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A Seattle news station King5.com reports today that norovirus sickened 100 people on Princess Cruises' Sapphire Princess cruise ship based in Seattle. 

As we have reported in prior blogs,  the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concludes that whereas "person to person" transmission of norovirus has been documented, "norwalk gastroenteritis is transmitted by the fecal-oral route via contaminated water and foods."  The FDA reports that "water is the most common source of outbreaks and may include water from municipal supplies, well, recreational lakes, swimming pools, and water stored aboard cruise ships."

But Julie Benson (right), the PR person for Princess Cruises, blamed passengers for probably carrying Norovirus on board the cruise ship.

Of course, there is no proof of this.  Ms. Benson is just a PR person and a script reader - not a doctor, scientist or epidemiologist.  It is part of the cruise industry's play book to always blame the passengers for bringing norovirus aboard.  It is far more likely - according to the FDA - that there is contaminated food or water on the cruise ship.  How did Ms. Benson figure out that the passengers brought the virus aboard, rather than poor hygiene by the crew or infected food or water?  The outbreak has not even been investigated by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

The CDC database for cruise ship norovirus outbreaks is here. 

Blame-the-passengers is just the script that poor Ms. Benson has to read.

Passengers suffered through norovirus on several cruises on the the Grand Princess just last month.  You can read about those cases here and here.  One of the problems with Princess is that the cruise line charges passengers around a $100 just for a nurse to come to the cabin when a passenger is infected with norovirus.  Some passengers didn't report their illnesses to avoid the excessive charges for "medical treatment."  At the same time, Princess didn't  try to sanitize cabins where no one reported an illness, as reported by this passenger.  This may have led to additional outbreaks on the next cruise.  

The passenger also thought that the public toilets on the cruise ships may be a problem.  Disease experts have inspected toilets on cruise ships in the past, with disgusting results: Cruise Ship Norovirus - Clean the Damn Toilets!  

Lawyers in the U.K. are suing the cruise line for improper cleaning procedures aboard the Grand Princess.  The litigation is being handled by U.K. lawyers, Irwin Mitchell which specializes in travel law in England.  The firm is demanding that passengers are informed of health risks on the cruise ship in advance of it sailing and given the choice of continuing their holiday, choosing an alternative or getting their money back.  According to the Guardian newspaper, the Irwin Mitchell lawyers criticized that Princess is only devoting two hours for "extra cleaning:"

"The fact that this liner has been allowed to set sail again so quickly is astounding given the reports of such widespread illness on the preceding cruise .  .  .  For maximum effect this would normally have taken at least two days. I struggle to see how a fully effective deep-clean of such a large ship could be achieved in a few short hours."

For other articles about the cruise ship sickness, norovirus, in general read here.    

Were you aboard the Sapphire Princess or Grand Princess during these recent norovirus outbreaks?  Were more passengers and crew infected than reported?  How did the cruise line handle the problem?  Please leave your comments below. 

Don't forget to watch the video below:  

June 8, 2010 Update:

AOL Travel published an article "Sick Ship in Europe and Alaska" about the Sapphire Princess as well as Celebrity's Constellation, where norovirus infected at least 204 passengers and 34 crew members.  A comment by one reader: "What they don't tell you is Norovirus is often a food-borne illness. Food is cruise line's stock and trade. They don't want you to know that it may be coming from the kitchen!"

Credits:

Video          King5.com

 Julie Benson              Twitter.com

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I'll admit it.  David Foster Wallace's "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" is one of the funniest, albeit most cynical, books ever written about the cruise industry.  So when I read Benjamin Errett's recent article in Canada's National Post entitled "The Indignity of Weak Coffee - A Deeply Cynical Account of an Alaskan Cruise," I knew that I had found a kindred spirit.   

Mr. Errett spends a week aboard Princess' Sapphire Princess celebrating his Dad's 60th birthday. Realizing that he is not Princess' "target market" because he is 30 years too young and as many pounds too light, he creates his '10 Wonderful Things About An Alaskan Cruise."  A couple of highlights:

#3  "The portly fellow who walked into the gym with an olive-clogged martini in hand, surveyed the sweaty treadmillers and laughed aloud." 

#4  "Watching fellow passengers pile their plates high with rashes of congealed bacon." He warns "don't look at them.  Grab a banana and get out . . . "

#8  "Lax smuggling policies . . .  leading to the half-sad, half-funny sight of well-to-do Americans pouring Kahlua into empty 2-litre Pepsi bottles behind the port liquor store."

Some people like cruising. Others, like Mr. Errett, feel more like a "tourist herded into shops, sold piles of junk and ultimately having a Disney-like experience."

If Sartre is correct that "hell is other people," then a week aboard the Sapphire Princess sounds to me like a scene from "No Exit." 

Photo credit:

Photo of Sapphire Princess    Barbara Bagnell (via National Post)

Photo of Sartre's "No Exit"     Lungstruck's  Flickr photostream

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Neighbors of Ms. Edelgard Carney who disappeared from the Princess Cruises' Sapphire Princess indicate that she never intended to return home once she left California.  

Vancouverite, a newspaper in Vancouver, Canada, reports that Ms. Carney sold her $300,000 house to the Catholic Church for just $125,000, left her furniture and disposed of her personal belongings.  

If in fact this is a suicide, it seems to be very painful to the surviving family members for a loved one to choose this method to end her life.

The cruise line has been careful not to release self serving comments regarding Ms. Carney's disappearance.  In August, following the disappearance of passenger Amber Malkuch in Alaskan waters, Holland America Line (HAL) issued a PR statement labeling her death a probable suicide. There were no facts supporting this theory and the FBI had not even concluded its investigation.  HAL was roundly and rightfully criticized for such a publicity spin. In this case, Princess Cruises is going to avoid that PR debacle by waiting for an announcement by the U.S. Coast Guard or Canadian authorities.

Questions remain why Princess Cruises did not detect the passenger overboard earlier.  The newspaper indicates that the cruise line caused confusion after telling the U.S. Coast Guard that the passenger fell overboard on Monday when she actually disappeared on Tuesday.  This caused the U.S. Coast Guard to search nearer to the Alaskan Coastline rather Canadian authorities searching in Canadian waters.    

Update:

According to the Vancouver Sun, a representative of the Canada's Royal Canadian Mounted Police has concluded that this appears to be a suicide: “She was by herself, and the video shows her jumping off.”

The newspaper states that Ms. Carney had a life-threatening illness.

The video is reported to show Ms. Carney jumping off of the stern of the cruise ship.

A commenter to out blog previously noted that while on this cruise ship he noticed: "video cameras similar to ones used in our apartment bldg. pointing across/down on the stern of the ship ostensibly to view the rear waters area."

Although Ms. Carney is reported to have jumped Tuesday morning, it took Princess Cruises until Thursday afternoon to even find the video. Either Princess Cruises does not have a policy to monitor their exterior cameras or no one was paying attention. 

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The U.S. Coast Guard is now reporting that the missing California passenger, Ms. Edelgard Carney, went overboard at 6:08 a.m. Tuesday, 200 miles south of Ketchikan.  An announcement with such a specific time obviously means that there are closed circuit surveillance tapes which captured images which precisely document the time the passenger went overboard.

Previously, news sources reported that Ms. Carney disappeared on Monday evening.

There is technology available to the cruise industry for surveillance cameras to be triggered by motion with an alarm being immediately sent to the bridge to alert the cruise ship's officers that a passenger has gone overboard.  This system would capture the video and permit immediate notification of the emergency. Tracking devices would drop into the water so that the exact location of the passenger overboard could be determined.

Some - but certainly not all - cruise lines employ "surveillance camera operators" whose job descriptions require that the cameras be monitored 24 hours for passenger safety and security.  Are these cameras and their operators focused on the rails on the port and starboard sides of the cruise ship?  Or are they focused just on the casino or other similar locations to prevent theft of the cruise ship's money?

There are no regulations which apply to foreign flagged cruise ships regarding this issue.  They pretty much do whatever they want.  What are Princess Cruises' polices and procedures? 

Princess Cruises provides a low tech cam from the bridge of the Sapphire Princess on its web site for customers to take a look & see.  Are their crew members monitoring the surveillance cameras on the ship?  

Has Princess Cruises made a decision to utilize technology for immediate notification of passenger over boards?  If not, why not?   

Photo credit:

Sapphire Princess Bridge Cam         Princess Cruises

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