Thread: Crown Princess Cancels Cruise!

Wow! I've just been reading reports that Crown Princess is returning to its home port after 3 days of a planned 7 day cruise. Major problems with Noro Virus.

DW & I were fortunate to be on the 1/14 sailing with Lulu & Roundman. We saw no problems with Noro, although cruises before and after us seemed to be affected (infected?).

Maybe Roundman's cigars kept the germs away!

Taken from the Princess website:
http://www.princess.com/news/article...ticleId=na1210

That's a shame! There is a LOT of noro going on everywhere, not just on cruise ships.

Princess is certainly going the extra mile to serve it guests. From the notice that Hanna posted the link to:

We sincerely regret having to cut short our passengers' cruise vacations because of this highly-unusual situation. We will, of course, be refunding their cruise fare, arranging flights home, including covering change fees if air was not booked through Princess, providing hotel accommodation if necessary, and offering a 25% future cruise credit.

Boy that is a bummer.

Glad to know Princess is making an effort in this unfortunate situation.

Hopefully, those who were too sick to leave the ship for a while (as well as their traveling companions) were provided with services. In the first stages on Noro it's impossible to leave the BATHROOM ... much less get off the ship!

Passengers sick again, cruise line cancels sailing

by Chris Owen (RSS feed) on Feb 7th 2012 at 3:30PM
Last weekend nearly 700 passengers, on three different ships, contracted the flu-like Norovirus causing Princess and Royal Caribbean cruise lines to delay departure of this week's sailing for extensive cleaning. Now, another outbreak on one of the same ships has caused its cancellation, mid-sailing, and an early return to port for even more cleaning.

Princess Cruises Crown Princess was on a seven-night Caribbean cruise when the outbreak occurred and will skip calling at the ports of Curacao and Aruba to come back two days early.

"In consultation with the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), who has informed us that there are widespread outbreaks of Norovirus occurring in the US, it was agreed that the best course of action to stop the spread of the illness is for the ship to undergo a two-day extensive sanitization," said Princess Cruises in a statement on their website.

To make that happen, Crown Princess, scheduled to return to Fort Lauderdale on Saturday, February 11 will come back two days early, ending the current sailing on Thursday, February 9th.

Passengers on the current sailing will receive a full refund, assistance re-booking flights if they had been booked through the cruise line as well as hotel accommodations if necessary and 25% of what they paid as a credit to use on a future cruise."On the current sailing 114 passengers (3.70% out of 3,078) and 59 crew (5.01% of 1,178) have reported gastrointestinal illness," said Princess. On the previous cruise, 364 passengers (11.73% of 3,103) and 30 crew (2.57% of 1,168) were affected.

The move by Princess is unusual but not unprecedented. Norovirus, which causes vomiting and diarrhea, is a common illness that is easily transmitted in closed environments like nursing homes, schools and cruise ships.

It is good to see that Princess is taking extra steps to clean the ship and take care of the passengers.

The Crown Princess itineraries (Southern & Western) are very well suited for B2B cruises so lots do it as a B2B or it can actually be booked as a 14 day.

Wonder how Princess is dealing with the folks who have to get off the ship now ... but are booked for the next sailing?

Probably putting them up in hotels and keeping their rooms available for the next leg.

Princess appears to be doing it right in accommodating the passengers, giving fair restitution, and encouraging them to come back.

Noro is vile. I had it once and Lulu is right, you can't even think about leaving your room.