No Magic On The Disney Cruise

[Dee72]

Oh, wow. I am so sorry to read this. I would stay on Disney. They do have responsibility, IMO. While they can't prevent all sicknesses from happening, they darn well better not sweep it under the rug.

One of my kids began throwing up the last morning. I felt like I was doing the right thing by reporting it. But, no one cared. Not in guest services. Not in the medical center. No one, other than our wonderful stateroom attendant. I guarantee they never logged the sickness anywhere. It was obvious that they wanted nothing to do with it since we were getting off of the ship. I mentioned it in the hall as my child had to walk to the elevator white as a sheet. It was then that I found out some children had been sick and I never knew. My child was allowed to go on the same elevators. Same disembarkation lines, etc. as everyone else.

Thankfully, whatever it was, be it sea sickness or something else, it lasted for less than 24 hours.

 

[SweetSpot]

That happened to us on our 2nd cruise. My son came back from dinner looking normal, changed to go to the club and almost right before walking out the door threw up. And then spent the entire night in the bathroom with both the worse signs of Norwalk (which I had never heard of at all until later). He had been hospitalized when he was younger for dehydration when he was sick one time so I was getting concerned as the night went on and called the medical center around midnight. The nurse who answered said there is nothing the could do but a suppository and that since he had issues there it wouldn't help him so they offered no help. I felt helpless. I called guest services early and asked them if we could get off first since at this time my son and I hadn't slept a second and he was still full blown sick and wanted to avoid an accident on deck 4, no help there either.

We got off the ship (having learned don't put all your clothes in the luggage for the porter, save an add'l outfit just in case) and went through disembark with everyone else. Thought it couldn't get worse until we got to the parking lot with our luggage only to find the van's battery dead. I begged an older couple to give the battery a jump and we drove the entire ride (FL to NJ) without turning the car off, stopping constantly at every restroom possible along the way. If that wasn't bad enough I came home, went to sleep and woke up a couple hours later sicker than I have ever been with the same. I was sick for 2 days, never left my room.

That being said we have cruised 4 add't times and will again on Sunday. Another son got Norwalk from his high school, it ended up shutting a school with close to 4,000 for a day because so many got it. It was not DCL's fault we got sick, they could have handled it better (much better) but I can't fault a couple horrible people when we met so many wonderful DCL CM's that week. Norwalk happens, it sucks big time, but it isn't DCL's fault. It's the other passengers too lazy to wash their hands.

Edit to add: I forgot to mention that on our first cruise my DD 7 at the time got sick the next to last day. She had a mild case, had never heard of Norwalk, the room steward said maybe it was heat stroke.... whatever, never occurred to us. Two cruise later they cancelled a cruise because the following week the ship was overrun with Norwalk and they took the week to clean. Hasn't stopped me from cruising. We are just very, very careful.

 

[disztagal]

As a trained microbiologist that once worked in a noro laboratory, DCL did all that it could to contain the outbreak. I worked with noro for over a year with no illness and used basic handwashing and gloves to keep from being infected. Also, if DCL did not report as appropriate and someone called in, the CDC would be on that ship in a hot minute. If it had been a problem, the ship would have had to clean and then be reinspected before the next cruise after the report. I have friends that worked in the cruise line inspection service with the CDC and this is not something that they take lightly at all. Also, the outbreak would most likely have been in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly, thus far, I have not seen that nor have I heard rumors about an outbreak from my usual channels. DCL is not to blame for your illness. Noro is a very serious illness with easy transmissions. DCL can only do so much, which it did appropriately, and a 15 % discount is more than most cruise lines would offer.

 

[WDBRDWLK]

Sorry to hear about your illness. On our 5th DC my DH and DD, who was 21 at the time, and I were on the Wonder Sept. 07' and she came down with a virus the morning of debarkation. We were suppose to be off the ship with the first group, but she was in the restroom for hours...We were not sure if it was something she ate or the virus...we got her back to our stateroom and it only got worse. We had a wonderful cabin steward who came to check on her every 15 minutes. We called guest services for a wheel chair and it was delivered within 10 minutes. Once we got down to deck 3 the CM helping us kept her off to the side near the elevators and cleared a path at the gangway to get us out. Granted it was late morning and most people had already disembarked. Getting through customs was not as easy though, we had to wait with everyone else, took about 20 minutes if I remember correctly. Our porter was great getting our luggage to our car while my DH pushed the wheelchair, then it started to rain! We decided to head to WDW and spend a night rather than drive the 10 hrs home. She was better the next day, thank goodness.
We had only purchased travel insurance once, on our first cruise in 1996 with Carnival...but after reading the disboards I would highly recommend it. Next time I will purchase it rather than be sorry later if something does happen.
I agree with everyone else, Disney does a fantastic job in cleaning their ships and I would highly recommend you give it another try someday.

 

[KJHawley]

Cruise Critic has some good articles about the norovirus & its relation to cruise ships. For example, one article points out that you hear about illnesses in the news because cruise ships are required to report to the CDC, but no one else is (i.e. schools, day cares, etc.)

Here's a link: http://www.cruisecritic.com/cruiseplanning/articles.cfm?ID=71

And here's another good one on "Demystifying the Myths of Norovirus": http://www.cruisecritic.com/features/articles.cfm?ID=61

And finally, the articles mention that the CDC does inspections of all cruise ships. While any cruise ship is susceptible to an outbreak if ill passengers are onboard, I would think most people would prefer to travel on a ship that's highly ranked by the CDC. On a 100 point scale, 86 is considered a passing grade. Note that the Magic & Wonder both scored 99 out of 100: http://www.cruisecritic.com/reviews/cdc.cfm

Both the OP's sad story and this article have really opened my eyes to the causes of these types of illnesses. As others have mentioned, I will definitely get travel insurance if I ever go on a cruise (or any other big trip).

 

[mygoldpaws]

I have been on DCL twice and NCL twice. DCL was twice to the Caribbean. I got sick on NCL BOTH times in Mexico. It is very common for the ships to have outbreaks while they sail in Mexico. I, in no way, blamed NCL for my illness. I actually missed a week of work after returning from my 2nd NCL cruise. I am convinced that I picked it up in Puerto Vallarta at the Dolphin Encounter.

Despite the wide spread use of hand sanitizing - there are going to be outbreaks. How can you have thousands of people (and kids galore!) in close quarters and have no illness? This is part of cruising.

 

[Bullseyebaby]

We too were on that cruise!! My DD woke up not feeling well and had a bit of diarrhea. There was no way she wanted to take the hour bus ride (with no bathroom). So I figured I'd send DH & DS off without us and I could explain my story to the SE desk. We learned Disney wouldn't refund us our shore excursion money unless we went to the doctor at the medical clinic. Of course, Dr. Mom figured all DD needed was a little pepto and to take it easy and lay off the pizza. However, they wouldn't take my word for it... so we headed on down to the Clinic (after the crew drills). This was on the day we were in Matzatlan. Upon arrival, there was someone being wheeled in vomiting, people with trashbags & gloves and the whole room was disgustingly smelly and foul. That gentleman was seriously sick. Oh, how I knew this couldn't be good. The nurse informed me that it would be $100+ to see the doctor, so at that moment I had to think the lesser of 2 evils. Eat the SE money or pay $100, smell the air & possibly come down with whatever was going around! We ran out of there. An hour or so later, we saw the ambulance come and take someone away. As for my DD, she was fine by noon. I knew it was just too much junkfood...but thanks to our trip to the MC, contamination city, ... I came down with the virus by the departure day! Of course that being the day where you have to vacate your room early. I was miserable and couldn't wait to get home. The bathrooms on the ship were a mess, as you could smell that there was definitely sick people on the ship. Made me think twice if we were going to go again over NYE. But, we loved all of our other cruises, and this is just an unfortunate thing that happens on cruise ships no matter how clean you try to be. 15% isn't very much considering they give you 10% off if you book on board. Sorry to hear your story and sorry to hear Disney didn't step up to the plate and offer you a better deal.

 

[Finally08]

Blech, how miserable. And how heart breaking.

We did a 3 day cruise in Feb on the Wonder. The last night at dinner dh started feeling bad...running fever, his head hurt, etc. By the morning when we were loading up in the car to drive home he was miserable. And after an 11 hour drive home, one by one both kids and myself also got sick...we all had the flu. I was sick for nearly 2 weeks, the kids missed another week of school. It was horrible, but at least we were already home by then.


There was only a small group of DISers on that cruise, but I heard from several of them that they also came down sick just after the cruise. unfortunately for most of them, they were doing their WDW visit after, so it really hurt that part of their trip (we did ours first).

This time we are doing WDW after our 5 day cruise and I am SO afraid of us getting a bug that will slam us about the time it's time to start our Magical WDW part of the vacation. In retrospect..I should have planned to go there first instead but it was an afterthought that illness might become an issue again.

 

[speicher46]

I am also very sorry but, like some previous posters have said, this is one of the risks you take when traveling albeit, it is a very low risk. I got shingles on a seven night Disney cruise one time and missed about five of the seven nights in misery in my room. It is extremely disappointing especially for kids but there is really not anything Disney can do about it. Again I am so very sorry this experience turned out bad for your family.

 

[DynamicDisneyDuo]

I am also very sorry but, like some previous posters have said, this is one of the risks you take when traveling albeit, it is a very low risk. I got shingles on a seven night Disney cruise one time and missed about five of the seven nights in misery in my room. It is extremely disappointing especially for kids but there is really not anything Disney can do about it. Again I am so very sorry this experience turned out bad for your family.

Ummm...you did notice this thread is almost 4 years old right?

 

[chasg]

My family and I went on that same Disney Magic cruise in July 2008. There were at least 200 people that came down with the Norovirus, and Disney medical personnel told us and others to stop coming to the infirmary if we contracted it.

I suspect that was because DCL needs to report the outbreak when a certain number of cruisers go to the infirmary. I've done some web searches to see if DCL is listed as having an outbreak in 2008, and their record is clean for some reason. Very disappointed in that they "cheated" by not reporting the outbreak. After going on 3 DCL cruises, we won't go again. DCL staff follow-up with us during and after the 48 hour quarantine period was very poor. We got one in-room meal order, and a DVD player in our stateroom for our very sick daughter to use, and that's it. There were promises to come back and get more meal orders later on, but no follow through. Hopefully the site moderators/reviewers will post this reply, and not remove it in order to keep the DCL norovirus "cover-up" going...

 

[sherob]

I agree. Having cruised 11 times I know the value of Travel Insurance. It would have covered some if not all of your expenses. I would not let this stop me from cruisng Just pick another cruise line but be ware Norwalk Virus could strike that ship also.

 

[sherob]

Ditto!!!!!!

 

[moochpuppy]

While I feel sorry that you got sick I do not see how this is Disney's fault. This is just one of the hazards of confined travel whether you travel on an airplane or a boat. I picked up a bug on RCCL a few years ago in no way was it their fault,I was down for 6 days and missed three ports. Cruise lines ask people not to board if they have been ill in the last 48 hours, they have no control who lies about their health and boards the ship.

Rob

I agree that this is not the fault of Disney or your family or anyone else for that matter.

This is just another example of how very important it is for people to ALWAYS wash your hands after trips to the bathroom, etc. To also cover up when you sneeze or cough especially when you are in confined areas where there are a lot people and food buffets.