Like cabaret and cheap booze, a vomiting bug is a cruise ship rite of passage, says hugh russell |
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The dreaded Norovirus is back. Terror of the seas, scourge of the cruising public, it never really goes away.
Last autumn a Thomson cruise was stranded at Madeira. In December Royal Caribbean's giant Freedom of the Seas staggered around the West Indies with nearly 400 of its 5,000 souls struck down.
Now it's the turn of our own QE2. More than 200 passengers fell victim last week, and were "confined to their cabins" - cruise-ship speak for being quarantined in little rooms while lying helpless on their beds, groaning horribly and leaking from all orifices.
The QE2 pulled into Acapulco, where the crew battled to stamp out the virus, assisted by local experts from the Centre for Disease Control. She then moved on to San Francisco, where more CDC storm-troopers charged up the gangway with armfuls of disinfectant. Now she is reported to have docked in
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| Cruise ships like to maintain the illusion that when you step on board you find yourself in a lost world of 1930s luxury... |
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Honolulu, and apparently the crisis is over.
Norovirus is the number one enemy for cruise operators, superseding all other hazards - hurricanes, pirates, blocked lavatory systems. When it strikes, captain and crew react with what would seem like panic if you didn't know how virulent the bug can be.
You'll find no mention of it in the brochures. Cruise ships, the floating Butlins of the 21st century, like to maintain the illusion that when you step on board you'll find yourself in a lost world of luxury, Thirties-style sybaritic sensuality, and cheap booze. They don't mention the second-rate food or the stinking bathrooms (nothing smells quite like a cruise ship after a week at sea). Above all they don't mention Norovirus... until they've got it.
My closest call with the plague came when I joined some 2,000 passengers for a Caribbean cruise with P&O. I'd rather not say precisely which fun-palace it was, because I'm one of the flotsam and jetsam of cruising entertainment, presenting "interest lectures" in return for a nominal fee and a free trip.
Norovirus made its presence known when  |
