Family off Disney Cruise

[coach4448]

In some of the recent posts here there regarding 4nana, I thought that this might shed some light on how things are going on the Disney ships.
I am not saying that it was right or wrong, but this was on the news here in Tampa.
The link will take you to the news site.
http://www.wfts.com/index.shtml

Under video headlines is a link for this story : Family kicked off cruise

Here is the text of it:
TAMPA - A Tampa family is back home after Disney cut their Christmas cruise short. The Browns claim too much fruit gave their son diarrhea, but the managers of the cruise ship kicked the family off because of fears he had the Norwalk Virus.
The cruise was a family reunion for Aaron and Leigh Anne Brown that had been in the works for over a year. Monday afternoon, just a day into the cruise, their 3-year-old son made a mess in his pants while playing at the ship's kids club; by 4:30, the family was leaving the ship.

The Browns told ABC Action News they begged the ship to allow a doctor to check out little Paul Aaron before booting them off the boat. Disney says the family chose to leave the cruise because they did not want to keep their child in isolation.

After getting off the boat in the Bahamas, the Browns were given tickets to fly home. Disney did put them up in a hotel, but with only one bed for four people. Disney also did not send anyone to pick them up at the airport, so they were stuck with a $60 cab ride home.

"Caution would include my son seeing a doctor, making sure my son was really sick before they just kicked us off the ship. There's nothing wrong with my son, so in other words, my family vacation was ruined over nothing," Aaron Brown exclaimed.

Five-year-old Carly was devastated, her mother said.

"She just started bawling her eyes out. Grandma came in, Grandma was bawling her eyes out. Carly said, 'I have to leave grandma too?' It was awful and I just kept asking how can they do this to my children," Leigh Anne said.

Disney claims their doctor did check out Paul Aaron. In a statement, Disney wrote, "the Browns refused the option to keep their child in their stateroom until he was medically cleared, so we had no choice but to remove them from the ship. We could not put 2,500 passengers at risk for them."

"Every friend I've talked to about this said 'They threw you off because your 3-year-old had diarrhea?'" Leigh Anne added.

"Paul Aaron, as you can see, is not sick. He was not sick for the rest of that time," Aaron continued.

The Brown family said Disney told them the Centers for Disease Control recommended they leave the boat. However, a CDC representative Action News spoke with insisted their experts would never tell a ship to kick off a passenger. Instead, the CDC would suggest keeping the child in isolation until a doctor examined him.

Disney has offered the Browns a free cruise, but it will not be with their 17 family members who flew into Florida for the reunion. Disney is also offering to pay their cab fare and other expenses, but the family feels that does not make up for Disney overreacting and cutting short their family Christmas cruise.

Only thought it fair to post this since there has been so much talk over 4nana and her problems. I know that there are 2 sides to every story, and until she returns we won't know hers, but this will at least give an idea as to what is happening.

 

[mmouse37]

Two nights ago a similar story was aired on the our local New York news, Channel Two.

A Waldwick, NJ family was also upset because one of their children were sick and they also did not want to keep their child in isolation so they left the ship. I think the circumstances were pretty much the same. They were demanding Disney reimburse them for their troubles, because it sounded like they were not offered a free cruise. I believe it was these people's choice to leave the ship instead of staying in isolation. It said Disney did pay for the flights home.

MJ

 

[tgiving cruisers]

On the 11/23 sailing we were on, the couple next to us had each of their children get sick with the virus, but they did not report it. Their daughter became ill in the lab. The staff even had to launder her outfit and give her other clothes to wear. But, the mom told my wife that she didn't reportt it because she didn't want to be forced to stay in the cabin.

In these instances, it's no wonder that the virus spreads so easily. The DCL people are stuck. It's bad PR to "send" people home and even worse PR to have a sick ship.

 

[mmouse37]

It is definiately a tough call.....I would not want to be quarantined if I was sick, but I would understand it and do it. I certainly would not want to be quarantined for reasons other than the "virus". And I certainly would not want someone who had the virus to be walking around infecting other people. I think I would stay on the ship in my cabin and ride it out. I would not want to be flown home. Heck, I am still on vacation!!!

Making the decision on who is "virus" sick and who is just motion, new food "sick" is going to be the tough part for DCL to decided. Maybe they need more medical staff onboard so people do not have to wait so long to have the doctor check them. It seems the medical staff is very busy these days.

MJ

 

[AnnMorin]

The parents say that the boy got sick from too much fruit-how do they know this?

Did he have a pattern of diarihha from too much fruit-if so why was he allowed too much fruit?

Only a stool sample could determine if he had Norwalk like virus.

Now if my child had been in that kids club where another had an accident in his pants, I would want that child quarentined until cleared. The virus spreads from human contact and having accidents is certainly a way to spread it.

The fact that the child is well now ( I am glad for that) is not a determining factor of whether he had the illness or not. It only lasts from 12-48 hours.

I personally think Disney DOES have a duty to all the other passangers to protect them and although I would be dissapointed/sad/frustrated if it were myself/child/hubby that was quarentined or asked to leave I would think it was reasonable.

If they allowed people to continue to be in the general population that are having symptoms the outbreaks will never stop.
My suggestion for Disney would be that they put a disclaimer/warning notice in with your documents explaining the policy of quarentine/disembarkment, spelling out your compensation if this should happen etc.

 

[kajohn]

I agree disney needs to be cautious about the spread of this virus, but they are now going to an extreme. The virus from what has been reported here from people who had it, were very sick, in the bathroom every hour or two, and very weak.

I think DCL is going to extreme, and isolating people with very mild symptoms which could be caused by any number of things.

I booked my cruise for my family 1 year in advance, and my 3 children have been looking forward to this trip so much, but I am seriously considering going on a different line if I can work out the details.

I have a child allergic to nuts and if he gets even a tiny bit of one he vomits. We try very hard for him not to eat any, but you never know when one sneaks into a dish you aren't expecting it to be in, especially on a cruise with so much food.

I have another child that if he eats too much at night, he has woken up on three or four different occasions and vomitted, only to be fine after that. Now being a responisble parent on those instances I kept him home the next day, but once I realized he was fine, he went to school the next day. I did not isolate him for 72 hours.

If either of these situtions happened on our cruise, from what the news reports are saying, I would be forced in isolation for 72 hours. From the news reports, it appears the doctor is being overly cautious, and I think DCL is worrying about the bottom line and bad press rather than their guests and common sense. Hopefully this treatment of people who were not ill will get national press soon, so this will stop happening before my February cruise.

I know everyone says it is for the sake of the whole ship, but lets not go overboard here, I'm sure in the past there have been very many instances where a kid had a loose stool and the whole ship didn't get sick, or even 1 percent. You keep that child out of the clubs until they have been symptom free for 24 hours like schools and child care centers do.

As has been stated here by others including one who felt queasy but did not report on the advise of her husband, an attorney, because she didn't want to get isolated, and the person who had a family next door who didn't want to report their sick kids for fear of the isolation this policy may even increase the spread of virus.

I'm sure I will get flamed, but think of the news reports that say this virus is no worse this year than any other year, and this 72 hour isolation is apparently a reaction to the bad press they had.

I am going to write to the CDC and see if I can get their policy of how cruise ships should handle these situations.

I am basically a lurker, and have gotten a lot of great info from these boards, but this is a serious issue, and it greatly effects those who will be cruising in the next few months.

 

[Firefighter Mickey]

One thing I've been wondering, is why 72 hours?

According to the transcript from the CDC at the top of this board, people can have the virus show up in their stools for up to 2 weeks. In addition, people can apparently be "shedding" the virus and not show any symptoms at all (asymptomatic cases).

Really, it sounds to me like the 72 hour thing is more kind of public relations on DCL's part for the people that don't get sick (or don't show symptoms); they can point at a few isolated cases who's vacations they ruined and say "See - we did everything possible to make your vacation safe" when in fact they didn't do anything and really couldn't do anything to make your vacation safe against the possibility of you contracting the virus by using the isolation approach.

Yeah, the CDC recommends isolation, but that transcript sure didn't provide any data supporting the use of isolation - and the data they did present suggested that isilation is really kind of useless.

 

[coach4448]

I agree with AnnMorin. I think that the parents should have kept the child in the stateroom as Disney asked them and then taken if from there. It sounds as if it was their refusal to do that was the key in getting them asked to leave.
On another cruise board that I read I saw the following posted:
Cruise review
COLOR=blue]We went off the ship in Cozumel and within 30 minutes had to get back on. This is the day my Daughter started not feeling well. I knew something was wrong, just could not figure out what. She did not vomit this day, but the Diarrhea and the fever did start. I just figured she was warn out and she was on Antibiotics for a ear infection the week before. I just gave her some Tylenol and she seemed to do better. We later took her up to the Kids Club at 7:30 PM (which is when the reopened) and headed out to Cozumel without her. We hit Carlos and Charlie’s and Sr. Frogs for a few ( a few too many ). Boy did I have the bed spins that evening… We were in bed by 11:00 PM that night.[/COLOR]
Another post by the same person:
Virus Struck my child
Well, I wanted to let the people know who are taking children a little bit about this virus. It starts out as diarrhea and fever then comes the vomiting a day or so later. I did not even realize what she had until I talked to a few people who also had it. (we all met for a party down at the infirmary. LOL)

My daughters started the day in Cozumel with diarrhea and a little fever. I just put her on Tylenol until last night which is when the vomiting started and did not stop all night. She also ran to the bathroom all night this morning. She is not in any pain though, but she usually never is when she is sick. Children tend to deal with illness much better than us adults. One adult was very very ill. Felt really bad for her. (No mention in this post of taking her the Kid's Club!)

I thought to myself, why would these parents take a sick child to the Kid's Club and run the risk of exposing the other children on board to what ever it was their child had? Not all parents are responsible (the above a good example) and I can see where Disney needs to make the call based on what they see as the best for the whole of the ship.

 

[BriarfoxinWA]

I'm just wondering if DCL automatically puts someone who exhibits symptoms in a 72 hour lock down, or do they continue to monitor the ill person on a regular basis? In the situation with the folks whose toddler ate too much fruit, I would assume that within a few hours he would be fine. In that case, wouldn't the ships doctor have ended the isolation?

I'm sure there is probably much more to the story than what is being reported. Not that I'm going to blindly defend DCL, but I would much rather have a few situations like this than be on a ship that had large numbers of passengers infected with Norwalk.

 

[Debbie H]

It seems to me people want it both ways. You can't demand Disney do something about the virus and then when they do something about it people are furious that they did something. Well.....................which way do you want it folks???

 

[Gillian]

Was this on the Wonder? It says it was Monday, 1 day into the cruise, and that the family was dropped off in the Bahamas.

It does seem sad, but Disney is in a difficult position. There is no way for them to test for the virus.

 

[we3luvdisney]

I know that Disney cleaned the ship a number of times, however people are still getting sick.

There is the possibility that people are bringing the virus on-board, but there is the possibility that the virus is still there.

Maybe Disney should quarantine their ship and perform more cleaning.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[mmouse37]

I truly don't believe taking the ship out of service again would help any....unless a very vast number of people got sick again. It is surely bringing brought onboard by sick people.

Out in Long Island today there is a report that two hospitals have come down with the Norwalk "like" virus that hit 20 something people at each hosptial.

I think it is just that there is such a wide outbreak of the virus on land, that it is just the odds that people would be carrying it onboard their vactions.

The Carnival Conquest this week also had a big outbreak onboard. I do think it is the luck of the draw......

MJ

 

[Gillian]

That's why I was asking if it was the Wonder. If it was the Magic, would they make an unscheduled stop to drop someone off in the Bahamas? They were supposed to be in st. maarten on Monday, so why would the family be let off in the Bahamas? And Tuesday they would be in St Thomas, which has an airport, so why not let them off there?

If it's the wonder, it's a whole different problem.

 

[mmouse37]

good question!!!! The article does not really say.

MJ

 

[taswira]

If DCL decides to change its policy and let GUESTS determine if they potentially have Norwalk, THAT is when I will cancel all my future DCL reservations!

The symptoms of the virus are unfortunately the same as many other ailments. DCL has no reasonable choice other than to quarantine as advised by the CDC, or to send these folks home. Has the child in the article, although no longer ill, even been tested for Norwalk since returning home?

We can all look at this from the outside and have sympathy on ousted (their choice over quarantine) guests. But there is no way to test for the virus while aboard. DCL bases its decisions on symptoms. Be honest - Would it be better to risk the health and vacations of a couple thousand people (not to mention the crew and DCL's reputation!) by letting someone with Norwalk SYMPTOMS roam the ship and mingle with other guests? I think NOT! It is too bad (for all of us) that the virus does not have unique symptoms, but that's how it is. No guest would know <B>for certain</B> any more than the ship's medical officer (without means for testing) if it was Norwalk. Wouldn't it ruin YOUR vacation if your tablemates were ill with the symptoms, claimed it was from too much fruit or seasickness or something else, and then YOU had to fret about getting it? And if you did get it, wouldn't you then be complaining that DCL did not quarantine or remove the sick guests? They just can't win, but IMO they are doing the RIGHT thing!

 

[ppiew]

Right On!!! It is irresponsible to allow even a potentially contagious person to roam in a confined environment such as a cruise ship. Irresponsible for parents as well as cruise officers.

 

[OurDogCisco]

get rid of the virus. I thought, the virus was spread from human contact. If that is the case then I think, Disney did it all wrong. The entire family should be in isolation or anyone who had contact with the boy. That would include all the kids in the club and the workers who have been in contact with the boy. Yes, I know this sounds "silly". But technically that is the only way the virus would go away. If you put the boy in isolation then, the one parent goes out and has dinner and does ship board activities then, they would be spreading the illness. It seems silly to me.

 

[MelissaE1]

Poor DCL... d*mned if they do, and d*mned if they don't. What could they do short of installing a full time pathology lab on the ship?

I am not a stick-up-for-Disney-at-all-costs person, but I applaud them for their customer service efforts in this whole ugly thing. I am sure they have made a few mistakes, but when you're dealing with tens of thousands of people you are due one or two.

My personal opinion (for what it's worth) is that I can't think of another line I'd feel was looking out more for my safety. And if I get sick on my vacation they're going to give me another one!! That's a deal I've never seen before.

IMHO they've done the best they could, and when they've made mistakes they've been quick in trying to correct them. I'm even more convinced that I did the right thing when I chose DCL.

 

[Firefighter Mickey]

Hmmm. Maybe DCL should be screening people before they even board. The could do a quick looksee at people, take temp, things like that and then if you don't make the cut, you aren't even allowed to board.