Sea Princess

[britsbest]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5034096.stm

 

Two hundred passengers aboard a luxury cruise ship have been struck down with a vomiting virus, forcing their £1,000 seven-day cruise to end a day early.

The Sea Princess will return to Southampton on Friday and miss out the intended destination of Lisbon, to allow extra time to disinfect the shipTwo hundred passengers aboard a luxury cruise ship have been struck down with a vomiting virus, forcing their £1,000 seven-day cruise to end a day early.

The Sea Princess will return to Southampton on Friday and miss out the intended destination of Lisbon, to allow extra time to disinfect the ship

[jbrambach]

Yet another reason why Hand Washing is so important.

[Casey12]

That is too bad about their cruise. Definitely wash hands as many times as possible. Thank you for posting the release.

[custompcsys]

While I certainly sympathize with passengers on the Sea who are having a long-awaited holiday cut short and understand people being upset, I think this news article once again shows how the press sensationalizes these stories. Nowhere does it mention that 200 passengers is about 10% - certainly a significant number requiring immediate action, but also meaning 90% of the passengers are NOT sick. Also not mentioned is the fact that norovirus accounts for 48% of ALL gastroenteritis cases, and can be caught anywhere, not just on a cruise ship. I guess a headline of "1750 passengers NOT ill on cruise ship" wasn't so attractive.

 

The claims made in the article that Princess should have warned people that there was norovirus on board and that they are responsible for passengers getting sick are just plain unreasonable. They would have to warm everyone boarding every cruise. Do they blame the cruise line when they catch some other type of virus, like a rhinovirus that causes colds?

[SF]

Hope they get it cleaned up soon as we sail in 4 weeks!

[mcca2]

Second incidence in the last few days as the cruise ship Van Gogh was also held from sailing by the British Coast Guard because of Norovirus aboard. Hope its the last, as we sail in six days on Jewel OTS to the Baltics.

[woodofpine]

No offense intended... But I LOVE the British linguistic manner!

 

Soft peddling its formal name "norovirus", as a Yank, I'd expect the Brits to be even more... je ne sais quoi... sophisticated... ("gastic upheaval", "esophegal elevator"?)

 

Nah! When the going gets tough, the Brits get right to the point "Vomiting Virus"... wouldn't you love to see that in the US papers. A few headlines like that and I'll bet Mickey Arison would fund a cure!

[britsbest]

She has arrived in Southampton this morning. There are news reports of disgruntled passengers "demanding" 100% refund etc etc.

I guess it was referred to as vomitting virus as the virus had yet to be identified?:confused:

[britsbest]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/02062006/325/passengers-disembark-sickness-hits-cruise.html

[CruisinGerman]

1. It was actually closer to 300 people (more than 234 passengers plus some crew).

 

2. The Spanish authorities in Vigo quarantined the ship and only let a few lucky people off the ship to see the sights.

 

3. Lisbon wouldn't allow the ship to dock.

 

4. From the local authorities' point of view, when nearly 300 people on a cruise ship are sick, the idea is contain the illness and not let it potentially spread around your city.

 

5. No reasonable person would consider it to be a normal happening on a cruise ship for nearly 300 people to become ill with a highly-contagious, albeit not serious, virus, and have to be quarantined to their cabin.

 

6. Because the same exact experience occurred on the previous week's cruise, that is why people feel they should have been warned about the incident before boarding the next cruise, unless Princess could guarantee that the ship had been completely disinfected, which apparently it had not.

 

The press in this instance was not being sensationalist at all. The story was on the newswire and was published in nearly every European newspaper.

 

If anybody was being sensationalist, it was probably Princess Cruises customer service, who didn't have a clue about what was going on and denied it all, even though it had already been published in all of the newspapers with specific interviews and quotes from passengers on the ship.

 

Personally, I have never been on a Princess cruise. I am writing on this forum because my nephew and his wife happened to be passengers on that very cruise.

 

Happy cruising to all,

 

Gunther and Uta

[cruisebore]

BBC video clip on

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5039812.stm

link in top right hand corner

 

Regards

 

Ray

[Kerry & Danny]

Well said Gunther and Uta,:)

From someone who is due to join the ship on Saturday. We all felt like mushrooms for the first couple of days .....(kept in the dark and fed ****) At least all the publicity they have had to admit the full extent of what the problem is, and hopefully deal with it better.....

As P&O would not want the same publicity in 2 weeks time when we get home, because they did not do a thorough job...my theory anyway....we will see when we get onboard...Kerry

[spongerob]

Kerry & Danny and Gunther & Uta, I fully understand the disappointment, but the one thing you have missed is that even if the ship is pristine, all it takes is one passenger bringing the virus on board again and the entire cleaning program goes for nought. Someone reported from that cruise on another thread that people who had been infected refused to follow quarantine procedures. Whether it's an office setting or cruise ship, one Typhoid Mary can ruin your entire vacation.

 

I think this morning's news about the terror raid in London will put this little story to the back burner in a hurry. I hope you enjoy your vacations and remain free from illness.

[Jamster]

I was a passenger on this ship along with my husband and 6 year old son, and yes I agree that it was not nice contantly worrying if you would end up with the bug and being followed round by someone disinfecting everything. However, it did not help matters when you were sat in the bar hearing people saying "well I have been sick and had a dodgey tummy but I have put it down to sea sickness":mad: it was passengers like this who helped the virus spread and made the job of containing any further outbreaks impossible for the ships personnel.

[custompcsys]

Kerry & Danny and Gunther & Uta, I fully understand the disappointment, but the one thing you have missed is that even if the ship is pristine, all it takes is one passenger bringing the virus on board again and the entire cleaning program goes for nought. Someone reported from that cruise on another thread that people who had been infected refused to follow quarantine procedures. Whether it's an office setting or cruise ship, one Typhoid Mary can ruin your entire vacation.

 

I think this morning's news about the terror raid in London will put this little story to the back burner in a hurry. I hope you enjoy your vacations and remain free from illness.

Well said Rob. You can do all the disinfecting of the ship you want, but if there is a source outside the ship and people bring it onboard during embarkation, there's not a darn thing Princess can do about it. All it takes is one person who is in the viral shedding stage to not was before going to the Horizon Court.

 

Also, if we take the crew into consideration, we are now upping the total population of the ship to about 3,000...of which 300 people is still about 10%. Significant? Yes, very. It still means, however, that 90% of the passengers and crew are NOT sick. Maybe you don't agree that the press isn't sensationalizing this, but I find it interesting that nowhere is it mentioned that you can catch Norovirus in any place where large numbers of people gather, such as hotels, restaurant buffet, etc, and the fact that is it much more prevalent there in shear numbers than on cruise ships.

 

One should also take note that the Sea seems to be the only ship in the Princess fleet experiencing an abnormal percentage of cases. If it was a lacking on the part of Princess sanitation procedures, they would be having this problem fleet wide. It might be beneficial to start checking shore-bound sources of contamination that passengers may have in common, such as a pre-cruise hotel, etc. They had a similar problem in Alaska and found the source of the contamination to be a hotel, and that people were brining it on board during the incubation period, so they had no idea they were sick until after being on the ship for a day or 2.

[lindauk]

Well, I'm going tomorrow and I can't wait. I'm alittle apprehensive but having cruised with Princess before I've every confidence in them. My apprenhension stems from the fact that some passengers obviously don't consider there own hygeine or anyone elses!! I feel so srongly about it that if I here anyone saying they've not been well and didn't obey the quarantine regs I'm going to report it. It spoils things for the cruise line and the passengers and gives the crew so much extra work on top of their already long hours.

I'll send a review if a get chance and try really hard to have a great time!!!

[M&L]

Me my wife and son disembarked this morning.

 

My son was infected and covered the floor in the stateroom with vomit at one in the morning. We had to keep him in quarantine in the cabin for the next 48 hours. We were visited several times by sanitation teams who sprayed the whole room with disinfectant. We cleaned a lot of the sick of the floor ourselves but they did not make a good job of getting the rest off. It took 36 hours for them to come back after several visits to the pursers desk, doctor and finally the Accommodation Manager had to get involved to get the job done properly. Confined to a room smelling of sick, and sick still on the floor is certainly not a preventive way for us not getting the virus or aiding my sons recovery, we were walking on 'pins'.

We laid bathing towels on the floor so we did not stand in it.

 

We have travelled with Princess on 5 different occasions and this was not their finest hour.

 

There were cases of the virus on the previous sailing.

[julieh]

Well we are finally home. I think the biggest complaint people on board had was that we were not told until we were onboard about the previous week outbreak so we could make our own decisions as to whether we travelled or not. If this had just started on our cruise we could accept it easier. Everyone worked so hard on board to the point you felt that you didn't want to ask for anything as they were so busy.

 

To sum it up that whilst we have been lucky and as yet have not been affected we felt like we were in a private hospital as crew in white coats and masks constantly sprayed everywhere, medical teams were very visible, you could hear passengers vomiting as you walked down the corridor and passengers were also being sick around the ship which I think was possibly sea sickness but still unpleasant.

 

The whole thing was an unpleasant experience! It certainly wasn't what we had been looking forward to. I certainly don't blame the Captain and Crew who certainly did their best but I do hold Princess responsible for not pre warning us.

 

Best wishes to all due to board tomorrow. I hope it all goes well and you have a great cruise.

 

Julie

[SF]

Thank you all for posting and letting us know of your experiences. Sorry to hear that your cruise wasn't all you expected. People work hard to save for a cruise and therefore should have the opportunity to decide for themselves if they want to still sail if the norovirus is onboard. Princess should have given everyone that opportunity.

 

If someone from this upcoming cruise could please post and keep us updated as to what's happening it would be greatly appreciated.

 

Happy cruising to all. Hope this sailing is a better one.