A month ago, we last discussed gastrointestinal illness (GI) outbreaks on cruise ships when Cunard Line’s Queen Mary 2 and Seabourn Cruise Line’s Seabourn Encore both sickened 226 passengers and crew members. These two outbreaks brought the total number of CDC-reportable cruise ship-related illnesses to twelve for 2025. Since that time, a lot
Due to cuts by the Trump Administration, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is now lacking the staff and resources to continue cruise ship health inspections under the Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP).
“Restructuring plans” by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK, Jr.) wiped out
The MSC Seaside failed a recent health inspection conducted by inspectors at Port Canaveral with a score of just 67. Such a low score is virtually unheard of. There have been only three lower USPH inspection scores in the last twenty years, all involving smaller ships from lesser or hardly known cruise lines. A couple
Carnival Cruise Lines has been in the news lately with four of its cruise ships failing sanitation inspections in the last two months and a total of five ships failing USPH inspections in the last year.
The Carnival Vista (79), Carnival Breeze (77), Carnival Triumph (78), and the Carnival Liberty (80) all recently failed USPH
After miserably failing the December 2, 2017 sanitation inspection by the United States Public Health (USPH) last month, the USPH re-inspected the Carnival Vista today at the port of Miami. The Carnival cruise ship passed the re-inspection with a score of only 88, three points above the failing score of 85.
The December 2nd sanitation
The purpose of the Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is to assist the cruise ship industry to "prevent and control the introduction, transmission, and spread of gastrointestinal (GI) illnesses on cruise ships." VSP operates under the authority of the U.S. Public Health Service Act.
USPH sanitation inspectors
Another Carnival cruise ship officially failed a recent sanitation inspection today.
I first learned that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) finally published the failed score for the Carnival Liberty upon reading the Miami Herald’s article written by Chabeli Herrera titled Another Carnival cruise was caught with dirty conditions. That makes four in two months
The Centers for Disease Control Prevention (Vessel Sanitation Program) has given failing scores to two cruise ships following inspections this summer.
The Regent’s Seven Seas Navigator and Un-Cruise Adventures’ Safari Endeavour flunked the CDC’s sanitation inspections.
Regent’s Seven Seas Navigator scored a dismal score of 79. You can read the report here.
The Safari
Last December, I wrote an article about the practice of certain cruise lines which hide dirty pots & pans and cooking equipment from U.S. health inspectors. The article, which focused on the MSC Poesia, is entitled "Hide & Seek" – Cruise Lines Play Games With USPH Inspectors.
After I published that article, several