Posted on 01/10/2019 11:27:34 AM PST by C19fan
Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas is returning to a Florida port a day early and giving passengers full refunds of their fare after 277 guests and crew members were hit with an outbreak of Norovirus as it sailed to Jamaica.
Cruise line spokesman Owen Torres told The Associated Press “we think the right thing to do is get everyone home early rather than have guests worry about their health.”
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Thousands of people floating around sharing germs=a cruise from hell...
Hubby and I went on s cruise to the Bahamas, decided it sucked-trapped in a crowd of mostly complaining overweight people with bad manners-so we grabbed our luggage and ditched the cruise at the 1st stop. We wandered around on our own, found a charter flight back to Key West, rented a car and spent the rest of our vaca there-had a great time...
Cruise ships are Klingon prison ships in my opinion...
Oh-forgot to mention that was in 1988-it was like being in the herd on a cattle drive then- I can’t even imagine what it is like now...
Sleep really well, particularly in an inside cabin because it’s so dark!
Breakfast buffet or dining room. Each has it’s own benefit. Dining Room cooks to order and comes to the table hot. And you can order over and over. Buffet sometimes has outside seating and when the weather is good that is a great way to start the day.
If going off the ship we try to not go right away unless it is to a private beach (i.e.-Royal has two of those, one in Labadee, which is fantastic, and Coco Cay, which is finishing up it’s renovation and will be as good as it gets).
Activities, noshing, FREE soft ice cream, you name it. Love the sports trivia game. Lunch is kind of based on what you have a whim for. On Royal you have Cafe Promenades on the bigger ships and they tend to have finger sandwiches, great salads, prosciutto and melon, etc. Best coffee on board tends to be there too.
Dinner is nice in the dining room if you are inclined to meet new people and have conversations. It’s a favorite of mine. Last cruise our dinner ‘meets’ included a Canadian/Colombian couple, a couple from Des Moines and many more. We’re a Florida couple and my wife is Colombian, with me from NY so you get to meet a lot of interesting matches. Plenty of English on board too. One couple was Detroit/Russian wife!
The shows at night are really well done and the comedians are good too!
The single best thing to me is that time does not really matter as long as you meet the sailaway time from ports! Just bring clothes, relax and feel the tensions go away!
No cooking, no cleaning, no lifting a finger . . . just fun!
I think you’ll find they improved since then . . . :). My first ship experience was from that time period and it’s night and day since then.
Take a look at the YouTube videos from something like Norwegian Breakaway. You sound like you were on Carnival, which caters to a different demographic.
Your typical land-based American restaurant is far worse. Norovirus exists in almost every one. Except, when people go home from a restaurant and then experience vomiting and diarrhea the next day, it is not reported on the news because the cases are now widely dispersed and virtually impossible to link.
On a cruise ship, Norovirus cases are concentrated so it is extremely easy to tabulate them. Not to mention that it is also a marketing disaster for the cruise lines.
All new cruise ships funnel diners through a hand washing/sterilization station before being allowed into the dining area. I would eat cruise ship buffet before eating out in a typical American restaurant any day of the week.
Puns aside.... those who get sick are usually too sick to be out & about. If more than a nominal number get sick they may be confined to their cabins with a staff member outside their door. If MANY get sick to the point where there are not enough staff to prevent them from leaving their cabins, that’s when the ship turns around towards port and gives up.
Without trying to be a defender or attacker of cruise ships or any part of the whole idea; for every rotten story you hear about, there are literally hundreds of thousands of “no problem” stories you DON’T hear about.
I am somewhat jaded as to cruising because I spent so many months aboard, with a rather unique situation (bandleader’s wife was the cruise director) that I had almost as many priveleges as any PAX. I had almost as many privileges as the captain of the ship.
I think cruising is great if you want to completely abandon your brain and have virtually everything you could want taken care of. Some people wait so long to go on vacations that they get so burnt out that this is a good way to go. All they need to do is to remember to wash their hands like fiends. They imagine they would like to “wing it” on their own in a foreign land, but that usually requires more than trivial brainwork and if you miss connections or find out (the hard way) that the zoo is closed every third Thursday, then it’s a disappointment.
Thanks—great report!
Sounds like the food, the socializing, and the carefree relaxing are the biggest draws for you.
I’ll just take your word for it-hubby and I lived outside the city in an isolated neighborhood in the woods back then-we only did the cruise thing as something different-after that we resumed our usual habit of camping in Big Bend, Guadalupe Mountains or the mountains in New Mexico for vaca-I live in a remote rural area and a vaca is a camping trip or a stay at a cabin in the woods in the middle of nowhere-no transportation by boat or plane-just my 4x4-and I’ll leave the crowded venues to others...
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It’s less about the # of people than about the size of the ship.
Smaller ships can spread it alot faster. This was only about 3%.
Meanwhile, we rode this in ‘12; nice ride. But I generally would rather avoid the germ factory, and frankly couldn’t care less about beaches in hellholes (I actually prefer the ship).
I think it’s funny they claim they’re “coming home early”.
Big deal - Friday, when it started looking bad on Sunday. 1 day of a 7-day cruise doesn’t count.
Or, which USUALLY happens, Cuban refugees!
As on our cruise....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TrSN_5Lfbc&t=0s&list=FLKpRD_0zszQ1oaPHGck9B5g&index=16
That’s a new one. I wonder if they made it to Florida?
I don’t recall the details, but I believe they claimed they were going to Mexico (Cozumel or Cancun). Either that or the staff advised them to head that way. We all know they probably headed west before going back east! We were headed east back home and they were opposite.
But stomach viruses can be contagious up to 5 days after symptoms stop. I’m thinking people should wear gloves and masks on cruise ships other than in summer. The viruses are rampant in cooler weather. (Even if the destination is tropical, the virus comes from the trwveler’s home base or flight.)
I went on Semester at Sea and it was one of the best times in my life. Never been on a “real cruise.”
The down side of the illness reporting seems to be as follows ...
Nobody that is sick will be counted unless you shell out hundreds of $$$ and visit the ship infirmary. You are 100% healthy, even if you spend 5 days in bed in your room.
Our last sailing had half empty dining rooms the second week from folks sick in bed. Not counted.
Stay away from the Carnival Miracle. We did 2 weeks to the canal from Tampa, enjoyed 9 days. We did 3 trips on Holland America and never got sick.
On the West Coast the Cruise Lines have Ships going down to Mexico on three and four day excursions.
We went on a couple of Cruises years ago.
What got me was the fact that that the Cruise Lines turn around the Ships on the same day. You leave the Ship and the new Passengers board two hours later.
How the heck do they have the time to thoroughly clean all the facilities and Cabins in two hours?
I would think they would dock the Ship overnight and have a specialized Crew do a thorough cleaning from Stem to Stern before sending it back out on another Cruise.
Pffwwwaaap.
Not nice...
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