Grandeur sickness

[Ken Greco]

Returning Grandeur to Baltimore had over 100 people sickened with some type illness, not sure if it was norovirus.

 

RCCL and other cruise have being trying their best to prevent a similar outbreak on other ships.

 

Here are my tips for lessening the chances of getting sick.

 

1. Cruise ships should have to eliminate help yourself buffets. Crew members should be handing you the food. It is very temping to see large amounts of food and try something yourself.

 

2. Children under a certain age should never ever touch the buffet food; have the parent or older child get the food for them. I have seen children and some adults take some food form the buffet line taste it and put the half eaten food back on the trays.

 

3.Adults, do not stand at the buffet line and start eating the food there. It is rude and can pass germs to others.

 

4. Do not relay on those sanitizer stations. The best way is to wash your hands well before going into the Windjammer and wash your hands well after eating.

 

5. If you see children sneezing or coughing report it to the wait staff.

[LuvBNatC]

If the item in the Richmond newspaper is to be believed, then yes, it has been confirmed to be norovirus on Grandeur.

 

I believe passengers coming off the ship recently have already posted here about all the extraordinary precautions being taken right now (like nobody being allowed to touch anything at the Windjammer, but having all items handed to them by crew). Deep cleaning has been done on at least the last 2 turnaround days in Baltimore, and people were notified in advance of delayed boarding.

 

The threads are around here somewhere.

[time4u2go]

Returning Grandeur to Baltimore had over 100 people sickened with some type illness, not sure if it was norovirus.

 

RCCL and other cruise have being trying their best to prevent a similar outbreak on other ships.

 

Here are my tips for lessening the chances of getting sick.

 

1. Cruise ships should have to eliminate help yourself buffets. Crew members should be handing you the food. It is very temping to see large amounts of food and try something yourself.

 

2. Children under a certain age should never ever touch the buffet food; have the parent or older child get the food for them. I have seen children and some adults take some food form the buffet line taste it and put the half eaten food back on the trays.

 

3.Adults, do not stand at the buffet line and start eating the food there. It is rude and can pass germs to others.

 

4. Do not relay on those sanitizer stations. The best way is to wash your hands well before going into the Windjammer and wash your hands well after eating.

 

5. If you see children sneezing or coughing report it to the wait staff.

Your first 4 suggestions make sense, but I'm not sure what the 5th one would accomplish. What would/should the wait staff person you report it to do about it? And why just children?

Edited April 14, 2014 by time4u2go

[Raenstoirm]

Noro can also come from banisters, elevator buttons, touch screens. It isn't just the windjammer thats an issue.

Edited April 14, 2014 by Raenstoirm

[Ken Greco]

Your first 4 suggestions make sense, but I'm not sure what the 5th one would accomplish. What would/should the wait staff person you report it to do about it? And why just children?

 

I agree adults could also pass germs to others. Wait staff could gently remind those sneezing or coughing to cover their mouths versus one of the passengers telling them. Cruise ships have a much higher concentration of people that most people encounter at work or at home. One sick person can ruin many others vacations by not taking simple precautions.

[Tony O]

If I may add another to your list

6. WASH YOUR HANDS !

From the CDC Website :

http://www.cdc.gov/norovirus/index.Html

[Life is Good Cruising]

I can't tell you how many times my husband and I saw people not washing their hands when leaving the restrooms. Yes I do know there is one stall that has a sink in it, they were not in that stall.

[edjny]

I can't tell you how many times my husband and I saw people not washing their hands when leaving the restrooms. Yes I do know there is one stall that has a sink in it, they were not in that stall.

 

Washing hands in the rest rooms is not the great 'preventative'. You could scrub your hands for 10 minutes there and then step out and touch the door handles, elevator button, stair banisters or any of a hundred other things and pick up the virus there. Washing hands in the bathroom is a nice 'catch-all', but not 'the' solution. Keeping your hands away from your mouth/nose/eyes is the solution. Washing hands before touching your face is the solution.

[Ken Greco]

All good ideas

[jules815]

I was SO SICK on our last cruise with noro. And, I'm pretty sure when I contacted it, too. We were on Carnival Dream and my husband spilled something on his favorite khaki shorts, so I decided on that first day to throw in a load of laundry. The laundry room was just kiddy corner from our room, so really convenient. I was waiting for my load to finish in the dryer, and a lady came in and was having trouble using the machine that swipes your seapass for laundry charges. She asked for help, and I touched her card and the machine. As we were standing there together in the small laundry room with the door closed, she proceeded to tell me how sick she'd been all night and morning! "I don't know what was wrong with me, but I was so ill last night!" :eek: I remember thinking, "oh boy, I hope that woman didn't just infect me!" In fact, I told my husband what had happened and he started referring to her as "Patient Zero." Then BOOM! It hit me the evening after our first port day in Nassau. I remember crying in the bathroom of our stateroom when I realized this wasn't just a one time thing from something I'd eaten. I was so sick right up until the evening we left St. Maarten. Didn't leave the room. I ran a fever too. It was horrible. Then we had two sea days left on our cruise, and Hurricane Sandy hit, so we ended up with an extra day, but couldn't go out on our balcony because of the rough seas.

 

And I'm definitely a "wash with soap and water while singing Happy Birthday," knuckles on the elevator buttons and don't touch the bannisters type of girl! My husband never got it.

 

Anyway, between having noro and then the hurricane happening, I deserve a do-over! Back to RC, but sailing again during hurricane season. What are the odds?! Hope I didn't just jinx myself!

Edited April 14, 2014 by jules815

[grab007]

OH NO!!!!!!! Well I hope your luck changes. We'll be with you on FOS on 9/14!!

[spedrson]

 

Here are my tips for lessening the chances of getting sick.

 

1. Cruise ships should have to eliminate help yourself buffets. Crew members should be handing you the food. It is very temping to see large amounts of food and try something yourself.

 

2. Children under a certain age should never ever touch the buffet food; have the parent or older child get the food for them. I have seen children and some adults take some food form the buffet line taste it and put the half eaten food back on the trays.

 

3.Adults, do not stand at the buffet line and start eating the food there. It is rude and can pass germs to others.

 

4. Do not relay on those sanitizer stations. The best way is to wash your hands well before going into the Windjammer and wash your hands well after eating.

 

5. If you see children sneezing or coughing report it to the wait staff.

 

I just got off the Grandeur on Saturday. I can confirm that you weren't allowed to touch ANYTHING in the Windjammer. Plates, silverware, cups already filled with drinks, and all food was handed to you by gloved crew members. It was the same in the Park Cafe and you weren't even allowed to touch the Coke Freestyle machines at the end of the cruise. There was a crew member there with gloves on making your selection for you.

 

We were reminded over and over and OVER again to wash our hands. We weren't allowed to enter the dining areas, photo area, shops, casino or any other public areas without being squirted with hand sanitizer. Crew members were CONSTANTLY cleaning handrails, elevator buttons, the touch screens with the cruise compass etc...

 

On Thursday (day 6) the crew no longer handled our sea pass cards. We just had to hold them out so that they could read the number. Thursday was also when I started hearing rumors that some people were becoming ill. Remember, we boarded on Saturday. I don't believe that patient zero got noro on the ship. I'm guessing they picked it up in one of the ports. Most likely Port Canaveral where lots of people went to Disney and Universal where there are thousands of kids all touching hand rails that aren't being disinfected, bathroom stalls, lap bars on rides etc...

 

I have never felt safer from illness/germs in my life. On Sunday after arriving home we went to church where we shook hands with a bunch of people. I told my husband I was probably exposed to more germs in those few minutes of shaking hands than I was the entire time I was on the cruise.

[hikingchik]

The theory on Disney and Universal and getting the noro onto the ship sounds very possible to me. The news stated that cdc or some agency boarded the ship to run tests to see where the noro originated. Can they determine that, and will they be releasing this info to the public?

[jules815]

The theory on Disney and Universal and getting the noro onto the ship sounds very possible to me. The news stated that cdc or some agency boarded the ship to run tests to see where the noro originated. Can they determine that, and will they be releasing this info to the public?

 

I wonder how they could tell where it originated?

[nbsjcruiser]

Returning Grandeur to Baltimore had over 100 people sickened with some type illness, not sure if it was norovirus.

 

RCCL and other cruise have being trying their best to prevent a similar outbreak on other ships.

 

Here are my tips for lessening the chances of getting sick.

 

1. Cruise ships should have to eliminate help yourself buffets. Crew members should be handing you the food. It is very temping to see large amounts of food and try something yourself.

 

More and more we go to the MDR for breakfast and lunch not because of the possible contamination but because the food is better. The possible reduction in contamination is a positive side effect. In fact, on our last two cruises out of 10 mornings we ate at the WJ once for breakfast. We only did lunch I think 3 times in the MDR because usually you're on the run but sea days now are always at the MDR for all 3 meals.

[hikingchik]

I eat every meal in the MDR as well. Have never gotten sick on a cruise. Who doesnt want to be waited on during vacation? Even if hubby decides buffet, I go to MDR by myself!

[chengkp75]

I wonder how they could tell where it originated?

 

Because there were reportable outbreaks on back to back cruises, the USPH will send inspectors to the ship. The ship's medical facility tries to collect fecal samples if possible from cases onboard, and anyone reporting to medical with GI symptoms will be asked to complete a CDC questionnaire that asks about your activities a few days prior to boarding. The USPH inspectors will also try to interview people who were or are sick before they disembark. The USPH/CDC are very good at determining "patient zero" and/or the main transmission vector for the outbreak. This is what they do, they track infectious diseases. They will take any stool samples and test to see what virus was responsible, and complete an investigation based on the contact interviews. This information is of course available to the public, you just need to work for it. You can apply to the CDC for a copy of their investigation report, and they will send one to you.

 

As I've posted on other noro threads:

 

Please remember that the CDC has a mandate to identify and remediate contagious diseases within the US, with the goal of keeping US residents safe from illness. The CDC has no mandate to keep cruise ship passengers safe from illness while on foreign ships. The USPH, a branch of CDC is mandated to prevent the introduction of infectious diseases into the US from overseas. Their true mandate is to keep ill persons from entering the US. They could do this by quarantining a ship with ill passengers and crew, and not allowing anyone ashore until no one is symptomatic. While this is done for foreign cargo ships, we all know how this method of isolating illness from entering the US would play out for a cruise ship. The passengers would revolt, the US citizens would demand to disembark, and the company would lose untold millions in lost revenue. Therefore, the USPH sought means to prevent the passengers from getting ill in the first place, and went to the cruise industry to seek assistance in what could be done and what should be done to keep the ships free from illness. The CLIA member companies actually drafted the VSP for submittal to the USPH.

 

What this long ramble is for, is to show that disseminating information about the investigations into cruise ship outbreaks is not a mandate of the USPH. Nor is it a mandate for the CDC to disseminate information about land based noro outbreaks. Yes, the information is public, and anyone can get it, but it isn't their job to publish as some kind of "guide to which ships are safer". If you want to research things, you can get the information, it just takes your energy, not theirs.

[atb]

Last year - a local nursing home was closed for about a month - that means no new admissions - and no visitors. It was closed because of noro virus. This was never published in our local newspapers. I work in health care - so we hear all this - but it was never publicly posted.

 

My point - you can pick up noro anywhere. But the cruise ship news gets posted - and so many people worry - but you are more likely to get this at your local Wal-Mart than you are on a cruise ship.

 

Wash you hands - and don't touch your face.

[poncho1973]

I eat every meal in the MDR as well. Have never gotten sick on a cruise. Who doesnt want to be waited on during vacation? Even if hubby decides buffet, I go to MDR by myself!

 

You do realize... nevermind.

[Merion_Mom]

I just got off the Grandeur on Saturday. I can confirm that you weren't allowed to touch ANYTHING in the Windjammer. Plates, silverware, cups already filled with drinks, and all food was handed to you by gloved crew members. It was the same in the Park Cafe and you weren't even allowed to touch the Coke Freestyle machines at the end of the cruise. There was a crew member there with gloves on making your selection for you.

 

We were reminded over and over and OVER again to wash our hands. We weren't allowed to enter the dining areas, photo area, shops, casino or any other public areas without being squirted with hand sanitizer. Crew members were CONSTANTLY cleaning handrails, elevator buttons, the touch screens with the cruise compass etc...

 

On Thursday (day 6) the crew no longer handled our sea pass cards. We just had to hold them out so that they could read the number. Thursday was also when I started hearing rumors that some people were becoming ill. Remember, we boarded on Saturday. I don't believe that patient zero got noro on the ship. I'm guessing they picked it up in one of the ports. Most likely Port Canaveral where lots of people went to Disney and Universal where there are thousands of kids all touching hand rails that aren't being disinfected, bathroom stalls, lap bars on rides etc...

 

I have never felt safer from illness/germs in my life. On Sunday after arriving home we went to church where we shook hands with a bunch of people. I told my husband I was probably exposed to more germs in those few minutes of shaking hands than I was the entire time I was on the cruise.

 

GOOD post. :)

[rcrdale]

My point - you can pick up noro anywhere. But the cruise ship news gets posted - and so many people worry - but you are more likely to get this at your local Wal-Mart than you are on a cruise ship.

 

I agree totally with you on this one. I've had friends say they would never cruise becuase of noro. They will stick to the all inclusive resorts. I asked them how do you know that they don't have problems going to XXX resort in Mexico, or Barbados, or where ever.

 

We hear about the norovirus on cruise ships becuase the CDC is a US Goverment Office. They can have norovirus at some resort in Mexico and we may never find out, becuase they don't have to inform the US of it.

 

I guess if they don't want to cruise, just gives me a better chance at getting a better cabin (lol).

[hikingchik]

Before all this, I thought that if I cruised in spring summer or fall, I wouldn't be as likely to be exposed to noro. I just thought it was something that happened in winter. So is it just as common any time of the year?

[Akitkat118]

5. If you see children sneezing or coughing report it to the wait staff.

 

why just children? there are plenty of adults with poor hygiene.

[chengkp75]

Before all this, I thought that if I cruised in spring summer or fall, I wouldn't be as likely to be exposed to noro. I just thought it was something that happened in winter. So is it just as common any time of the year?

 

Noro is not like a cold or flu virus. Since it is caused simply by poor hygiene (anal to oral cross-contamination, sorry), it can happen at any time.

[Jen731]

 

We were reminded over and over and OVER again to wash our hands. We weren't allowed to enter the dining areas, photo area, shops, casino or any other public areas without being squirted with hand sanitizer. Crew members were CONSTANTLY cleaning handrails, elevator buttons, the touch screens with the cruise compass etc...

 

 

May I ask a question: do you mean people were refused entry if they refused to sanitize their hands? I can't understand why they push the hand sanitizer so much when it's known it doesn't kill the norovirus. Knock on wood, we won't have to find out for ourselves, but what did they do if someone refused? My mom can't use alcohol based hand sanitizers or her hands break out in nasty blisters. When we traveled NCL, she always felt guilty walking past Mr. "Washy-Washy Happy Happy" and not using the sanitizer. I would hate to think if there was a norovirus outbreak she'd have to fight outside of every public area