Scary Cruise Ships

Like all sectors of the travel industry, cruises get good publicity and bad publicity and it's all just part of the mix. But aside from the continuing hype surrounding the Oasis of the Seas, it seems like in the last few weeks, the cruise lines just can't catch a break. Three stories of hell on the high seas:

1. Disease: Norovirus is on the rise, according to MSNBC and the CDC. So far there have been eight suspected outbreaks on six different ships this year, compared to nine confirmed cases (plus another six cases of unknown or varying origin) in all of 2009. Queen Victoria passengers were sick for most of January while Celebrity Mercury guests were struck both in February and March. If you look at the CDC list, you'll see the outbreaks often happen on the same ships - the Mercury, for one, had multiple outbreaks last year and in 2006 - which is no surprise, considering how hard norovirus is to get rid of. (And egads, I see I just missed an outbreak over Christmas - I worked on two of the company's three ships, and the third one had it.)

Norovirus is the last thing you want to contract, from what I've heard. I worked on a cruise ship at the beginning of 2001 and we had a lengthy norovirus outbreak - interestingly, the ship did not make the CDC list for that year. Perhaps because we were far away in South America?* Or perhaps it was because we were instructed to deny, deny, deny when any passenger asked: No sir, you're mistaken - the dining rooms are all closed because all the guests are off on tour...not sick in their beds along with half the staff. (Yeah, I was never able to look anyone in the eye and say that.) I never got it, thank God - I always chalked it up to the fact that my roommate and I didn't interact with that many people, since we were also co-workers (and just the two of us) and we worked in an isolated area on Deck 11 and there were almost no kids onboard. We pretty much hid out in our room for a month.

*As I was looking at links for point three, I read Gene Sloan's blog post on the Mercury. He mentions that a Royal Caribbean ship has reportedly had an outbreak on a South America itinerary but that that it's not being tracked by the CDC. Which totally makes sense - I'm pretty sure they only get involved when the ship docks in a U.S. port during the cruise. (Which in turn makes me wonder...as cruise ships shift to more exotic itineraries, a current trend, have there been far more cases than people realize?)

2. Freak Waves: At the beginning of the month, two passengers were killed and another 14 injured when a 26-foot-high wave hit the Louis Majesty as it made its way from Barcelona to Genoa. (I worked on the Louis Majesty when it was the Norwegian Majesty, for the better part of 2001, incidentally right after I got off the norovirus ship.) The "rogue" wave broke some of the windows in a public area, and according to the NY Post story and the cruise line's spokesman, the two passengers "suffered fatal injuries from the glass shards and ripped-out window frames and furniture."

I'm surprised (and saddened) by the fatalities but the freak wave thing though, not so freak. While it's never been something I've worried about, off the top of my head I can think of several incidents where high waves broke windows on either the tender or the ship. Over Christmas, one of the ships I worked on had a shattered (but still intact) window on the bridge - so we're talking, like, Deck 10 - that occured the week before, during an Atlantic crossing.

3. (More) Fatalities: Maybe it's because of Twitter (and thus, the availability of small news stories) but I feel like I have seen a LOT of stories lately involving cruise ship fatalities. USAToday.com reported two weeks ago that three crew members were killed when the Costa Europa slammed into the pier at Sharm El-Sheikh while it was trying to dock in the early morning hours. (Incidentally, the Carnival Miracle ran into the pier in St. Kitts at the end of January, causing a 15-foot gash though no injuries were reported.)

A few days before the Europa incident, a passenger was killed in Tortola when the tour bus flipped over during a cruise ship excursion. Two others were reported to be seriously injured. A few days before that, a Texas woman named was found dead on the Carnival Ecstasy and the FBI is now involved. Kipi Holcomb was apparently traveling with her boyfriend and the first story I read suggested domestic violence; however, now it seems like that version is being refuted (though incidentally by the same source). Okay, this is depressing me so I'm going to stop now.


I was going to end on a cheerful note but I can't think of anything to say, so I'm just going to go watch Grey's Anatomy now.