This past December 1-8, Sunday to Sunday, Bonnie and I cruised the Mexican Riviera aboard the Norwegian Joy. We have taken this same cruise at the end of the year several times because:
1. Our main purposes in cruising are relaxing and dancing, so the ports aren’t particularly important.
2. The cruise originates from Los Angeles, and I have about 15 family members (from ages 2 to 76) in greater Los Angeles. Los Angeles is approximately a five-hour drive from Las Vegas. We go down the day before, buy dinner for everybody, have a bed to sleep in for one night, transportation to and from the pier, and a place to store our car for a week.
3. Compared to flying to another port city, this is relatively inexpensive. Plus, we only see most of those people once a year, so it’s worth it.
A couple of weeks prior to the cruise, my brother Dick, who was providing the bed and the transportation to the pier, asked what time they could drop us off. They had something else to do that Sunday and were trying to figure out their schedule. I told him if he dropped us off anytime between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., we’d be fine. I knew from experience that you can usually get on these ships by noon and the embarkation process takes some time. So, he planned on dropping us off at 10 a.m.
Three days before the cruise took off, we received an email saying we couldn’t get on the ship before 1 p.m. at the earliest. Dick and Ginny’s plans could not be changed conveniently, so we each brought a book to read and planned to wait.
At 12:45 p.m., as we waited at the cruise port, an announcement was made that it would be quite a while before we could get on the ship. They recommended we get on a bus to Long Beach in order to walk around. (The Port of Los Angeles does not have much of interest to see in the immediate vicinity.) They dropped us off near the Queen Mary — where there were a variety of shops, restaurants, and bars, and told us to be back at the bus in 45 minutes.
They had repeatedly requested that we cruisers go to Long Beach — eventually filling up numerous busloads of people. This was a nice gesture on NCL’s part, but they also needed the terminal space to process more people. Usually the terminal clears out as people board the ship, but the ship wasn’t ready yet and they needed room for partially processed passengers.
When we returned to the ship 1.5 hours later, we could see a line of people with their luggage stretching for more than a quarter mile. We were clearly going to be late leaving port. We couldn’t hear the people from the bus, but I’m sure there was a lot of grumbling.
On the ship, we found out that there had been 19 people hospitalized the week before with norovirus, which is a highly contagious disease similar to the stomach flu. It is spread by touching or placing contaminated materials in your mouth or eyes.
Since norovirus stays active for a while, everything in the ship had to be sanitized — and re-sanitized. You can tell people not to put their hands in their mouth or eyes, but people (especially children) each have their own habits that are hard to break. So, the employees on the ship had to protect us from ourselves.
Every time you presented your boarding pass at a restaurant, it was wiped clean. Each time someone left a table at the Garden Café (the buffet area of the ship), the table was wiped down with a soapy mixture that left a residue until it dried.
The bare walls of all hallways were wiped down every day. The process of cleaning up the staterooms was a longer process than usual and included a much more thorough wiping down of light switches and other places people touch.
Many food service employees wore latex gloves at all times.
Some ship amenities were cancelled during this cruise. The library, for example, would not check out books because infected people may have touched them. There were no Monopoly games or chess sets to check out. The ship tour usually given for free to high-tier passengers was cancelled this time.
I’m sure there were other behind-the-scenes precautions being taken that I didn’t observe.
The precautions appeared to be successful. There were no health-related evacuations due to norovirus necessary during the week-long cruise. For how many weeks afterwards this ship will need to take these precautions, I don’t know.
Clearly the cruise line had procedures in place for this type of emergency and these plans were executed well. Periodically, health problems aboard cruise ships reach the media, but probably not this time. (I do not consider myself a member of the media — although I suppose that technically I am.) Clearly, each time a cruise line’s name is associated with onboard sickness, the bad publicity affects future revenues.
I know this article doesn’t have anything to do with gambling, but I also know that many of my readers go on cruises — sometimes at reduced rates from casinos. This may well happen to some of you. We experienced relatively minor inconveniences. I wish the same for you.
And just think of all of the disgusting, dirty things in casinos. Machines usually just get dusted. Table game chips are hardly, if ever, cleaned. Many patrons DO NOT wash their hands when leaving the restrooms. I could go on forever.
I was going to ask if he saw the chips, cards and machines cleaned. I doubt it. Candy should really learn to ‘fear’ everything touched by others in a casino!
It has been said that everyone should “eat a handful of dirt” during their childhood, to develop immunity for the rest of life. I don’t remember eating dirt but I’m sure I had my share of exposure Pretty healthy throughout life, somehow. I don’t fear chips or machine buttons or door handles or even grocery story buggy handles.. Do wash or clean hands before eating and after using the outhouse. LOL.
As a public schoolteacher, I think I probably get exposed to so many germs on a daily basis that by now I’m probably immune to every disease known to man.
Incidentally I rarely get sick, and even when I do, it’s usually very mild and only lasts a day or so.
I’d like to see a column dedicated to cruise ship video poker and why everyone should stay completely away from it. I know that the pay schedules are brutal on cruise ships, but my last cruise on the Star Princess in October, not only were the pay schedules brutal, but when playing 5 credits, a Royal only paid out 1500… These were IGT machines with the usual games. I looked them over and walked out. Blackjack was better.
I found a row of video poker machines with many multipliers left, took about 10 minutes to scavenge $100.
K have an condition (Blephartis) if I spelled it right such that I wash my hands with soap and water just about every 2 hours around the clock, use my fingers to get mucus out of my eyes and put one drop of over the counter dry eye solution in each eye.
Doctors recommend that everyone wash their hands frequently etc. A side benefit of my regimen is that I can not remember the last time I had a cold or the flu, I used to get terrible cases of the flu every few years, so bad that I would miss work for two weeks or more!
Bob, me and my family were on the Joy the week prior to you, 5 adults two kids. When we boarded we were warned that over 100 people got sick the week before us and extra precautions would be in place for our entire cruise. Many more than 19 people got sick on our ship. Passengers know that if they report their illness they will be quarantined for 24 hours or more , so many didn’t report it. You can see how bad it can get if sick people don’t report it and it spreads.
If you’ve been on an NCL cruise, you know this phrase: “Washie washie, happy happy!” 🙂
We leave on the NCL Jade on January 5th out of Singapore. Thanks for the timely reminder.
You needed to point out how you bought everyone dinner? why was it necessary to mention
“We go down the day before, buy dinner for everybody, have a bed to sleep in for one night, transportation to and from the pier, and a place to store our car for a week.”, BOB MENTIONED BECAUSE OF THIS!! HAS A BED, A PLACE TO STAY, TRANSPORTATION TO TERMINAL, TO AND FROM AND ONE WEEK FREE PARKING FOR CAR!!! HELLO!! AND WHAT A GREAT GESTURE ON EVERYBODIES PART TO HELP EACHOTHER!!!!
“We go down the day before, buy dinner for everybody, have a bed to sleep in for one night, transportation to and from the pier, and a place to store our car for a week.”, THAT IS THE REASON HE MENTIONED!!! ! HELLO!! AND WHAT A GREAT GESTURE ON EVERYBODY’S PART TO HELP EACH OTHER!!!!
Good question Jim. But we all know that answer as I’m sure you do as well.
Very good!
Hope it stays clean, we are on the same ship in a couple of weeks, January 5. Did an 11 day on Princess in October and went through the same disease control, a big hassle and limited lots of stuff, but at least we didn’t catch it like so many other did.