Cruise ships and cleanliness
Ships failed inspections at highest rate ever in 2017.
Cruise lines have never had a cleanliness problem this big.
In 2017, cruise lines failed their sanitation inspections at the highest rate ever since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vessel Sanitation Program started holding cruise ships to its Operations Manual guidelines in 1990.
Fifteen ships earned failing scores last year, a figure that dwarfs the average failure rate of about two to four ships a year, a Miami Herald analysis of the CDC’s historical inspection data found. The only year that comes close to 2017’s all-time-high figure is 2013, with 10 failures. In 2016, just four ships flunked their inspections, and from 2009 to 2011, there was only one failure a year.
In 2017, the failures included five cruise ships from Doral-based Carnival Cruise Line, one from Miami-based Norwegian Cruise Line, one from Miami-based Oceania Cruises and one from Deerfield Beach-based Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line. A Caribbean ferry, Ferries Del Caribe’s Kydon, failed its inspection twice.
Carnival has been quick to respond, adding staff training and changing procedures even though they face no legal penalties. Still, the line says, the failures correspond with a greater emphasis on administrative details during inspections that don’t necessarily reflect a ship’s cleanliness.
The increase in incidents follows a significant increase in the size of the global fleet. In 2017, the number of cruise ships increased by about 6 percent from
nearly 450 ships in 2016. But the spike in failures is still unusual, said Ross Klein, a professor at the School of Social Work at Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada, who tracks cruise ship outbreaks, health issues and other factors.
“We can say it’s the worst year, but also the best because it means inspectors are doing their jobs,” Klein said.
There were a total of 255 inspections in 2017, with the majority of ships passing their inspections. Fortyone ships got perfect scores, accounting for about 16 percent of all inspections. The spike in failures, though more elevated than in recent years, still only accounts for 6 percent of all inspections in 2017.
What triggered the increase remains unclear.
When asked about the reasons behind the trend, VSP Chief Commander Aimee Treffiletti said via a statement that, “VSP does not routinely evaluate frequency or trend of specific violation categories.”
Carnival Cruise Line, which snagged headlines when its ships failed four inspections from November 2017 to January 2018, said it has now implemented an intensive, fleet-wide retraining process to avoid further failures. Carnival has passed two re-inspections out of the four so far, with inspections on the other two ships forthcoming.
“All retraining is complete across our fleet. We have implemented continuing education, as well as biweekly conference calls for all of our food operations teams to share best practices and learnings,” the cruise line said in a statement.
Cruise expert Stewart Chiron said the failures may be a result of more “aggressive” inspections.
“I’m unaware of any internal personnel changes and know that no excuses have been offered up by Carnival during recent discussions,” Chiron said.
The Vessel Sanitation Program randomly inspects ships that dock at U.S. ports at least twice a year to help control the spread of gastrointestinal illnesses like norovirus. The program first launched in 1975 but didn’t begin to hold ships to its VSP Operations Manual guidelines until 1990.
Vessels are scored on a 100-point scale. A score of 85 or below is considered failing.
All ships cited with violations are required to submit a Corrective Action Report detailing how they corrected the problems; vessels that fail are re-inspected “within a reasonable period of time,” Treffiletti said. But a ship that fails an inspection a second time or a cruise line that has a string of failures faces few legal consequences.
Most violations recorded on inspections are seemingly harmless, like corroded machinery or water pooling. Some are more significant and in some cases even show an intent from crew members to disguise the true condition of a vessel.
As recently as Dec. 2, an inspection of the Carnival Vista while the ship was docked in Miami found that crew had made an “organized effort” to hide potentially hazardous food, raw produce, utensils and other items in a crew cabin hallway and a crew cabin to avoid inspection. During several inspections in 2017, crew members were also found clocking back into work even though they showed symptoms of acute gastroenteritis.
Klein said the inspection failures may reflect turnover within the Vessel Sanitation Program and within the cruise lines, which have grown exponentially in the last decade with larger ships.
That rapid growth may have diluted the talent pool of employees on cruise lines who have extensive experience working on ships, he said.
Most workers are hired from Asian nations where cruise-ship jobs are highly coveted. But previous hospitality experience is not always required, say experts. The cruise lines train the workers once they are hired, Klein said. Across the hospitality industry, hotels, restaurants and other entities are feeling the squeeze of a labor shortage as such businesses continue to grow.
“I can’t see how the cruise industry would escape the erosions we have seen elsewhere in the service industry,” he said.
But the Cruise Lines International Association refutes the claim that staffing challenges have led to inspection failures. Cruise ship jobs remain very popular, said CLIA spokeswoman Catharine Montgomery in a statement, with lines receiving up to 100 applications for each job opening.
“In addition to their salary, crew members typically receive free medical care, room and board, meals and many other benefits that are often unavailable in their home countries,” Montgomery said. “Crew members are very satisfied with their jobs and the opportunities for career advancement, which explains why employee retention rates in the cruise industry are upwards of 80 percent.”