Norovirus on Zaandam

[Beaverleader]

Thank you. I hope all goes well. I know how to clean my hands, I'm a nurse.

But we trust the cruise line to do their job.

[OlsSalt]

Pay attention to jumble of terms in this ongoing and oft-repeated discussion - discussion first was about transient contact non-alcohol "wet wipes", now just morphed into alcohol based hand-sanitizers with a minimum of 30 second contact time, and skirts over either product's sanitation effectiveness against respiratory infections, versus noro-virus control.

 

What it the goal using any secondary product? There is no one size fits all. There is no magic, one and done, bullet.

1. General debridement of the volume of potential infection vectors

2. Respiratory virus control

3. Noro-virus control

3. Necessary surface contact kill time

4. Skin sanitation

5. Inanimate surface sanitation

6. Active ingredient

[Ken the cruiser]

OlsSalt, admit it, you look foward to these type of threads. ;)

[OlsSalt]

CDC: "Show Me The Science" - hand sanitizers - open each section for more information and cited studies:

https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/show-me-the-science-hand-sanitizer.html

[OlsSalt]

OlsSalt, admit it, you look foward to these type of threads. ;)

 

Hug a tree, what is not to like when using knowledge as power ...and common sense:

https://www.treehugger.com/health/why-you-should-avoid-buying-wet-wipes.html

 

Don't like the science discussion, then think about the environment. We already know what improper disposal of "wet wipes" does to the HAL plumbing.

[ChinaShrek]

There are no such things as "extra precautions". There are reasonable precautions everyone should follow anyway.

 

Sure there are. Normally, I never wash my hands. It is bad for the environment. By taking extra precautions, I will now wash my hands many times a day. Live in the real world folks.

[OlsSalt]

Sure there are. Normally, I never wash my hands. It is bad for the environment. By taking extra precautions, I will now wash my hands many times a day. Live in the real world folks.

 

Your call. Chances of noro - only a 1% of the reports come from cruise ships Chances off the ship in various other settings are far greater. Which tells you something. Since most of us don't get it off ship either.

[Cruise Belle]

I am presently on the Zaandam. The Capitan announced today that there had been 80 cases of GI illness on board since this voyage began on Monday. As of today 9 persons remained in quarantine. The ship underwent a complete “deep cleaning” on Friday.

[Shel71]

I am also on board. The paperwork that has been given to us in the cabins strongly suggest this is norovirus. I have been fortunate so far to stay healthy (knock on wood). I have seen many crew members knocking on doors with room service food donned in face masks and gloves so I have assumed the person in the cabin is ill. The excursion my parents took yesterday in Juneau was missing at least 9 people who did not attend due to illness.

 

They did a "deep clean" yesterday while we were in Juneau. Bathroom smelled very strongly of bleach when I returned to my room.

 

This is my first HAL cruise in over 20 years, I have sailed on Disney several times in the past few years. I was surprised when I first arrived that #1 we did not fill out any type of health form. and #2 that the sanitary precautions were so lax in the dining areas. On DCL there are 2 crew members who stand at the door of every restaurant and hand out sanitary wipes to all people entering. When this cruise started there were only hand sanitizer machines tucked off to the side of the doorways. After contamination happened they moved these to the center and have someone pointing to them. IMO it would have been better to take precautions rather than react after the fact.

 

It didn't help that the night before the outbreak was announced that they turned off all water to the cabins for several hours. I am sure the lack of being able to flush toilets did not help the situation!

 

I'm enjoying my cruise, but it's hard not to compare to DCL and feel let down with the illnesses, the multiple things not working on the ship (water machines, ice cream machines...), absolutely ridiculous, chaotic lifeboat drill, better ship upkeep... Just noticed tonight that there are no lifejackets in my cabin. I will report this in the morning and hope the ship doesn't sink tonight!

[Ken the cruiser]

We agree. The sanitation precautions have gotten pretty lax over the last year or two. When we were on the Zaandam in January, there were no sanitizer stations going into the theater which we thought was just weird. If I might ask, what else is happening during your Code Red on the Zaandam?

 

Do they require everyone to show their room cards when going into a dining area to make sure the quarantined folks don't sneak out of their room to go eat in a public area because they are sick of room service? Do they require everyone to sanitize their hands or use the hand washer when going into a dining area rather than just point to it? Do they put red label tags on the doors of quarantined cabins to verify those quarantined stay in their rooms?

 

I know they did this when we were on an Oceania cruise during a Code Red. On a Princess cruise we were on, all they did was make sure everyone sanitized their hands before going into the buffet area where you were not able to serve yourself during that extended Red Code period.

 

Just curious what happens on a HAL ship?

Edited June 24, 2018 by Ken the cruiser

[RedneckBob]

I sail in two months on the Zaandam. I guess I need to pack my hasmat suit. :eek:

Actually I did get this virus several years ago even though I wash and wash and wash my hands. Don't even shake hands anymore. The CD came down with it two days earlier so I blamed him

[frankc98376]

I sail in two months on the Zaandam. I guess I need to pack my hasmat suit. :eek:

Actually I did get this virus several years ago even though I wash and wash and wash my hands. Don't even shake hands anymore. The CD came down with it two days earlier so I blamed him

 

Should be fine in two months. Since very few are still in quarantine sounds like it is winding down. If there are no new cases for 2 days the code red should lift.

[OlsSalt]

Does HAL somehow attract more irresponsible passengers who must be forced to engage in proper hand sanitation?

 

There are multiple special hand-wash stations on the Zaandam, which is the far superior way to combat hand-mouth contamination than indiscriminate use of "hand sanitizers". Hand sanitation gels have taken on near-mythical and highly undeserved qualities as the be-all-end-all for passenger personal responsibility and contamination protection. Wash your hands. Zaandam has made this easy for you. Just do it.

[J&Dhighdesert]

We were on a trans Pacific from Japan to Vancouver when this occurred. This occurred when we were leaving Japan and heading to Russia. We went to dinner and found that nothing was on the table except our place setting. The next day, in the Lido everything was being served to you. The library closed, no puzzles or games. If you wanted to see something in the jewelry department, you had to wear gloves. Everything was being cleaned constantly. Received health information all the time.

All could leave the ship in each port without any problems. The policy would continue on the next cruise, if no one became sick. This happened to be one of our favorite cruises even though this occurred.

[Overtime4me2]

We'll be getting on July 2nd. Hope it's cleared up soon for everyone!

 

Sent from my SM-G930VL using Tapatalk

[utahtea]

It started on the cruise before this one. We were there and we had it. Crew member mentioned that a lot of passengers were feeling ill, but said it was from rolling seas. Just now starting to feel better.

 

We were also on the June 4th sailing. DH heard on the news the night before we departed that there had been an outbreak of Noro on the Zaandam but I couldn't find any evidence on the internet. We didn't have any issues while on our cruise that ended June 18th.

 

Before disembarkation on June 18th we had a big breakfast on the ship since we were driving home and had a late departure time. I had an egg over easy and blamed that when I started feeling sick as we drove home. Food poisoning and Noro have pretty much the same symptoms. Two days later when I was just starting to recover, DH came down with the same symptoms. I then though we might both have had Noro and now it looks like that was the case.

 

There is a lot of inaccurate information in that news story. Like they didn't depart on the 17th, so I'm wondering if that's when the outbreak started, which was really the last day or our cruise! They also say it's a 16 day cruise....we all wish...LOL!

 

It was a wonderful cruise and even better than we remembered doing it 4 years ago. We saw so much wildlife just from the ship this time.

 

Utahtea....fully recovered

[KirkNC]

We were on the June 4th sailing and had no problems nor heard of anyone who did. We try hard to practice good hygiene especially hand washing etc. That’s not a guarantee but it does help.

[Shel71]

We agree. The sanitation precautions have gotten pretty lax over the last year or two. When we were on the Zaandam in January, there were no sanitizer stations going into the theater which we thought was just weird. If I might ask, what else is happening during your Code Red on the Zaandam?

 

Do they require everyone to show their room cards when going into a dining area to make sure the quarantined folks don't sneak out of their room to go eat in a public area because they are sick of room service? Do they require everyone to sanitize their hands or use the hand washer when going into a dining area rather than just point to it? Do they put red label tags on the doors of quarantined cabins to verify those quarantined stay in their rooms?

 

I know they did this when we were on an Oceania cruise during a Code Red. On a Princess cruise we were on, all they did was make sure everyone sanitized their hands before going into the buffet area where you were not able to serve yourself during that extended Red Code period.

 

Just curious what happens on a HAL ship?

 

The only change after the outbreak was they moved the hand sanitizer out from the side of the entrance of restaurants to the center and there is a crewmember standing there directing you to use it. In the main dining room, there is no longer a bread basket on the table and no sugar packets for coffee. They have to hand it to you. You can grab all you want in the Lido though so that makes no sense! Other than that they have not changed anything.

 

I politely notified the guest services this morning before breakfast that I did not have any lifejackets in my cabin. Here it is midnight and my room has been serviced twice, still no life jackets! That is just not acceptable IMO!

[Edithclara]

Our Noordam captain last year advised no hand-shaking and during every announcement reminded us to always wash our hands.

Edited June 25, 2018 by Edithclara
Typos

[Ken the cruiser]

The only change after the outbreak was they moved the hand sanitizer out from the side of the entrance of restaurants to the center and there is a crewmember standing there directing you to use it. In the main dining room, there is no longer a bread basket on the table and no sugar packets for coffee. They have to hand it to you. You can grab all you want in the Lido though so that makes no sense! Other than that they have not changed anything.

 

I politely notified the guest services this morning before breakfast that I did not have any lifejackets in my cabin. Here it is midnight and my room has been serviced twice, still no life jackets! That is just not acceptable IMO!

Thanks. Just curious. Did you check under the bed? If not my guess is if there was an emergency the life jackets would be provided as they probably aren't very far away. But as they are hard to sterilize, they have probably moved them to a safe place until the noro threat has past.

[Fouremco]

I politely notified the guest services this morning before breakfast that I did not have any lifejackets in my cabin. Here it is midnight and my room has been serviced twice, still no life jackets! That is just not acceptable IMO!

In the event of an emergency, there are life jackets at your muster station. Even if you did have life jackets in your cabin, if you are elsewhere on the ship when the emergency alarm sounds, you shouldn't head to your cabin to get them. In the case of a fire, for example, you might not be able to get to you cabin and may be placing yourself in unnecessary additional danger.

[Krazy Kruizers]

The only change after the outbreak was they moved the hand sanitizer out from the side of the entrance of restaurants to the center and there is a crewmember standing there directing you to use it. In the main dining room, there is no longer a bread basket on the table and no sugar packets for coffee. They have to hand it to you. You can grab all you want in the Lido though so that makes no sense! Other than that they have not changed anything.

 

I politely notified the guest services this morning before breakfast that I did not have any lifejackets in my cabin. Here it is midnight and my room has been serviced twice, still no life jackets! That is just not acceptable IMO!

 

 

We have been on several HAL ships with the Noro -- Code Red.

No salt and pepper shakers or flowers on the tables in the dining room, Lido and specialty restaurants.

Pools closed, library shut down. Casino was shut down for 3 days while they washed everything and then you were given gloves to wear.

It was so bad on one ship, the beauty salon was shut down.

[OlsSalt]

Should HAL be blamed for not 24/7 demanding passengers follow clear and direct instructions upfront about personal sanitation.

 

HAL has to pay the price when passengers continue to negligent and careless about their own sanitary habits, but to put the blame HAL for not forcing them to do clean hand checks on passengers 24/7 seems pretty irresponsible on the passengers part. I think we stopped doing this in kindergarten.

 

Do we now ask passengers to sign a pledge they will abide by all sanitation instructions up front and be done with this constant requirement for HAL to be in loco parentis while while serving adult passengers and adult parents of children passengers onboard.

[RedneckBob]

Should HAL be blamed for not 24/7 demanding passengers follow clear and direct instructions upfront about personal sanitation.

 

HAL has to pay the price when passengers continue to negligent and careless about their own sanitary habits, but to put the blame HAL for not forcing them to do clean hand checks on passengers 24/7 seems pretty irresponsible on the passengers part. I think we stopped doing this in kindergarten.

 

Do we now ask passengers to sign a pledge they will abide by all sanitation instructions up front and be done with this constant requirement for HAL to be in loco parentis while while serving adult passengers and adult parents of children passengers onboard.

 

I will sign the pledge as long as I can use my fingers to take cookies, potato chips or nuts 😱.

 

Noro happens. Everyone is to blame. Only thing you can do is minimize risk. I am kind of health nut; took sanitation in school; always observe things that would make people sick. Almost every cruise I have to request a cruise staff to remove a food tray cause someone decided to use their body to decide which food item looked the best.

[frankc98376]

Should HAL be blamed for not 24/7 demanding passengers follow clear and direct instructions upfront about personal sanitation.

 

HAL has to pay the price when passengers continue to negligent and careless about their own sanitary habits, but to put the blame HAL for not forcing them to do clean hand checks on passengers 24/7 seems pretty irresponsible on the passengers part. I think we stopped doing this in kindergarten.

 

Do we now ask passengers to sign a pledge they will abide by all sanitation instructions up front and be done with this constant requirement for HAL to be in loco parentis while while serving adult passengers and adult parents of children passengers onboard.

 

I really felt bad for the poor crew on a cruise we were on with GI issues. They worked tirelessly cleaning around the clock and still had a smile and hello for everyone. We increased tips for our stewards, servers, and bar people substantially on that cruise