Welcome to Cruise Talk the Internet's most popular discussion forum dedicated to cruising. Stop by Cruise Talk anytime to post a message or find out what your fellow passengers and industry insiders are saying about a particular ship, cruise line or destination.
>>> Reader Reviews >>> CruisePage.com Photo Gallery >>> Join Our Cruise Club.
Latest News...TUI Cruises has taken delivery of Mein Schiff 7 from shipbuilders Meyer Turku in Finland. The seventh ship in the Mein Schiff fleet was handed over at an official signing ceremony attended by Meyer Turku’s CEO Tim Meyer and head of projects Tom Degerman, and TUI Cruises’ CEO Wybcke Meier and chief financial officer Frank Kuhlmann. “Mein Schiff 7’s...
Latest News...Holland America Line, an industry leader in destination-centric longer voyages, has updated this fall’s Legendary Voyage, “Tales of the South Pacific”, to now include a call to Bora Bora, French Polynesia. Zaandam will become one of an exclusive group of ships to call at the island, providing guests an exciting addition to an already idyllic vacation. ...
Latest News... Lindblad Expeditions Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: LIND; the "Company" or "Lindblad Expeditions"), recognized global leader of adventure travel and the pioneer of modern expedition cruising, today announced that it has added two purpose-built Galápagos expedition vessels to join the Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic fleet. "We recognize and appreciate the immense privilege our Company has to operate...
The liner the Black Prince, which has been sailing from Leith since 2002, is due back in Scotland on Saturday.
Up to 116 cases of the Norovirus have been confirmed on the Fred Olsen liner.
It left Leith on 3 June, bound for a seven-night cruise of the Norwegian fjords, with 210 crew and 412 passengers on board.
In a statement the cruise line company said the passengers who have been diagnosed with the bug have been confined to their cabins.
The company routinely carries out extensive cleansing and disinfecting programmesFred Olsen statement
The company said: "Fred Olsen Cruise Lines can confirm that there have been a number of cases of a Noro-type virus on its ship Black Prince during the current cruise.
"The company routinely carries out extensive cleansing and disinfecting programmes every day and immediately the first cases were reported it put into place an even more rigorous hygiene regime.
"The next cruise is due to depart from Leith on 10 June and the sailing time has been delayed to mid-evening to allow for extensive treatment of the ship."
The company said outbreaks of the virus were "extremely common".
"It is highly contagious and is spread by person-to-person contact, and from fixtures such as furniture or handrails if recently touched by an infected person."
quote:Originally posted by Patsy:As I said the other day, it is becoming more common. This is what? 5 (if that's what Pride of Aloha also had) in the past couple of weeks?
You don't know that it is becoming more common, Patsy. The rest of the year might on have a few more incidents!
You need to wait to the end of the year and compare stats before you can draw such a conclusion.
If it really is more common, we must bear in mind that there are more ships and more people cruising.
[ 06-09-2006: Message edited by: Malcolm @ cruisepage ]
quote:Originally posted by Malcolm @ cruisepage:If it really is more common, we must bear in mind that there are more ships and more people cruising.[ 06-09-2006: Message edited by: Malcolm @ cruisepage ]
These incidents are also being reported in the news more often, too. Literally within minutes, news sources around the globe have picked up the story and it's on TV and the Internet instantaneously.
Ten or fifteen years ago these events still occurred but people usually only heard about it in the home port area, and by word-of-mouth from friends who were on board. It's exactly like the recent spate of people overboard--these things have always happened, it's just that now everyone is made aware of them.
Rich
Ok, ok, lame title, but I had to do it.
There have been a few ships hit hard by Gastro (gastrointestinal illness) recently. Most notably the Sea Princess which was actually laid up for a bit to do a cleaning. I wanted to talk a little about Gastro onboard to dispel some of the myths and fears people have.
The bug everyone is afraid of is the Noro virus, or Norwalk bug. It’s a gastrointestinal virus and makes you quite ill for a few days. You will get diarrhea or vomiting, or both, and will be weak and ill for usually 24 to 72 hours.
This Noro virus, I have been told by our trainers onboard, is one of the most common stomach bugs on the planet. It is not harmless because it makes you sick, but unless you have a previous illness, or are very old it isn’t something that is going to do you much harm at all. It’s like a bout of stomach flu, certainly not a good time, but nothing to live in fear of.
But if that’s true, you may ask, why all the press about it and why do the cruise ships have all these procedures and protocols and secret codes (level red) in place? It’s because a cruise ship is an enclosed environment with many people inside it. Noro spreads rapidly and easily, normally through hand to mouth contact, and so a few days at sea when the virus is onboard and nobody is leaving the ship can see a rapid spread amongst the population.
What happens on most cruise ships is pretty simple and standard. At embarkation you fill out a health questionnaire. It will ask you if you have vomited or had diarrhea in the past little while. You shouldn’t lie about it because saying yes does NOT mean you can not cruise or that you will be put in quarantine. It means the ships doctor is going to come out and ask you some question’s and assess you. So if he comes out and you tell him that yes you DID have diarrhea this morning but then again last night for dinner you ate the hottest spiced curry you ever had in your life and chased it with 6 bottles of beer, then I think he will pretty much call the “all clear” on you. They also eliminate travel sickness, and other things. If they think it is warranted, they will ask you to go into quarantine for 24 hours (maybe more) as soon as you board the ship. Just as a precaution. You should agree to this without complaint because if the doctor thinks you might NOT stay in your cabin for the period of time he has asked he will deny you boarding, and yes, they are able to do that.
If you are onboard and you come down with symptoms the same thing happens. You see the doctor, he clears you or puts you in quarantine for a period, and the “sanitization” begins. This just means your cabin will be treated or “fogged”. This means a team of guys in hazmat looking uniforms come in and use a special virus killing cleaner on everything. Sometimes they put in a little machine that “fogs” this cleaner in the air misting the whole cabin. They may or may not do this and more.
If there are incidents of vomiting or diarrhea in public areas of the ship you will see it treated, at least on princess ships, like a chemical spill. The area will be cordoned off, the hazmat looking guys will come in and spray and clean and sanitize and keep the area cordoned off for about 2 hours after they are done.
Should there be more than one or two cases of gastro onboard the ship will usually go into a level RED. This is not a scary horrible thing. It is a good thing. It is to prevent the gastro from spreading and ruining your cruise! It means we start doing certain things, or rather stop doing them. Crew will stop touching passengers, not even hand shakes take place. You can not serve yourself any food, crew will be banned from public area’s, you will see three times more cleaners in the public areas all cleaning like mad with virus killing cleaner and little masks and gloves on. Basically level red means we try and reduce the amount of person to person contact, person to food item contact, person to physical item contact as much as possible until there are no more cases reported to the medical clinic. Then we go back to green level.
It’s important to realize not all gastrointestinal illness onboard a ship is Norwalk. It might be reaction to the travel, the food or any number of other things. But we treat it all as if it WAS Norwalk. Also, most cases of Norwalk on ships originated from OUTSIDE the ship. Many cases are contracted on airplanes for example but your not on the plane long enough to see the symptoms, and so the poor cruise ships take the wrap as gastro causing menaces, but it just isn’t so.
If a cruise ship reaches a certain percentage of sick passengers, and I honestly don’t know that number, but I think its around ten percent (3% before you report it to CDC) then the ship will be stopped like Sea Princess. Passengers sent home and the whole ship will be sanitized. They do this because it will become an endless cycle otherwise. The virus will be alive onboard and pass from one cruise to the next. I have heard stories of older ships from the past that had Noro onboard for years.
Tips to protect yourself? Wash your hands ALLOT! And stop sticking your fingers in your mouth! That’s about all you can really do in my opinion. I live onboard and I don’t live in fear of it. There is ONE bit of advice they give to passengers which I think is REALLY STUPID advice. They say to not hold the hand railings on the ships stairwells! You’re on a ship that moves. Would you rather risk a broken neck, paralysis and even death from a bad fall than have a little diarrhea? For god’s sake hold the hand rail, especially in bad seas, and then go wash your hands before you eat.
If you’re wondering, yes, crew gets quarantined as well if we show symptoms. In fact if we have ANY indication in the slightest of diarrhea OR vomiting we MUST report to clinic and we WILL be quarantined for 24 to 72 hours. If you do NOT go and they find out you are fired. It is a simple rule. We are VERY careful onboard.
Oh by the way, you should not worry about reporting the symptoms of gastrointestinal illness to the ships medical center because all ships I have heard of do not charge for services when it is a gastro related issue.
From the Crew and Unusual punishment web site.
Frosty 4
quote:Originally posted by Frosty 4:Oh by the way, you should not worry about reporting the symptoms of gastrointestinal illness to the ships medical center because all ships I have heard of do not charge for services when it is a gastro related issue.Frosty 4
Not entirely true--I got the Virus aboard BRILLIANCE OF THE SEAS on last November's transatlantic, about the 4th day of the cruise. They admitted me to the hospital and had me hooked up to an IV for a few hours, and charged my account $405.00. (By the way my travel insurance later reimbursed me every penny, so that's a good investment!)
The following day dozens more people were being admitted for the same thing, and the ship's bulletin pleaded with people to please present themselves if they were sick, and that treatment was free. I was informed that the treatment becomes free only after a certain level has been reached (we were then at Code Red) but that I had no recourse other than filing my insurance claim.
Pam
Ultimate Bulletin BoardTM 6.1.0.3
More Vacation & Cruise Specials...