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Another Princess Norovirus Outbreak?

Written by T.I. Cruiser on February 8, 2012 · Leave a Comment

“One piece of good news for the next group of cruisers is that back to back outbreaks are relatively rare.”

I have never been afraid to admit when I am wrong, so here I stand before you, hat in hand. In my last blog entry “Two Princess Cruise Ships Suffer Norovirus Outbreak“, which was about the Norovirus outbreak onboard the Ruby Princess and Crown Princess I made a mistake. My exact words were, “One piece of good news for the next group of cruisers is that back to back outbreaks are relatively rare.” Well, it looks like I may have jinxed one of the cruise ships.

Yesterday it was announced that the Crown Princess would end its current cruise a couple of days early amid another Norovirus outbreak. This time nearly 4% of the more than 3000 passengers and 5 percent of the 1,178 crew members have taken ill. The Crown will be returning to Fort Lauderdale on Thursday, in an effort to clean-up and prevent any further outbreaks. A joint effort between the cruise line and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) will take part in a two day sterilization and sanitization project.

Cruisers who are being affected by this change in itinerary are being by Princess. Passengers will receive a full refund of their cruise fare, coverage of any airline change fees for those passengers who did not book through the cruise line, hotel accommodations if needed and a 25 percent future cruise credit. While I know none of this will be able to make up for the time lost and inconvenience of an altered/canceled vacation, I thought Princess was very fair in their compensation. Normally, I am the first to complain about a cruise line doing the bare minimum to make things right with wronged passengers, not this time. Let’s just hope this joint cleaning effort can get this problem under control before any more vacations and memories end up getting ruined.

Future voyages are expected to depart on time, beginning Saturday February 11th.

Two Princess Cruise Ships Suffer Norovirus Outbreak

Written by T.I. Cruiser on February 4, 2012 · Leave a Comment

The latest piece of negative cruise related news has to do with two of Princess Cruise’s ships suffering from an outbreak of the Norovirus. The Crown Princess and the Ruby Princess both departed from Florida last weekend with the Crown returning today and the Ruby set to dock Sunday.

As you may know, Norovirus is a common gastrointestinal illness that if not caught immediately can quickly spread. The most common symptoms of Norovirus are vomiting and diarrhea. While many often refer to Noro as a cruise illness, what they fail to report is it is far more common in so many other places. Hotel resorts, school cafeterias, assisted living facilities and even your neighborhood restaurant are just as, if not more likely to have Norovirus as any cruise ship. The difference is when a cruise ship has an outbreak it is required to report the news. Since bad news involving cruise ships is always a hot topic this sort of thing typically will spread like wildfire.

Severity of the Noro outbreak onboard the Princess ships

If you are wondering about the numbers, here they are:

Onboard the Crown Princess, out of a possible 4200 passengers and crew, approximately 140 passengers and 18 members of the crew are infected.
Onboard the Ruby Princess, out of a possible 4200 passengers and crew, 81 passengers and 9 members of the crew are infected.

Princess announced that the next sailings on both ships have been pushed back as the ships need to be fully sanitized before the next group of passengers can board. One piece of good news for the next group of cruisers is that back to back outbreaks are relatively rare. Although there isn’t much that can be done on a cruise line level in terms of preventing a Noro outbreak, they are excellent at dealing with the virus once detected. Both ships will be thoroughly scrubbed down and sanitized, a process which takes several hours. In short when these two ships finally leave port they will likely be the cleanest they have been in quite some time. Due to this process both ships will depart from Florida several hours later than scheduled.

Did a Captain’s Showboating Cause the Costa Concordia to Sink

Written by T.I. Cruiser on January 16, 2012 · Leave a Comment

So as you all know, a cruise ship, the Costa Concordia ran aground over the weekend. While the term ran aground is the technically correct way to state what happened the end result was the sinking of the ship. The reason I think it is important to use the word “sink” is because it’s a term that leaves no room for interpretation. In total the lives of 4200 people, both passenger and crew, were put in jeopardy. Thus far 5 people have been confirmed dead with more than a dozen still missing.

While I could go into details about what actually happened I figure this video will do a far better job of explaining the events than I ever could

Now the question still remains, why did the Costa Concordia “run aground”?

According to the cruise line, the cause of the accident falls squarely on the shoulders of the Costa Concordia’s Captain Francesco Schettino. According to the cruise line the accident happened because of an unauthorized deviation from the ships programmed course. This deviation caused the ship to hit the dangerous reef which lies off the Southern tip of the island which. This collision with the reef then ripped a 160 foot gash in the hull of the ship.

While we won’t know the exact events of what happened on the bridge of the Costa Concordia until the contents of the ships black box are released. There is already wide spread speculation that alludes to “showboating” as a reason for the accident. More specifically there have been rumors the captain, in an effort to entertain passengers and islanders, sailed closer to shore than what is permissible. In fact, residents of the small fishing village of Giglio said that even though the Costa Concordia makes weekly passes off the Tuscan coast they had never seen the ship so close to the reef area near the island.

Although the Cruise Line is providing legal assistance to the captain, he has been disassociated from Costa and the cruise line publicly has stated “the captain broke all of the rules and regulations”. Since the accident, CEO Pier Luigi Foschi said in his first public comments, “Capt. Schettino took an initiative of his own will which is contrary to our written rules of conduct”. Foschi then goes on to explain how all of the routes are preprogrammed with alarms that sound if the ship deviates from its course. However, those alarms become disabled if the ships course is manually altered.

In regards to the possible “showboating”, Foschi says that only once before had the company approved any “fly by” of this sort. That particular “fly by” occurred last year on the night of Aug. 9-10. However, in that instance both the port and the company had approved it.

Clearly that means any deviation from the programmed course didn’t have the authorization of the cruise line. In fact, Foschi goes on to state “This route was put in correctly upon departure from Civitavecchia,” the port outside Rome. “The fact that it left from this course is due solely to a maneuver by the commander that was unapproved, unauthorized and unknown to Costa.”

A few hours after the incident, Captain Schettino was arrested and jailed. Prosecutors are currently investigating Schettino for manslaughter, abandoning the ship and causing a shipwreck. It is expected that on Tuesday a judge will decide if the Captain is to remain in jail.

Prosecutor Francesco Verusio told reporters, “We are struck by the unscrupulousness of the reckless maneuver that the commander of the Costa Concordia made near the island of Giglio,” “It was inexcusable.”