For 2699 US dollars (2470 euros) you get a 14-day cruise with all inclusive. Including fancy food, including spa visits, including beautiful places – and including gastrointestinal illness. At least that’s how a journey ended on the New Amsterdam, a Holland America Line cruise ship, for 160 of the 1970 passengers. Instead of seeing the big city of Vancouver or the snow-capped mountains in Whittier, Alaska, as they had planned on their tour of Canada’s west coast, at least these passengers got a good use of their room. For those with a balcony cabin maybe not so bad. The ship’s Pinnacle Suite, for example, is 126 square meters and has two toilets. But if you found a seat in a 13 square meter inside cabin without a window, the tour must have become double the agony.
This year alone there have been 11 such outbreaks on ships traveling the United States. The number of gastrointestinal diseases on cruise ships has thus reached the pre-crisis level. That number hasn’t been as high since 2018 as that American Center for Disease Control and Prevention notes. Every gastrointestinal illness on board a ship must be reported to them if at least three percent of the passengers and crew are ill. With huge cruise ships, which now ship up to 6410 people around the world, like that Allure of the Seas for example, one can hardly imagine for how many the dream ship has become a nightmare ship.
A good sign, say the tour operators
However, tour operators see the numbers as a good sign. They conclude from the high number of infections that cruises are booming again. And anyway, vacationers obviously know what to expect on the cruise. Because the disease is so widespread that cruise bloggers who test cruise ships professionally are now explaining what you should consider in order to escape the disease as best as possible: wash your hands, avoid contact with sick people and only drink clean water. You would think that after a pandemic like this, everyone would have learned how to protect themselves from diseases. 1,503 people on cruise ships whose itinerary was the United States may have forgotten it by now – after all, the peak of the pandemic was a while ago. And ladles at the buffet or sun loungers by the pool, which are rarely cleaned but often used, are particularly popular with the virus.
Cruise vacationers most often fall ill with the so-called norovirus, which causes gastrointestinal diseases. As a rule, the disease is easily overcome. It still takes up to 14 days to get completely healthy – and then the holiday is already over. That’s up to 14 polo shirts that can never be carried out on bingo night. And on top of that almost 2500 euros for a hotel room with sea effect. Passengers don’t want to sit on them. writes like this one in the comment column a cruise blog, for example, that his wife had to go through such a gastrointestinal illness. She was “tied to the bed for three days”. On their return, the couple received 50 euros in compensation. “I see that as a kind of acknowledgment of guilt, but it’s not enough for me. Could I ask for a real refund, three days at 80 euros?” he asks. But bad news: In this case, there is no right to compensation.
A doctor wrote on the other hand, she would never have recommended such a trip to her patients. She had hoped that perhaps the pandemic would abolish the cruise line. In this way, at least the climate goals would be achieved, she writes. However, the increasing number of infections point in the opposite direction. So make sure you have enough rusks when you go on your next cruise.