I know in advance that I will get some backlash for this post. I’ve already had it on one of my YouTube videos here. I’ve been told to keep my stupid comments to myself, and that I’m a “complex fool” whatever one of those is. Sticks and stones. I like to think my responses are more measured and factually based, and I’m happy to stand by my comments. So please read on to understand my perspective on the whole Norovirus issue.

When we travelled down to Southampton on the Friday 10th May for cruise N410 on Ventura, we (like many others I suspect) were blissfully unaware that there was a virus issue onboard until we read this email that they had sent out earlier in the day:

Although we were surprised at the email, we weren’t overly alarmed. P & O appeared to be taking steps to sanitise the ship, and we were happy to comply with the later boarding time in order to give them the time they needed to complete this process.

Now, I have to say, at the time I knew very little about norovirus on board ships except that it occurred on occasion. We were aware of it back in 2003 when P & O Aurora was quarantined in Venice at the same time as our arrival on the Thompson Emerald.

We became aware of another outbreak back in 2017 on Royal Caribbean’s Independence of the Seas when additional cleaning measures were suddenly brought into play.

There are a lot of terms being bandied about, like GI (Gastrointestinal) and AGE (Acute Gastro Enteritis) which basically describe the effect on the body when infected by viral agents such as noravirus or rotavirus or bacterial agents such as Salmonella, E. Coli, or common parasites such as guardia and cryptosporidum.

This is not intended to be a lesson in norovirus, but there is a lot of pertinent information out on the internet from credible bodies such as the US Center for Disease Control (CDC), and on the NHS website. I suggest if you would like to know more about it, you google “Norovirus and AGE on cruise ships”.

Can I say, not surprisingly, there is a lot of misinformation and malicious scaremongering on Facebook, and that is NOT a credible source. But plenty of conspiracy theories out there if you are that way inclined.

Norovirus certainly isn’t new, and it isn’t found exclusively on cruise ships in case you have been led to believe it is. And it certainly isn’t exclusive to P & O, despite what people would like to convince you. I love those that comment “I’ve never had this problem with […] line” – but a little digging back through the archives will show that all cruise lines have had their problems in the past. Since January 2024 there has already been SIX recorded outbreaks of the virus on six different cruise lines as reported by the CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program, including Cunard, Princess, Royal Caribbean, Silversea, Holland America and Celebrity. By comparison, there were fourteen recorded outbreaks, so the numbers are definitely up this year – and it must be noted that these figures only relate to US controlled ports. The EU also conduct spot inspections under the EU SHIPSAN scheme – Ventura was last given a “A” rating in July 2023. Of course the cynical will immediately say the standards can’t be very good then. Or maybe we just have to accept that even the cleanest environment can still fall foul of an infection given the huge numbers of passengers passing over the gangplanks every year, none of them pre-screened for viral infections before boarding.

Noravirus is a known ‘Winter’ disease but due to the cold spring, it has not been killed off this year as normal and Noravirus infections in the UK are up by 75% compared against the previous year, according to the UK government seasonal illness statistics for April 2024. Hardly surprising then that it is finding its way onboard UK based cruise ships.

Likewise, the CDC dispel the theory that cruise ships are regular sources of norovirus infection. They quote that the probability of catching it on land in the US is one in fifteen, while the probability of getting it on a ship is one in five thousand, five hundred. The reason it may seem that cruise ships are always affected is that they are required to report all infections, unlike land based hotels, resorts, airlines etc where there are no such reporting requirements.

So the only thing to ever hit the news is a cruise ship outbreak.

Other intriguing facts from CDC:

Norovirus causes 58% of foodborne illnesses acquired in the United States

Norovirus is the leading cause of vomiting and diarrhea from acute gastroenteritis among people of all ages in the United States.

Each year, there are about 2,500 reported norovirus outbreaks in the United States.

And not a mention of a cruise ship, which apparently account for only 1% of all infections.

Click this link to see a report about Norovirus on Cruise Ships in 2023, and why they believe there has been a sudden upsurgein 2023/24. It makes for interesting reading.

Anyway, back to our cruise on Ventura. We boarded the ship and everything seemed fine as far as we were concerned.

I am a little surprised that we are no longer required to fill in a health declaration prior to boarding stating we haven’t had any sickness and diarrhea, but then again, how many people who are suffering the complaint tell the truth, knowing that they will either be isolated immediately or worse still, denied boarding? I suspect that P&O have realised the declaration provided little protection and possibly gave them a false sense of security of the health of boarding passengers – maybe its just far simpler to assume everyone may be infected with something. No doubt it’s tucked away in the T & C’s somewhere.

We had to sanitise our hands on arrival at the ship. Now I remember last year when we cruised, this wasn’t routinely done. But for years it was a common practice across all cruise lines. Is this because alcohol sanitisers actually have little or no effect on Norovirus?

I love researching these types of things but if you can’t be bothered to read the scientific papers in the links above, then I will give you this little excerpt:

” Simple Science: Why ABHS (Alcohol Based Hand Sanitiser) Does Not Work

Norovirus is a nonenveloped virus, which makes it more resistant to pH and temperature changes. It is completely unaffected by some disinfectants, including alcohol. This is because alcohol, regardless of strength, cannot penetrate the protein shell, or capsid, surrounding a nucleic acid core. In contrast, SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is an enveloped virus, which means that it has a fragile covering that is easily penetrated by alcohol sanitizers. “

I left the bit in about Covid because a lot of passengers in our facebook group (about 500 members I believe) were reporting on leaving the cruise that they had also tested positive for Covid following the last cruise on Ventura – the inference being of course that they caught it on board and they can maybe somehow make a tenuous link between covid and norovirus. I don’t want to get into that, it’s another topic entirely but it does make sense to me to continue with alcohol sanitisers because while it doesn’t stamp out norovirus, it certainly does stop a lot of other viruses like Covid and other bacterial infections in their tracks.

I can’t recall the exact timeline but after the first couple of days the message started coming out on letters left in cabins and also in the daily bridge announcements that passengers had reported GI symptoms and that as a result “enhanced cleaning protocols” were being deployed. There can be no suggestion that the ship’s staff attempted to trivialise or play down the infection – they were very clear on what was happening and what action they were taking to minimise the spread. Housekeeping and deck staff were seen carrying green and red buckets – i got a glimpse of the labels and it appeared that they were two types of disinfectant solutions, maybe someone can confirm that.

Some passengers have complained they were just standing about doing nothing when they should have been out there cleaning something. Actually, they were purposefully loitering, waiting for you to vacate your table so they could quickly swoop in and clean it. We did notice they didn’t always clean the chair arms, which seemed to me to be a bit of an obvious loophole in the procedures.

Some passengers have complained that the staff refused to clean up after someone had been ill, but have not provided any specific evidence of this, and I suspect that it wasn’t a case of ‘refused’, but were more likely working to a very strict protocol, where only designated staff were allowed to clean the area, being properly equipped with the correct PPE, cleaning equipment and having the means for safe collection and disposal of the contaminated waste. We noticed that when housekeeping were obviously cleaning a cabin were someone had been isolating, they were decked out in aprons, masks, gloves etc. and had all manner of spraying and cleaning equipment at their disposal, and contaminated matter was apparently put into red bags for incineration.

The launderettes were all closed, and had been since boarding. My theory was that as norovirus is not easily killed by normal wash temperatures, it was likely that if one person placed contaminated / heavily soiled clothing in the machine, then the machine itself could become contaminated and potentially spread the virus to next user’s clothing. Another simpler theory was the launderette was considered a hot spot for cross contamination, but to me, an enclosed area like this is surely easier to keep clean than the expanse of handrails and other facilities on board? One more plausible theory suggested by another passenger was that having the launderette open gave irresponsible passengers the opportunity to launder any soiled bedding / towels discretely and thus avoid having to report the illness to the ship’s medical team. Pretty cynical, but certainly a possible reason – maybe P & O can enlighten us?

The other main protocol in place was waiter service in the buffet. It’s fairly obvious, and reminiscent of covid precautions – you don’t want every passenger picking up the same salad tongues and then passing it to the next passenger, and the next, etc. A sure way to make sure the virus is distributed evenly through the ship.

Personally, I wish they would instigate this routinely. Not because of the hygiene aspect, rather because it was so nice not to have some ignorant passenger lean across you to reach something else, or lick their fingers before picking up the service implements. It didn’t stop people pushing in front of Sue’s wheelchair with either a total look of disdain or a “Oh, sorry, were you in the queue?”

On top of the cleaning in the bars, restaurants and pool areas mentioned above, I also observed teams of staff doing very early morning cleaning on all surfaces, sometimes in convoys of three staff each treating the handrails with different solutions. I once went back to my daughter’s cabin very late at night to find all the handrails recently cleaned and still damp with solution, and even later, staff spraying some sort of disinfectant solutions in the corridors on the actual wall surfaces.

And we even heard someone complaining a day later that she had seen them spraying in the corridors – let’s face it, P & O couldn’t do right from wrong where some passengers were concerned.

I personally think that those passengers suggesting there was no cleaning taking place during the cruise did the hardworking staff a real disservice, and should maybe re-consider their assessment of the activities they observed.

Regardless, there should have been nothing introduced around the ship to enhance the cleaning that should have caused anyone any major concerns.

By the time we reached Tenerife, six days into the cruise, the situation had clearly worsened, and we were all asked politely to go on shore if possible and stay off until the afternoon, so that a further deep clean could be completed including within guest cabins. I don’t think ours was included as none of our belongings had been moved, although we did clear all the surfaces down to try to cooperate with them.

And still passengers complained about the ‘inconvenience’ of being ‘forced’ to go ashore.

We had got wind of news reports with a dramatic headline and the normal sensational claims of ‘Passengers isolated on virus stricken cruise ship’ – Fairly alarmist in my opinion, both for the passengers and their loved ones back home. While there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the virus was on board and some people had become ill and were isolating in their cabins, I felt the story was being somewhat exaggerated, and felt the need to publish my short video after complaining to BBC South about their unbalanced approach and reliance on a source that was admittedly unverified. Ok, maybe my comment to “calm yourself down” didn’t go down to well but it wasn’t aimed at the passengers, it was aimed at the media, and in hindsight saying “everything was fine” was ambiguous. Clearly EVERYTHING wasn’t fine, and I wouldn’t try to pretend otherwise. But what I was trying to convey was the cruise was proceeding as normally as it could, and for the majority of passengers, they were indeed ‘fine’ Equally, some of the scaremongering comments floating around on facebook were not really helping matters either, and were adding fuel to the fire much to the mainstream media’s glee.

We had joined a facebook group for this cruise prior to joining the ship, and there were some brisk interchanges between some passengers who had unfortunately contracted the virus, and others who hadn’t.

On one side, there was the contingent claiming that the illness had spoiled their holiday and they would never sail with P&O again, or even never cruise again. I’ve nothing to add to that, it’s a totally acceptable and understandable decision to come to after being violently ill for a few days. Equally, there were some who had also had the illness, but pointed out they felt the staff had done a wonderful job stepping up the cleaning etc, and although they would have preferred not to be ill, it didn’t spoilt their entire holiday.

And naturally the two sides didn’t accept the other’s opinions on the matter.

I have to say, none of the 12 people in our party contracted the illness, which is quite surprising as we had four children six and under who didn’t really understand the meaning of sanitary protocols and touched everything within reach.

But then likewise, we heard at least three guests proudly informing fellow passengers in the buffet queue that they were either sharing a cabin with someone currently ill with the virus, or were actively visiting friends / relatives in their cabins who were supposedly isolating. We indeed saw a passenger visit a cabin daily on our deck, with the same greeting “Hi, how are you both feeling today?”

Clearly, such behaviour from passengers could only hamper the staff’s efforts to keep on top of the spread of the virus and was disrespectful to the other passengers prepared to follow the ship’s rules.

I think the most damning comment for me came from the BBC South’s follow up report interviewing one of the passengers (I won’t name and shame them – look it up) who openly admitted her sons had been ill and she hadn’t reported it because “What was the point?”

I think many of those who fell ill might like to congratulate her on her ten minutes of fame and send her a letter of thanks.

But I’m very sure she wasn’t on her own, there would have been quite a few passengers who maybe didn’t get such severe symptoms and elected to conceal it in order to remain in circulation with the rest of the passengers.

Anyway, recriminations aside. One of my YouTube subscribers (thanks for that by the way) has asked exactly how bad was it?

Well, opinion is divided. I won’t dismiss anyone’s claims about their own personal illness or experiences, but I would make a couple of comments from my own perspective.

There were many comments in the vein of ‘whole decks were in isolation’ and ‘the decks were awash with vomit and faeces’

Myself and the other seven adults in our group were on the same ship, and I can hand on heart say that we didn’t come across any of this. If they did close decks, then they did it very discretely as we never came across it.

Yes, there were incidents, i am sure. We saw one such incident where something had obviously happened outside the Havana club, and part of the carpet had been taped off with hazard tape and there was a carpet shampooer stood on the now clean carpet. Was it vomit? Or a spilled drink? I don’t know, but it was clearly enough for the staff to swing into action and immediately clean it up.

There have been comments that vomit has been left around the decks and not cleaned up. Again, I’m not trying to dismiss this, but the inference was this was a frequent occurrence during the cruise. We didn’t witness any of this and surely, if it had been so wide spread, we would have not been able to avoid stumbling into such a situation? And one has to question why the culprit didn’t at least ensure a staff member was aware – maybe because they wanted to hide the episode and avoid isolation?

There were claims that people were being infected in their cabins by the air con. Norovirus is transmitted through physical contact with the virus from another person or contaminated surface. it is NOT airborne, thus dispelling claims that the virus was being spread via the air conditioning system.

One comment mentioned a fleet of ambulances waiting on the quayside at one port. It is quite possible that some guests were taken off due to severe illness following infection – we saw a couple of ambulances during the cruise. It is also possible that they were ill for different reasons – we just don’t know and therefore it is wrong to just assume it’s all norovirus related just because it fits the narrative. We witnessed one medical emergency in the restaurant that resulted in someone being stretchered away, cause unknown, and one incident in the buffet were one side was cordoned off and cleaned, not because of vomit but because of a severe nosebleed which had left a mess on the floor.

The BBC reported that the port authorities were going to meet the Ventura on arrival in Southampton – commentators quickly inferred this was some sort of inspection / internment of the ship, when actually their own spokesman said they had been made aware of the outbreak and were simply going to assist P&O with the cleaning process. The embarkation on the 25th was allegedly being delayed until after 4pm to allow the sanitation process to be more effective, and also allow fogging measure to be deployed, which needed more time to complete.

Now – a quick plug and an important piece of information – I like to make videos of our travels, it’s a hobby, not a career, and I can tell you that a video entitled “Onboard the virus stricken Ventura” or “Look how dirty they are leaving this ship” would have gone viral (forgive the pun) and probably launched my professional YouTube career. So, ask yourself, why didn’t I? Because I don’t have one solitary single piece of footage to back up these claims. So you have to ask yourself – were we REALLY swimming in a sea of vomit for 14 days while blindfolded?

Again, I’m not doubting some people did encounter such incidents. I’m just questioning the extent to which it allegedly occurred.

The reported numbers of people in isolation has also steadily risen on social media from less than a hundred to over 250 in isolation – and I’m not sure where these figures come from, as P & O have declined to comment, and I’m fairly sure the passengers making the claims haven’t done a total head count of those ill. Guesstimates – the worse kind of statistics.

Towards the end of the cruise I had a conversation early one morning with a senior member of staff, as we discussed the additional workload being placed on the front line staff and cleaners in particular. Their initial reaction was of course, “it’s not about the extra work, it’s about the safety of the passengers”. But when they realised I was sympathetic to their plight, they continued to divulge that by the Wednesday (day 5), there were 25 passengers in isolation, and by Tenerife (day 7) when the deep clean was initiated, it had peaked at 120. I took from the word “peaked” that the numbers were either plateaued or in decline.

One important fact was that passengers had reported symptoms on embarkation day. Apparently Norovirus can start to show symptoms 12 hours after being infected. If that’s the case, how did those passengers become symptomatic on the first day, unless they had it prior to boarding?

I have no reason to doubt this staff members’ sincerity, and their final comment was telling – it didn’t really matter if they did get it under control, social media and the press would not report that, they would only report the negative feedback. Quite demoralising I expect.

A final word. I don’t work for P & O, Carnival or any cruise line, and have no association with any of the companies. We are straightforward travellers, with no axe to grind and no reason to defend the indefensible. But I have also worked in Quality Assurance for over 40 years and have learned not to take things on face value, definitely not to listen and react to hearsay, and to be able to qualify / justify any claims made. So that’s what has driven me to give an alternative view of the situation in order to provide some balance.

And if I am proven wrong in any of my statements, I will stand corrected.

Is the ship diseased and should it be withdrawn? I’m sure if this was considered a major problem, the port authority would have already closed them down.

What level of contamination is acceptable? Everyone’s views will be different and zero illness is an admirable target, but clearly anyone expecting the ship to be a sterile environment where there is no possibility of contracting ANY illness is misinformed to say the least, and should reconsider their vacation choices.

But the most important fact for me is not that 100 – 250 passengers (depending on whose unverified estimates you believe) fell ill on the cruise. An equally important fact is another 2,750 – 2900 passengers (roughly) DIDN’T. I can quite assure you, if there had been an epidemic, there would have been plenty of available seats in the restaurants, bars and theatre.

While I didn’t get any footage of the grim results of people being ill, I DID get footage of the bars and theatres teeming with people continuing to enjoy their holiday.

On arrival back at Southampton, we were disembarked quite early which led to queues to get off. Some comments suggested that reporters were waiting to grab interviews. they must have all left by the time we exited the terminal. Others reported that all the terminal staff were wearing masks and aprons and carrying disinfectant. I did see a cleaner dressed in such garb minus the facemask as they wiped down trolley handles, which is probably the normal PPE for this job, but I didn’t see one single member of staff in the baggage hall or terminal building wearing any kind of protective equipment apart from their yellow Hi-Vis vest. Did we come out into the wrong terminal?

Did I think it got seriously bad on board? I think you can judge the answer to that for yourself. I would have no issue re-booking on Ventura (maybe THAT’s what makes me the complex fool) and we have already booked for another cruise on Iona in October with P & O. What’s the adage about throwing the baby out with the bath water?

My short video was never a criticism of the persons falling ill and I had and still have every sympathy with them. Apologies if they have construed my comments as otherwise intended – my criticism was aimed at those persons and the media intent on exaggerating the actual situation onboard.

There is lots of advice on the internet on how to protect yourself against Norovirus, but mainly it appears to be take responsibility for your own hygiene, always wash your hands thoroughly before eating, and always after going to the toilet – in this way you also protect others from any germs you may be carrying.

I can’t advise / tell you what to do. Some people decided the risk was too great and decided to stay at home, no doubt forfeiting their costs – which of course is their prerogative and not to be criticised or mocked. Many more decided to take the chance, with no real knowledge of the probability of contracting the bug, and had a thoroughly enjoyable holiday.

I will be reporting on some other issues that i found disappointing, but the norovirus outbreak won’t be one of them.

All I can say is, if you DO decide to sail, take care of your own hygiene, wash regularly and crucially always before eating as that’s the point you are likely to get infected, and be respectful of other passengers if you DO find yourself ill with the bug.

Safe travels.