Cruise Law News : Maritime Lawyer & Attorney : James M. Walker : Walker & O'Neill Law Firm : Admiralty Law, Cruise Ship Accidents & Injuries

Two cruise ships operated by Princess Cruises are sailing into South Florida have well over 200 passengers experiencing norovirus like symptoms - nausea, diarrhea and vomiting.

The Crown Princess arrived in Port Everglades today with 140 ill passengers and an additional 18 sick crewmembers.

Tomorrow, the Ruby Princess will arrive at port in Fort Lauderdale with 90 infected passengers and 13 sick crewmembers.

The "official" reported cases are usually far less than the actual number of cases, we have found.

PR people for Princess, as usual, are talking about subjecting the cruise ships to "enhanced cleaning" of  "high-touch surfaces like railings, door handles and elevator buttons" and "encouraging passengers to use correct hand washing procedures and enhancing this with the use of hand sanitizing gels placed throughout the ship."

At this point, there is no indication whether ill passengers boarded the cruise ships and sickened others, or whether ill crew handling food sickened the passengers, or whether the food or water sickened the passengers and crew.

The other month I was interviewed in a travel publication and discussed the problem of norovirus on cruise ships in an article entitled "When Bugs Swim."  Cruise lines Ike Princess always blame the passengers and suggest that they need to wash their hands more or use hand sanitizers which are not effective at combating norovirus.  

Cruise lines never admit that their own crew, or the the cruise food or water, may be the culprits.  Many attempts at cleaning by the crew actually make the problem worse, particularly when the source of the virus is the cruise line's food and water and then the vomitted norovirus is spread by rags which the crew rub all over the ship. 

This is the fourth sickness outbreak reported on a cruise ship this year, according tp the CDC.

If you were on these cruises, please leave a comment below and let us know how the cruise line handled these two outbreaks.

February 5 2012 Update:

CNN reports that the number affected on these two cruise ships is around 500.

Photo Credit:   CBS-12

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The U.S. Coast Guard medevaced an ill passenger from the Queen May 2 cruise ship off of the coast of North Carolina.

The video below shows the the skilled crew of a Coast Guard Jayhawk helicopter lifting a 64 year old woman from the deck of the QM2 cruise ship.  The passenger was suffering from severe abdominal pains.  The cruise ship was sailing 110 miles off the coast of Nags Head, North Carolina on December 20, 2011.  The Coast Guard flew the ill woman to a hospital in Norfolk Virginia. 

Video Credit:  U.S. Coast Guard

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One of the stories I never tire of reporting is when a Coast Guard helicopter plucks a sick cruise passenger from the deck of a cruise ship and takes the passenger ashore for emergency medical treatment.

The skill of the U.S. Coast Guard in rescuing people from cruise ships is rather remarkable. The Coast Guard can fly 200 miles out to sea to medevac ill and injured passengers and crew.  Other than England, Canada and perhaps a few other countries, you will not see anyone performing life saving heroic missions to rescue the needy on the high seas other than the U.S. Coast Guard.     

Below is a video of a Coast Guard helicopter hoisting a young woman from the deck of the Explorer cruise ship as the ship returned from a Caribbean cruise.  The helicopter took the passenger to a hospital in Key West.

At the end of the video, you can see the young lady in the rescue basket waving to the cruise ship, and kissing goodbye perhaps to a loved one below.

Video credit:  U.S. Coast Guard

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A number of news sources are reporting that yesterday the U.S. Coast Guard medevaced an ill cruise passengerman from a cruise ship to a North Carolina hospital for treatment.

The ship doctor on the Norwegian Cruise ine's Gem cruise ship notified the Coast Guard that  a 38-year-old man was going into shock. The cruise ship was reportedly about 75 miles east of Wilmington at the time.

A helicopter from the Coast Guard Air Station in Elizabeth City North Carolina then flew the man from the cruise ship to New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington.

The Coast Guard says the man was in stable condition. His name was not released.

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has listed Royal Caribbean's Radiance of the Seas as the first cruise ship in 2011 to suffer gastrointestinal illness affecting more than 2% of the vessel's passengers.

The CDC's Vessel Sanitation Program website has indicated that 150 of 2336 (6.42%) of the Royal Caribbean passengers reported being ill during the cruise on the Radiance from January 3 - 8, 2011.  The CDC information on the Radiance can be seen here. 

Tampa Local 13-News station has the headline "Sick Cruise Ship Docked at Tampa Port," indicating that vacationers on board suffered from vomiting and diarrhea. The illnesses will delay the ship from returning to sea later today. The station indicates that the cruise ship's departure will be delayed approximately five hours, until 9:30 p.m., "so crews can sanitize the vessel."

The cruise line is advising cruise passengers who have recently experienced gastrointestinal illness should reschedule their cruise.  The CDC is reporting that the cruise line's response to the outbreak is "increased cleaning and disinfection procedures." 

The CDC at this point has not determined whether norovirus is causing the outbreak, nor the source of the "causative factor."  If norovirus is involved, most outbreaks of norovirus are from food and water, not by person to person contact as the cruise lines claim. 

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."

When stories like this occur, the cruise lines blame the passengers and tell them to wash their hands. The cruise ships then spray cleaning fluids everywhere.  But no one ever reveals whether the ship's food and water have been tested and the results of the tests.

The Radiance of the Seas had norovirus outbreaks before.  One passenger took this video of nasty looking tap water on the Radiance on a prior cruise.  An equally disgusting video of brown water on a Carnival cruise ship is here.  

But the winner of the gross-cruise-tap-water award goes to Carnival and is shown here.

Does anyone have video for this cruise?

Were you on the cruise?  How did Royal Caribbean handle the situation?

January 8, 2010 Update:

Passengers on the cruise arre beginning to leave comments, below, that the ice may have been contaminated, that this was a "vacation from hell," and there were way more than 150 passenger  sick.  A few passengers say they still had a great time . . .  

Photo credit:   Tampa's 13-News Station

Video credit:  ABC News

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Celebrity Cruises is again reporting that at least 55 passengers have fallen ill on its Mercury cruise ship with norovirus-like symptoms. 

In a prior article we questioned: Will the Celebrity Mercury Infect Another Round of Passengers?

Here We Go Again

A local news source in South Carolina, the Palmetto Scoop, reports on the latest cruise ship sickness in an article entitled "Sickness Again Plagues Charleston Cruise Ship:" 

The crew of the Celebrity Cruises “Mercury” ship, which docks in Charleston, thought they had thoroughly sanitized the vessel after nearly one-quarter of the 1,800 travelers came down with a norovirus-like illness on their last voyage. 

Turns out they didn’t do a very good job.

The Mercury ship set sail from Charleston on Saturday and within days, dozens of passengers became sick.  As of Friday, 55 of the 1,880 travelers had fallen ill with the norovirus stomach bug.

Norovirus is a disease common to cruise ships because it is highly contagious and affects confined communities. The unpleasant disease usually runs its course after a day or two and spreads through food, water, or person-to-person contact.

Celebrity Cruises has based the Mercury in Charleston, South Carolina where officials have reported twice as many cases of norovirus as normal this winter. The Associated Press reports that the virus may have come aboard the cruise ship by passengers, crewmembers or infected supplies.

Celebrity Cruises is owned by Royal Caribbean Cruises whose cruise ships have experienced a large number of norovirus cases this season. 

Other Royal Caribbean Cruise Ships Experiencing Widespread Illness

The Huffington Post reports that at least 310 passengers were sickened aboard Royal Caribbean's Vision of the Seas. A spokeswoman for the Brazil's National Agency for Sanitary Vigilance stated that the sickness was caused by "some kind of food poisoning aboard"  the cruise ship.  Earlier this week, Brazil ordered all 1,987 passengers and 765 crew members to remain on the ship anchored near Rio de Janeiro.  The passengers were just recently permitted to leave the ship. 

Royal Caribbean's Jewel of the Seas and Celebrity Cruises' Millennium cruise ships have also reported of a large number of ill cruise passengers. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) 102 passengers and 14 crewmembers suffered gastrointestinal illness on the Jewel of the Seas, and 157 passengers and 23 crewmembers became ill on the Millennium. 

You can track cruise norovirus cases via the CDC has a web page which tracks "Outbreak Updates for International Cruise Ships," although not all cruise illnesses are required to be reported to the CDC.  For example, the recent outbreak of illness on the Vision of the Seas was not reported to the CDC. 

For other information about norovirus on cruise ships, consider reading Cruise Ship Norovirus - Clean the Damn Toilets!

Video:          WCSC (AP)

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