in Langton Dock on board the THOMSON CELEBRATION for three days when it failed to undertake a mini-cruise to Ireland.

 

We received no cash compensation, no on board credit - just the offer of a discount if we wished to book another Thomson Cruise of Holiday! (They must have been joking!)

 

However, despite doing research into the cancellation which revealled the cancellation had occurred before passengers had embarked and having communicated this information to one of their journalists I was amazed at how little interest the same newspapers showed!

 

Having now completed four Fred Olsen cruises myself - it won't be long before I will be back for another.

 

 

ISS

[Lizzie24]

We were on this Boudicca cruise too, and can confirm what Iceland says about cheque waiting & on board spend although I think that probably about 40 - 50% of passengers were affected by the norovirus. We managed to avoid infection by a) avoiding touching hand rails, b) avoiding touching lift buttons ( my husband kept pencil in his top pocket for this job, and I became adept at using my elbow!). c) NEVER using the public lavatories -always return to your cabin however inconvenient it may be! ( Just think - if someone is "caught short" where do they go?) d) FREQUENT & THOROUGH handwashing. ALWAYS wash your hands immediately you return to your cabin and it is a good idea to use the supplied gel when you are on the way to your cabin. e) being aware of when you touch surfaces, door handles etc and KEEP YOUR HANDS AWAY FROM YOUR FACE until you can wash properly. We formulated this plan in discussion with the others at our table of 8 and we all managed to avoid being ill! IT might seem a bit over the top but why be ill because you are afraid someone thinks you are behaving oddly!

[Travelingman52]

Thanks for the info, what you guys have discribed that you did we have already formulated as our plan to do, we're not going to let some Bug spoil our first cruise. Hope you had a good time.

 

Gordon.

[Iceland]

Must admit I did use the public toilets, but thoroughly washed my hands afterwards and used paper towel to open toilet doors. Funnily, the two people on our table who got the virus had not used the public toilets but had gone back to their cabin. We never used the lifts and didn't use the handrails. As Lizzie says, its amazing what you can do with your arms and we were always using the hand gel which is placed in every room and on corridor handrails etc. One thing my husband noticed and I asked him if he was sure, is that one of the waiters was cleaning the toilet. I don't this is a good idea becaused of cross contamination. He also noticed that the 'charger' plates used to put the soups and the desserts on, were put back into the metal cabinet. I wonder if these were washed later or re-used?

 

I have read that the ship's doctor has said that 305 people were affected out of about 850, so I agree with Lizzie, a bit bigger percentage than I thought.

 

 

I hope this deep clean works and wish all on her next sailing a happy cruise.

[westmorland sailor]

Hi all, Have just arrived back from the cruise in question. I will post more later but quickly tell you what the situation was. I believe the 70% figure is wildly exaggerated. I think it is probably the other way round with 70% being unaffected. We were a table for six, and although our party of 4 didn't get the virus the other two did. The confinement is only for the affected person, not the person sharing the cabin. The company gave future cruise vouchers in the way of compensation to the person confined which I don't think is right as its forcing you on to Fred Olsen again and you may not wish to cruise with them again.

 

We were give two days pro-rata of the price we paid for the cruise for the curtailment of the cruise. This was in the post when we arrived back home. In addition, we were given £100 per person on board spend as compensation because of the impact on the cruise.

 

The debarkation was a bit of a shambles, we eventually got our luggage at 1.00 pm, our taxi driver (private hire) was waiting for since 11.00 am.

Luckily we had agreed a set price.

 

Will come back later but if you want to ask me anything, please do.

I'll post again with more details of the cruise but for now must get the washing machine on.

 

 

 

I was on the Boudicca cruise in October when I got noro - my husband WAS DEFINITELY CONFINED to our cabin with me and told he could not leave. He did not get it but we were BOTH CONFINED. People complain when they both get it that it could be four or five days confinement in that case which completely ruins your holiday. They also FREEZE your onboard account so you cannot purchase anything outside of your cabin.

 

I agree that the vouchers are not satisfactory because you might not want to cruise with them again and it is a 'let out' for the company in not paying cash compensation.

[Iceland]

They must have change the policy since then as on this cruise it was only the person who was ill who was confined. You could see single people sitting at their tables in the dining room whose partners were confined. In fact the husband on our table had it first and his wife came out with us on Zakynthos and when she had it later the husband came out with us.

[SparrowLegs]

There was a local BBC news report yesterday on the return of the Boudicca to Liverpool 2 days early. They interviewed several passengers leaving the port, one elderly couple could only complain about having to use the gel, finding its smell upsetting !! What chance have you got. I ve contracted the virus twice over the years, and both times my wife was also confined to our cabin, no compensation, but free treatment. You can only do your best to avoid the dreaded virus, we carry wipes with us all the time now, one major transmitting device I think are the pens used to sign your drinks tab. How many people touch that pen in a day.