Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Oasis of the Seas returning after 277 hit with norovirus
Nearly 300 passengers on one of the world’s largest cruise ships are seeing their vacations cut short after a norovirus outbreak spread through Royal Caribbean International’s Oasis of the Seas.
About 3.3 percent of the ship, or 277 passengers and crew, were impacted by the outbreak — enough that the ship is turning back a day early and returning to Port Canaveral on Saturday, according to Royal Caribbean spokesman Owen Torres.
All of the ship’s guests will get full refunds for their cruise fare paid, Torres said.
“We think the right thing to do is to get everyone home early rather than have guests worry about their health,” he said in a statement. “Returning on Saturday also gives us more time to completely clean and sanitize the ship before her next sailing. Our guests sail with us to have great vacations, and we are sorry this cruise fell short.”
The ship departed from Port Canaveral on Sunday and was supposed to be a seven-night Caribbean cruise to Labadee, Haiti, Falmouth, Jamaica and Cozumel, Mexico. Oasis will miss the Mexico stop.
Norovirus, which most commonly causes vomiting and diarrhea, is spread through contaminated food, surfaces and through contact with people who have it.
On social media, passengers said they were not allowed to disembark in Jamaica no Tuesday due to the outbreak. Videos posted on Twitter show crew members sanitizing handrails by the pool area.
Shawn Popeleski, a 19-year-old from Vermont sailing on Oasis, told the Orlando Sentinel that he and his family were notified via a letter on Wednesday that there was norovirus onboard.
“In an abundance of caution, we have implemented
enhanced sanitizing procedures on board ...You will likely see some of these activities throughout our sailing, as we are taking all steps necessary to maintain our high health standards,” Royal Caribbean wrote in a letter to guests.
Cruise ships often get attention when they have a norovirus outbreak because they are expected to report them to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention any time the amount of passengers affected surpasses 2 percent of the total passenger count. The CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program posts incidents on its website when the outbreaks include more than 3 percent of the passengers onboard.
“They are held to a standard that, frankly, not everyone else is held to,” said Colleen McDaniel, senior executive editor of Cruise Critic, a popular cruise review website. “Often when there is a norovirus outbreak, it is because somebody brought it on board with them, likely a passenger.”
Oasis’ outbreak is the first to meet the threshold for CDC reporting in 2019 — and the first outbreak of that scale for the ship. According to the CDC’s report, the predominant symptom on Oasis has been vomiting, and the cruise line is trying to contain the outbreak by increasing its cleaning and disinfection procedures and taking samples from passengers affected.
The Vessel Sanitation Program, which oversees cruise ship cleanliness and inspects ships to reduce the spread of illnesses like norovirus, will send personnel on board to investigate the reason for the outbreak. Oasis of the Seas has passed every sanitation inspection since its first in 2010.
Every year, about a dozen mass norovirus outbreaks are cataloged by the CDC. The figure has decreased since 2012, when a novel strain of norovirus emerged, causing a spike in the number of outbreaks.
For Popeleski, who didn’t get sick on the trip, there is a silver lining despite the interruption to his vacation.
“I’m still having a good time,” he said. “Anything beats the cold weather in Vermont.”