High fevers, flu for 6 of us on the Disney Wonder 2/13/2011

cvlauren

Earning My Ears
Joined
Feb 26, 2011
Messages
2
Disney Wonder to Mexico - Feb 13

We loved our cruise and actually booked another cruise for next year, while on board. Our party of ten has cruised on several lines and Disney does it right for kids -- from the less crowded buffet line just for kids, to the helpful staff at the water slide and my daughter being greeted with "hello princess," it was a special trip. The staff loves kids and it shows.

However, I wanted to share a situation we encountered with one clearly feverish and contagious boy in the Oceanear Lab. Our two 6 year olds were playing wii in the back room of the Lab and when we picked them up, a child was laying on beanbag, shivering, coughing, sneezing and appearing to have a very high fever. Three of the (wonderful!! Kudos to Lauren & Elle especially) staff members were sitting by him, keeping him covered and frantically trying to call his parents, who had dropped him off early that morning while they went ashore (don't get me started.) He was very ill and spreading germs to every kid in there.

We alerted several staff members and asked that he be able to rest in a room away from the healthy children. Staff members then pulled him on his beanbag around the corner, into the kitchen area. My brother turned to me and said, "you know our kids are going to get sick now" and boy, did they. Our four children spent time shivering and puking in the cabin, fevers of 104, two dr's visits for an anti-nausea and antibotic....a few days later 2 adults got sick, me included with a strand of the flu, not covered by the flu shot.

As parents, you guys know the drill! This could happen anywhere, but we were blown away by how severe the illness was and the fact that there is no plan for sick kids are left in the club. Two adults in our party got sick too -- shakes, fever, headaches and vomiting. Not fun.

We also contacted the Kids Club manager who said there is no plan for when sick kids are dropped off - they do not have a separate area for them to be, so they are right in there with the healthy kids. As parents, no one wants to miss a fun day because your kid is sick, but seriously, one contagious kid being dropped off at the lab for way too long (his parents didn't return until dinner) was very hard on my family (and possibly others.)

Disney was awesome with handing out hand wipes, but whew, as the week went on, there were a lot of sick and coughing kids. I guess that is why kids were free -- it is cold & flu season!! We would not cruise during this timeframe again.

I hope this doesn't happen to anyone else, and again, it really was a wonderful trip for our families and young kids....until everyone got sick.




 
Bummer that sucks to be sick. Luckily, we can't travel this time of year due to work obligations so, we don't. I did send my dd on a 8th grade class Washington DC trip and I was very paranoid about her getting sick. I made sure she dosed upon vitimin C the weeks prior and made sure she used handwipes, etc... But as you said you can't prevent everything. I was worried for her because 50 kids on a tour bus. A bunch of kids did get sick but not her (knock on wood). I guess, you can never really plan these things.
 
Wow, now I feel lucky, we were on the same cruise and no one in our family got sick. We all get flu shots every year, so maybe that helped, that and our kids didn't spend much time in the lab, now I am glad that was the case. Hope you are all back to normal, I am always amazed at how people are willing to expose everyone else to their sick kids, we would have kept ours in the stateroom and missed the day in port if one of ours had been sick. I can't imagine how miserable that poor child must have been in the lab while his parents were off having fun in the port. To each his own I guess.:confused3
 
I'm sorry to hear you fell ill. I have little patience for people who think nothing of sharing their contagious cheer with the masses.

I'm guessing the kids club doesn't have the staffing level to have one adult sit elsewhere with one sick child, but I'm surprised they don't have a plan in place to send the child to the infirmary. If parents were warned that sick children dropped off at the kids club could equate to a hefty health clinic bill added to the parents' stateroom, I bet folks would think twice about dropping their little Typhoid Mary off at the kids club. With a child as obviously sick as you described, the parents had to know he was sick before dropping him off. :confused3

That said, germs spread so easily on ships. DCL does a great job trying to cut down on cross contamination, but I was dismayed on our 8/09 cruise by how they handled our asst waiter's illness. On our 2nd to last night, I noticed she was sniffling a bit and looked very tired, but she worked the whole night. On our last night, she was quite obviously ill and finally left halfway through. A head waiter told us she had the flu and they were giving her a hard time about leaving. :headache: The day after we returned from our cruise, 4 out of the 9 of us fell ill with the flu. We all tested positive for Swine Flu. One last souvenir from Disney. Obviously we can't prove it came from her, but it seems most likely given that she was handling our drinks, utensils, food, etc. :sick:
 

Hey everyone,

I know illness can spread easily in any group situation but I hope this is not the norm on Disney cruises? We've been on 2 before but it's been 10 years. We are going on the MR cruise on March 6th with our 5 1/2 year old and I am 19 weeks pregnant. We have all gotten our flu shots and I will be worried sick if we contract the flu (not good for a prego mom)! Did you guys really see that many sick kids in the kids club? I hope we all stay healthy and have a great trip! I don't want to keep my daughter from enjoying the clubs but may look closely to see if there are a bunch of sick kiddos in there.
 
We were on that cruise and our 3 year old had the exact same symptoms on the last night of the cruise. We were up all night while she vomited and shivered in the bathroom.
 
Yes, there were a lot of sick kids on this cruise!

I've already posted before about the sick baby who had a high fever, dripping nose, and eyes oozing junk right into the pool. :eek: I also saw a little boy throw up in the Walt Disney Theater on the first night. At least twice, I saw cast memebers in masks and gloves cleaning throw up off the floor on Deck 6 forward.

My son played the Wii in the ocanears club the entire week, so I feel lucky that he didn't get sick ON the cruise, but we've only been back a week and he's had a fever all week and already had a visit to the Dr. I'm sure he picked something up on the cruise since it started the day we returned home.

Parents who drop their sick kids off in the kids clubs are one of my BIGGEST pet peeves about cruising. I'll stop now becuase I could go on and on about this. :mad:
 
Yes! I saw that sick baby too -- and was really grossed out when I read your post about the gunk dripping into the pool. We also saw lots of throw-up being cleaned up around the ship and the pool was closed at least three times - once for puke.

While waiting to board, we all looked around and thought, "Wow there are a lot of sick kids onboard!"

Sorry your son is sick too - it lasts at least 7 days with a high fever and cough is awful and non-stop for both my kids.

My thought for parents going on future cruises is to talk to the kids club staff if you see a very sick kid. There is so much staff working with the kids that it seems like there could be a plan in place to protect the healthy kids, and again I can not rave enough about their kindness. There is such an emphasis on washing hands (including detailed hand-washing directions on every mirror!)

We had a great cruise but we are so bummed out about how sick so many of us got.
 
So very sorry to hear that so many of you got sick on your cruise. I was very concerned leading up to the trip that we'd be sick as well due to traveling and being around so many people from so many places.

However, I have to chime in and say that even with two flights, a two hour time change, a weather change from sub-zero to 70's and 80's, and spending a week on the ship that it was the healthiest we've been all winter! We were on the Wonder sailing on 2/6. My husband and I, as well as our table mates at dinner, repeatedly commented on how we never saw even one sick child during the week. I was shocked. Since being home we have raved and commented to others about how surprised and impressed we were by the lack of any illnesses on the cruise.
 
I didn't see anyone visibly sick on our cruise (2/20-2/27) but I will tell you that Friday night I came down with the worst cold/flu. I never had to vomit, but I had the fever/chills and the worst cough and runny nose. Thankfully it was only the last day of our cruise that I confined myself to my room. Maybe that's where I caught it from...my room! ;)

Sorry you all got it. My mom has it today, I'm hoping the kids and DH don't get it.
 
We all had a hard time recovering from our 1/30 MR. The time change of 3 hours, "after motion sickness" , jet lag, germy airplane air and germs we picked up onboard...wow, it took 2 rounds of ATBS to cure DD and about 2 weeks to get back to normal for the rest of us. It was rough b/c they already missed a week of school and now had sick days. Sooo needless to say we will be sucking it up and going during the peak seasons (expensive)from now on. Hopefully our august Dream cruise will be healthier!!!
 


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