Bedbugs on the Magic

[dreamer17555]

Does anyone know how DCL goes about treating bedbugs on the ship? There is a Reddit post about a current cruiser on the Magic who is experiencing bedbugs and others have chimed in that bedbugs were also seen on their July 6 sailing on the Magic (6th floor both times).

As someone who is set to sail the Magic in the beginning of September on the 6th floor let’s just say I’m already itchy and I would love to hear how DCL deals with this issue. I’m sure it can’t be the first time.

 

[yowcruiser]

Not specific to DCL, but from a Cruise Critic post. How to deal with them should be fairly standard from an industry perspective

What do cruise ships do to prevent bed bug infestations?​

"Carnival has a dedicated team of specially trained personnel who conduct weekly inspections of every cabin. Inspections cover not only stateroom beds but also curtains, carpeting and other areas," says Gulliksen. Likewise, Royal Caribbean washes all bedding at 155 degrees, a recognized practice that helps prevent bed bugs.

What do cruise ships do to prevent the spread of bed bugs once onboard?​

Royal Caribbean has procedures in place to eliminate bed bugs if they're found onboard, including fumigating, deep cleaning and replacing various soft goods.

Gulliksen says Carnival Cruise Line has a dedicated team of specially trained personnel who monitor and eliminate any pest issues onboard. If pest issues are identified, the stateroom and the passengers' luggage and belongings are all fully inspected. The passengers' clothes and luggage are sent to be laundered without charge, and all linens are changed.

Steaming, fumigation and treatment is scheduled, and re-inspections of the stateroom are scheduled throughout the cruise and for the next three months, with follow-up treatments as needed. On embarkation day, the stateroom, adjacent staterooms and corridor are all treated.

 

[brentm77]

I found the reddit poster's update interesting and also very frustrating - Disney is just not on its game like they used to be. Bed bugs can happen anywhere, but how a hotel/cruise line responds is what sets them apart. The below response was not an acceptable response.

Also, be super diligent when checking into any room, at sea or on land, to check for bugs first thing. These are nightmare to deal with if you bring them home, and we want to stop spreading them.

From the reddit post:

To catch up some who might not have seen the first post or the first update, I’ll list a few prior items here along with my update.

1. We are a family of five originally split over two guaranteed-adjoining inside rooms on Deck 2. We have a teen and a tween and we appreciate the extra space and two bathrooms. Our arrival day (Sunday) was awesome.
2. Evening of second day (Monday), we found a bedbug in the pulldown bottom bed of our cabin. Guest services transfers occupants of the affected room to a new cabin on Deck 6. Offers to launder clothing in affected room and heat treat the luggage. New cabin only sleeps 4, btw, but they say it’s a fully booked cruise and that’s all they can offer. Guest services person says Day Manager will contact me tomorrow. As an aside, facilities person comes by to service our clogged toilet. We didn’t have - and never had - a clogged toilet.
3. Third day (Tuesday) spent at Castaway Cay. It’s fine. Nice. Get back to ship and no messages or other correspondence from guest services — other than about our clogged toilet. We have a mediocre evening as everyone has the creepy-crawlies.
4. Fourth day (Wednesday), late morning, we get an app message asking us to come by guest services. FINALLY they’re going to do something… and it’s about our non-existent clogged toilet. I lose my mind and ask to speak to a manager. I state my utter disbelief that no one seems to be making things right re: the bedbugs. Very nice manager asks to give her some time to make things right. We acquiesce and go to Lighthouse Point.
5. Come back from the beach and there’s a flurry of activity from housekeeping and guest services as everyone is trying to make things better. The offer my wife and me a day at the Rainforest and a dinner at Palo. I politely refuse saying that’s nice, but does jack squat for our kids who are also suffering. They say they’ll go back to the drawing board.
6. I’m skipping over some details here about Weds evening to get to the good part… my youngest spots a MFing bedbug on my daughter’s backpack in the Deck 6 room!!!! That bag was NEVER in the affected room. I quickly demand someone from housekeeping management come to the room to see it for themselves. Manager comes and sees a live bug, takes a photo, then disposes of it. I take about 10 minutes to compose myself and then step outside to see 6 white suits huddling down the hall. I announce the new plan, which is that they’ll meet us in a new room with robes and we’re going to hand over literally every piece of clothing we own to be laundered on high heat that evening, while we wipe down our electronics and other hard-surface items with alcohol wipes and they heat treat or luggage. They agree to the plan. We skip dinner and order room service in our new room, which is. 5 person family room with one bathroom on Deck 8. Clothes come back that evening, late.
7. Today, Thursday, is an okay day. Management bending over backwards to appease us and very apologetic. We don’t ask for much though, so there’s not much to “give” us. They say shoreside / corporate Disney will be in touch with us.

So, once I connected with the right manager on Weds, everything they’ve done has been in line with what I’d expect. The second bedbug incident was unfortunate but ultimately I blame the first guest services team for not transferring everyone immediately. We’ll see how the rest pans out. Fingers crossed!!!

 

[DCL58]

We just sailed last week on the Magic - deck 6. Zero bedbugs. Moving to deck 5 today for the 10 night cruise. Not worried about bedbugs.

 

[hotblooded]

People are coping hard on that Reddit post. I get it, we all want to think the best of Disney, but others have chimed in about bedbugs on various sailings this year and it’s sounding like the problem has spiraled out of control. If DCL doesn’t take serious action soon (taking room blocks out of inventory and increasing pest control across the ship), I’m going to cancel my Alaska sailing on the Magic next summer.

 

[lanejudy]

I hate to say it, but 1 bedbug found in 1 room and another single bedbug found in another room -- either or both could easily have been unknowingly brought in by the family. It could have been picked up anywhere along their journeys, the airport, the transportation to port, from somewhere else on the ship (the backpack one in particular).

As to the rooms -- a full ship is a full ship. They can't produce 2 extra connecting rooms if those don't exist. I don't believe anywhere in DCL's contract are you guaranteed the stateroom you select at booking. Yes it usually happens and yes families rely on that, but it's a good reminder that they should have a plan B in case it doesn't work out.

Absolutely DCL could have done a little better, especially about the maintenance for a clogged toilet. Did the family ever respond to those messages indicating they don't have a clogged toilet? It's possible the room number got taken down wrong when another guest reported a bathroom problem.

 

[brentm77]

I hate to say it, but 1 bedbug found in 1 room and another single bedbug found in another room -- either or both could easily have been unknowingly brought in by the family. It could have been picked up anywhere along their journeys, the airport, the transportation to port, from somewhere else on the ship (the backpack one in particular).

Yes, that is a possibility. But with the reports from other recent cruises, also on deck 6, of bed bugs, it makes it less likely. The family came straight from home to the cruise - no hotel in between. They would likely know if they had bed bugs at home and say they don't. They did fly, and it can happen on a plane, but it isn't that common. I think the more reasonable explanation is that the bugs are on the ship given recent reports.

As to the rooms -- a full ship is a full ship. They can't produce 2 extra connecting rooms if those don't exist. I don't believe anywhere in DCL's contract are you guaranteed the stateroom you select at booking. Yes it usually happens and yes families rely on that, but it's a good reminder that they should have a plan B in case it doesn't work out.

Absolutely DCL could have done a little better, especially about the maintenance for a clogged toilet. Did the family ever respond to those messages indicating they don't have a clogged toilet? It's possible the room number got taken down wrong when another guest reported a bathroom problem.

I personally think DCL should have done a lot better. They didn't act very quickly from the start, and then couldn't even keep the problem straight, after being corrected multiple times. We all aren't paying such high prices to have that kind of service - and I would expect better from even a mid-level hotel then what happened here. DCL is putting the whole ship at risk of being infested by not acting quickly enough or understanding the problem better. They should have never moved the kids stuff from a connecting room to a new room without treating it, for example.

Edit - Also, super lame of DCL to lie about saying we don't have a single room on the entire ship that can even accommodate the full family, and suddenly they have one on deck 8 later when the room on 6 is contaminated? That's inexcusable. I am tired of giving Disney a pass for not hitting basic levels of service when they used to be know for being the best of the best and still charge based on that reputation.

 

[lanejudy]

I just think there are questions not shared in that post:

The family came straight from home to the cruise - no hotel in between.

I didn't suggest it came from home. Airport, checked baggage for the flight, vehicle that transported the family to the port, checked baggage at the port, luggage delivered to their stateroom. There's actually quite a few points to come into contact with a hitchhiking bug.

They didn't act very quickly from the start...

Did DCL not move them right away (those in the 1 affected room) to deck 6? Did DCL not launder the clothing and heat treat the luggage from the affected room? The post doesn't specify those things didn't occur or in a timely fashion. The clothing and luggage never should have left the original room on deck 2 until it was laundered/treated.

...and then couldn't even keep the problem straight, after being corrected multiple times.

Did the family correct DCL about the toilet? It sounds as though they "received correspondence" (phone messages? written?) but they don't mention they spoke with anyone to say "this isn't us." Maybe they did.

They should have never moved the kids stuff from a connecting room to a new room without treating it, for example.

Did I miss that happened? Since the new room only slept 4 I assumed they kept the other room on deck 2. If the family moved the kids' luggage to deck 6 they should have asked for everything from both rooms to be cleaned/treated.


I won't doubt bedbugs may exist onboard. A single bug in a room, though, really suggests it didn't get there on it's own -- it more than likely was carried in, especially the bug on the backpack 2 days later could have come from anywhere.

 

[brentm77]

I just think there are questions not shared in that post:


I didn't suggest it came from home. Airport, checked baggage for the flight, vehicle that transported the family to the port, checked baggage at the port, luggage delivered to their stateroom. There's actually quite a few points to come into contact with a hitchhiking bug.

I didn't mean to suggest you did - just ruling it out when considering the likelihood the bugs weren't on board already.

Did DCL not move them right away (those in the 1 affected room) to deck 6? Did DCL not launder the clothing and heat treat the luggage from the affected room? The post doesn't specify those things didn't occur or in a timely fashion. The clothing and luggage never should have left the original room on deck 2 until it was laundered/treated.

They did - I stand corrected on that. One of the comments in Reddit suggested otherwise, but the OP doesn't say that.

Did the family correct DCL about the toilet? It sounds as though they "received correspondence" (phone messages? written?) but they don't mention they spoke with anyone to say "this isn't us." Maybe they did.

I think that's reasonable to assume when the maintenance crew showed up at the door to unclog it the first time that they told the crew member they didn't have a clogged toilet.

Did I miss that happened? Since the new room only slept 4 I assumed they kept the other room on deck 2. If the family moved the kids' luggage to deck 6 they should have asked for everything from both rooms to be cleaned/treated.

It's was unclear to me - I had read it as the entire family of five moving to the room that only slept four, since the poster mentions it only sleeps four people, "by the way," which had me picturing a family of five squeezing into the room. But more importantly, because it would be absurd to me to split a tween and teen from the parents, and even worse, keep people in a room that is connected to an infested room. If they did that, then that's just as bad in my opinion as having not treated the stuff in the connecting room before moving them. Surely DCL needs to put itself in a better situation to house families when two connecting rooms are uninhabitable. In this case DCL was in a position to move them all to a large enough room, but lied about it for some reason.

I won't doubt bedbugs may exist onboard. A single bug in a room, though, really suggests it didn't get there on it's own -- it more than likely was carried in, especially the bug on the backpack 2 days later could have come from anywhere.

Bed bugs hide really well, so it's very possible to only find two bugs and have a full infestation. And if one room is infected, a connecting room is also very likely to be. Even adjacent rooms at hotels are usually cleared. Given the fact of recent bed bug reports on the Magic, no hotel stay before boarding, and the transmission on airplanes being low, the evidence leans towards them not bringing the bugs in my opinion. But I see it as irrelevant - since there is no proof either way, DCL should treat it the same way, and should also be interested in containment, by emptying a connecting room and treating its contents.

I am still bothered by the fact that DCL suddenly found a room on Deck 8 that slept the whole family when the ship was supposedly too full the first time. So instead they kept the kids in a room connected to an infested room? That's not good practice.

Add in the fact that they couldn't even keep what the problem was straight and I am still disappointed in how DCL handled this one. If I put myself in the shoes of the family, having to spend days of my cruise dealing with bugs, and having DCL three times think this was only a clogged toilet issue, I would be pretty disappointed.

 

[dreamer17555]

Another Reddit poster has shared that their sailing a week earlier on the Magic had a bedbug in their room, and they also posted a photo of it (they also shared their exact state room number 6536)

People from different July sailings have chimed in to report bedbugs being reported in deck 6 staterooms

 

[Pinkjgray]

Does anyone know how DCL goes about treating bedbugs on the ship? There is a Reddit post about a current cruiser on the Magic who is experiencing bedbugs and others have chimed in that bedbugs were also seen on their July 6 sailing on the Magic (6th floor both times).

As someone who is set to sail the Magic in the beginning of September on the 6th floor let’s just say I’m already itchy and I would love to hear how DCL deals with this issue. I’m sure it can’t be the first time.

I just disembarked from the Disney Magic today after staying on Deck 5. Unfortunately, I believe I may have been bitten—possibly by a bedbug or a mosquito. Honestly, I wasn’t going to post about it until I saw this thread. It’s hard to say for certain whether the bite occurred onboard or during our stop in Nassau.

For context, I spent the night before the cruise at Animal Kingdom Lodge. Before going to bed, I pulled back the sheets and sprayed the product shown in the attached image below over the sheets, comforter, and pillows. (I brought my own DCL pillowcase.) After doing that, I had no issues during my stay onboard.

 

[Mommb]

I am still bothered by the fact that DCL suddenly found a room on Deck 8 that slept the whole family when the ship was supposedly too full the first time. So instead they kept the kids in a room connected to an infested room? That's not good practice.

There was apparently one room for 4 on Deck 6 that was empty, and it was provided immediately. It is possible that in order to get a room on Deck 8 with room for the entire family of 5, DCL had to move someone else (perhaps a Disney employee), and that took time to arrange. According to the Reddit post, the manager on duty became aware of the issue late Wednesday morning and said she would need some time to make things right. The new room was then available Wednesday night.

It sounds as if there was some kind of disconnect earlier when the bedbug infestation was mistakenly recorded as a toilet issue. Obviously, this shouldn't have happened. Once that mistake was corrected on Wednesday, the Reddit poster said there was "a flurry of activity" even before the 2nd bedbug was found, and after that bug was found, the housekeeping manager came in response and the poster's requests for remediation were apparently met. So yes, DCL made a mistake, but according to the post, they did try to rectify it.

 

[brentm77]

There was apparently one room for 4 on Deck 6 that was empty, and it was provided immediately. It is possible that in order to get a room on Deck 8 with room for the entire family of 5, DCL had to move someone else (perhaps a Disney employee), and that took time to arrange. According to the Reddit post, the manager on duty became aware of the issue late Wednesday morning and said she would need some time to make things right. The new room was then available Wednesday night.

It sounds as if there was some kind of disconnect earlier when the bedbug infestation was mistakenly recorded as a toilet issue. Obviously, this shouldn't have happened. Once that mistake was corrected on Wednesday, the Reddit poster said there was "a flurry of activity" even before the 2nd bedbug was found, and after that bug was found, the housekeeping manager came in response and the poster's requests for remediation were apparently met. So yes, DCL made a mistake, but according to the post, they did try to rectify it.

That doesn't seem to match the timeline. The flurry of activity happens, which amounts to some modest offers for rainforest passes and Palo, they are back in the room on Deck 6 in the evening, they find the new bug, and then are told a plan to move them to a new room. So it doesn't sound like there was any delay as DCL tried to relocate someone else, but more that they now had to move them from the room on Deck 6 since a new bug was found. Also, I highly doubt they would move another guest, unless upgrading them, so they could have just upgraded this family to start. In any case, a simple explanation to the family that they had to move someone to accommodate them and it took time, would have made it look like they weren't lying about the ship being full.

Again, I put myself in their shoes and this would have been a pretty frustrating cruise, with much of it spent dealing with this issue, moving rooms twice, having DCL misidentify an easy problem to understand three times, and no real offer to make it right while they were still sailing. It would have been a huge bummer and could have gone much better had DCL done better. Mistakes happen, but recovery is critical when charging prices like this for what are often once in a lifetime type vacations for many outside of Disboards.

 

[lanejudy]

I highly doubt they would move another guest, unless upgrading them

It was probably a room being utilized by CMs or more likely entertainers. They either exited the ship in port or moved in with another CM.

 

[Moonspinner]

It was probably a room being utilized by CMs or more likely entertainers. They either exited the ship in port or moved in with another CM.

Why would CMs be on deck 8?

 

[Flossbolna]

Why would CMs be on deck 8?

Higher ranking officers having family onboard. There is a wife of a cruise director on instagram who seems to travel with her husband a lot and she has posted pictures of normal staterooms.

 

[lanejudy]

Why would CMs be on deck 8?

Higher ranking officers are often in guest rooms. Contract performers are usually in guest rooms. Maintenance issues in crew quarters could have CMs in guest rooms.

It’s also possible the larger room was out of service on embarkation day for a maintenance issue but by 2 days later that repair had been completed, making the room available.

 

[brentm77]

Higher ranking officers are often in guest rooms. Contract performers are usually in guest rooms. Maintenance issues in crew quarters could have CMs in guest rooms.

It’s also possible the larger room was out of service on embarkation day for a maintenance issue but by 2 days later that repair had been completed, making the room available.

I doubt they were putting entertainers on Deck 8. If officers or family, why could they move them later, but not the first time?

To me, it sounds like we are making a lot of assumptions to give DCL the benefit of the doubt that they can do no wrong, and the simplest explanation is that they just didn't want to move the family from both rooms to begin with.

In any case, communicating to the family, explaining why it was suddenly available, could avoid anyone making assumptions either way. It's hard to believe it's 2025 and major companies haven't figured this out. More information to customers goes a long way to alleviate problems. Most of us are understanding when given a chance. Best practice is also to say, "Here is where we made the mistake and what we are doing to fix it in the future."

Anyway, I feel bad for the family and hope they get a refund and a future cruise credit so they can enjoy a week of carefree relaxation they thought they were buying.

 

[lanejudy]

the simplest explanation is that they just didn't want to move the family from both rooms to begin with.

You are making a lot of assumptions as well. The family booked 2 regular (oceanview?) staterooms. That was probably 1 adult plus 1-2 kids. We don’t know what discussions actually took place. In looking for a replacement room, DCL looked for something for the number of individuals booked into that stateroom, which was not 5. Only going by the information shared earlier in this thread, never does it mention the family indicated they needed 1 room for 5.

I think there were communication issues on both sides. Neither handled the situation perfectly. But it does serve as a reminder that DCL can change your stateroom and if you choose to book multiple rooms you may need to split.

 

[Moonspinner]

I suspect DCL was trying to replicate what they already had, 2 connecting inside (was it inside?) rooms, and didn’t even think about putting them in 1 room from the get go. Who knows. But none of it looks good. I agree it is minimalist customer service on display. We are on the Magic on deck 6 in a month. And boy do I feel stupid. We should have switched when we had the chance after the Magic water leaks. We thought long and hard about it at the time. Ugh