More than 3,000 passengers aboard the Crown Princess cruise ship are coming home early because of another novovirus, the second outbreak to hit a Princess Cruise Lines ship in recent days and the third to hit cruise industry in the last week.
The ship ended its voyage two days early when it was ordered back two to Port Everglades on Tuesday for an extensive two-day cleaning, Princess Cruise Lines said in a statement that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed a widespread outbreak of the gastrointestinal illness onboard and that the ship is expected to return around 7 a.m. Thursday.
Nearly 60 crew members and 114 passengers have reported illness on the current voyage even though the ship was decontaminated for the current sailing after nearly 400 people became ill on the previous voyage, according to the cruise company.
"We sincerely regret having to cut short our passengers' cruise vacations because of this highly unusual situation. We will, of course, be refunding their cruise fare, arranging flights home, including covering change fees if air was not booked through Princess, providing hotel accommodation if necessary, and offering a 25% future cruise credit," the cruise line said.
Princess Cruise Lines is working with the CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program to combat what health officials suspect is norovirus.
Symptoms of norovirus are upset stomach, vomiting and diarrhea, which is the most common cause of gastroenteritis in the U.S., according to CDC. The virus spreads from person to person through contaminated food or water or by touching tainted surfaces.
The cleaning will include "thorough sanitization of all public spaces and surfaces including soft furnishing and carpets, railings, door handles and the like," Princess said, and staterooms will be cleaned more than once before the next sailing set to depart as scheduled on Saturday.
Another Princess cruise ship, the Ruby Princess, also had a recent outbreak of gastrointestinal illness, and more than 100 cases of illness had been reported during a sailing that had returned to port over the weekend.
Published by Medicaldaily.com
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