Illness Outbreak On Celebrity Cruise Ship

What happens when gastrointestinal illness strikes a cruise ship? Where do you go? Where do you turn for help? Passengers on board a recent voyage of the Celebrity Mercury learned the answers to these questions through a firsthand experience this past February.

According to an article on usatoday.com, over 400 passengers and crew members on board the Mercury suffered from upset stomachs, diarrhea, and vomiting caused by an outbreak of norovirus on the ship headed to the Caribbean from South Carolina. The ship, carrying 2,600 total passengers, left on February 15th, 2010. Celebrity Cruise spokesperson Cynthia Martinez said that "only 31 passengers were expected to be in isolation in their rooms when the vessel makes its scheduled arrival in Charleston on early Friday." The crew has conducted enhanced cleaning of the ship to prevent further spreading of the illness, she said. An extra doctor and two nurses were brought on board in St. Kitts, in the Leeward Islands, and sailed back to Charleston.

Health officials have reported twice as many norovirus outbreaks than normal this winter in South Carolina, the state where Mercury departed from. Officials report that the virus can stay on surfaces like door knobs and handrails, and that it can spread quickly. According to the Center for Disease Control, there were two cases of norovirus outbreaks on the Celebrity Mercury last winter. The agency reported 15 total outbreaks of gastrointestinal virus on American cruise ships in 2009. To view the full article, click here: http://bit.ly/chTFmX

Though I'm BEYOND excited to go on my first cruise in just a few short weeks, illness outbreak on the ship is one thing that I would say I'm worried about if I absolutely had to pick something that made me nervous about cruising. I'm sure that Royal Caribbean does a great job keeping their cruise ships clean though, and that illness outbreak isn't something that I need to be too worried about. I would be interested to see if they have a crisis communication plan designed for illness outbreak though. I hope they do! Have any of you veteran cruisers experienced the spread of illness on any of your voyages or do you know of anyone who has? If so, how did they deal with the situation? How did the cruise line handle the crisis?