Cruise Ship Continues to Be Plagued with Passengers Vomiting

A cruise ship sailing to Alaska continues to be plagued with passengers and crew members having gastrointestinal illnesses that have now spread on four separate sailings over the past two months.

The CDC has also reported that the ship has paused passenger operations due to the outbreaks.

National Geographic Sea Bird, which sails with Lindblad Expeditions, has continued to fight illness outbreaks over the past couple of months.

The cruise line has reported to the CDC four separate outbreaks, two of which were confirmed as norovirus.

On the following four cruises, here is the percentage of passengers and crew members that reported having diarrhea, vomiting, and/or abdominal cramps:

• July 15 sailing: 14% of passengers, 19% of crew members
• July 10 sailing: 29% of passengers, 4% of crew members
• June 25 sailing: 28% of passengers, 7% of crew members
• May 26 sailing: 14% of passengers, 13% of crew members

I would like to note that this is a small cruise ship with a total of 90 guests and crew members onboard for most cruises.

All cruise ships that sail to and from the U.S. are under the jurisdiction of the CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP).

Cruise lines are required to report to the VSP anytime 2% or more of guests or crew members report being ill. If that threshold crosses 3%, it is officially labeled as an outbreak and posted on the CDC’s website.

In response to the outbreaks, the crew on board the ship has increased cleaning and disinfection procedures. Passengers and crew members who reported ill have been isolated, and the CDC said that the ship has paused passenger operations.

Cruise Fever has reached out to Lindblad Expeditions about this pause in service and will update this article when we hear back from the cruise line. Tomorrow’s sailing, the July 25 cruise, is currently open for bookings on the cruise line’s website with prices start at $6,826 per person.

There have been a total of nine gastrointestinal illness outbreaks on cruise ships this year, and four of them were on Sea Bird.

Sea Bird is in its final year of offering expedition cruises. The small 31-cabin cruise ship is U.S. flagged and can visit many ports that larger ships can not visit.