Posted on 12/07/2025 3:44:01 PM PST by nickcarraway
We were not informed that the three immediately previous voyages on this ship all had norovirus outbreaks. Our voyage had 1400 passengers, and 400-450 of us, my wife and I included, came down with norovirus. That's about 30% victims. All of us were confined to our rooms for three days.
When I called Chase to make a claim on our vacation insurance, the clerk informed me that we were the 39th claim. That's on one credit card company.
Candy and I had one stateroom and her mother an adjoining one. My wife came down with it first, 3-4 days out, with the usual vomiting and diarrhea immediately after we woke up. I took her mother to breakfast but Candy was gone when we returned to our rooms, so I went to the pursers’ office to ask for help locating her. The purser told me about the norovirus outbreak, that this was the fourth in four consecutive days, what regulations applied to dealing with it, and that Candy was confined to our room for three days.
My mother-in-law had just come out of a week in the hospital for dehydration from a urinary tract infection. I was terrified for her because she was weakened and could easily die from norovirus. And very, very angry at Pacific Cruise’s concealment of the three prior outbreaks. I’d have cancelled to protect Candy’s mother had I known of that, along with scores or hundreds of other passengers, which is why Pacific Cruises concealed it.
So I did a Columbo/Peter Falk imitation. Walking away, then turning around,
“Oh miss, another thing.”
“May I help you, sir?”
Real loud, so the 10-15 passengers in the area could hear every word,
“IF YOU HEAR OF A SIXTY YEAR-OLD WOMAN BITING PEOPLE, IT’S PROBABLY MY WIFE. A ZOMBIE OUTBREAK ON A CRUISE SHIP COULD BE VERY BAD!”
I emailed something like this to my friends, one of whom is science-fiction writer John Ringo, and have long wondered if that was the origin of his Black Tide Rising zombie series.
I came down with norovirus three days after my wife did. Her mother never developed it, and had a grand time. We saw whales during one lunch.
Noro is a life altering event lol
Walk into the bathroom, smell a fart or some crap...and you have it. Assuming of course the effluent was contaminated.
It spreads through the air, if you smell sh!t it could get you.
I think it's nasty. Especially having to eat at a buffet. Never been to a cruise so far. I think I'll prefer a yacht (if I can afford it)
Don't give up hope.
They’re rife with serial killers just waiting to push a drunk off the poop deck.
Such fun!
Makes sense because, according to the article, the outbreak started after the ship stopped at several US ports and symptoms got bad just as the ship was pulling into Cozumel, Mexico.
By the way, I just got off a cruise ship in Galveston this morning. I was in Cozumel yesterday.
I am fine, but the wife caught a cold: sore throat, coughing, sneezing...no fever. She tested negative for Covid, flu, and RSV. She definitely doesn't have Norovirus, or I'd know it.
“ Especially having to eat at a buffet.”
You absolutely don’t have to eat at the buffet.
masks no big deal for us. There were less viruses floating in air from other passengers.
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