Horrible Experiance with DCL - Please be aware!

[HooKooDooKu]

What I haven't heard is if the DCL medical staff truly thought this was a virus, why didn't they seek out everyone who rode the bus to the port with her. I would think they would need to be quanintined as well. If the symptoms appear 24 to 48 hours after exposure. Then you have a bus load of people who could potentionally be making the entire ship sick.

Just because you've been on a bus with someone sick with a stomic virus does not mean you are likely to get sick your self. From what I understand it usually takes direct contact of some sort to become sick. The typical scenario might go something like this: Someone who is sick contaminates their hands (ie doesn't wash their hands well enough after using the restroom) and then goes to the salad bar, leaving some of the virus on the salad tongs. The next person in like uses the salad tongs and then starts munching their salad crutons with their contaminated hands on their way back to their seat.

I know that I recently read a study about stomic viruses that said they generally can not be transmitted via the air. The excepting being that if you are in the immediate prescense of a person activily vomiting, it is possible for some of the virus to become air-born for a short period of time from the vomit "flying through the air".

As a personal example, we were visiting some friends out of town. The last day of our stay, their daughter got sick in the kitchen. I tried to clean up the kitchen while the mother tried to get the daughter cleaned up (father was at work). The daugher then proceeded to vomit a second time ON HER MOTHER. The next day, DW, DS and I drove home (about a 12 hour drive). The next day, The girl's mother and I were sick. My wife and son and the girl's father never got sick.

What's different when you're on a ship is that a lot of people are in a relatively small space (and there seems to be alot of self-serve food bars where people can infect each other).

 

[AnnMorin]

or ask..or implore... is the people getting on the 12/4/04 Magic PLEASE do not take the OP's advice and be untruthfull if you have been ill. I have been on two infected cruises already, they were infected because people did not tell the truth and they inturn got many many people ill. It was not pleasent seeing CM's in orange jumpsuits with masks on, nor was it enjoyable to have people vomiting at dinner.

Although I am sure it would be extreemly dissapointing for my family I would never dream of covering up an illness (and therefor risk exposing others) even if it meant our cruise would have to be rescheduled.

 

[LAMPSKIES]

Ann......are you saying you don't want me on your cruise 12/04/04??? Because I am sure that by then I WILL be sick.......of work, snow, cold, holiday hustle bustle etc.... LOL

 

[AnnMorin]

Lampskies my dear as long as you can keep your food down you are welcome to join me..infact I INSIST!

 

[LAMPSKIES]

Keeping my food down? With Rae sticking her hand down my throat trying to get that last shrimp back!!! OOpppss, sorry looks like we hijacked the thread...........

 

[NADINENURSE]

CDC and all other medical personnel encourage UNIVERSAL PRECAUTIONS , in other words, WASH YOUR HANDS ! Viral Illness, either Respiratory or Stomach, are everywhere If you have a child in school, you are already at risk of getting one of these viruses I too am a nurse in a small 300 bed hospital, only once have I gotten a virus, and boy, it was a whooper. I crawled to the bathroom, lied on the floor and prayed I would be found. That is a pcture of the Norwalk Virus. I can not blame the cruise line, not everyone walks around with instant hand sanitzer in their bags, and could you imagine how impossible it would be to handle a major outbreak on a floating cruise ship in the middle of the ocean ?

 

[NADINENURSE]

CDC and all other medical personnel encourage UNIVERSAL PRECAUTIONS , in other words, WASH YOUR HANDS ! Viral Illness, either Respiratory or Stomach, are everywhere If you have a child in school, you are already at risk of getting one of these viruses I too am a nurse in a small 300 bed hospital, only once have I gotten a virus, and boy, it was a whooper. I crawled to the bathroom, lied on the floor and prayed I would be found. That is a pcture of the Norwalk Virus. I can not blame the cruise line, not everyone walks around with instant hand sanitzer in their bags, and could you imagine how impossible it would be to handle a major outbreak on a floating cruise ship in the middle of the ocean ?

 

[NADINENURSE]

CDC and all other medical personnel encourage UNIVERSAL PRECAUTIONS , in other words, WASH YOUR HANDS ! Viral Illness, either Respiratory or Stomach, are everywhere If you have a child in school, you are already at risk of getting one of these viruses I too am a nurse in a small 300 bed hospital, only once have I gotten a virus, and boy, it was a whooper. I crawled to the bathroom, lied on the floor and prayed I would be found. That is a pcture of the Norwalk Virus. I can not blame the cruise line, not everyone walks around with instant hand sanitzer in their bags, and could you imagine how impossible it would be to handle a major outbreak on a floating cruise ship in the middle of the ocean ? I'm sure the cruise line has dealt with it's fair share of vomitting, being a ship and all, but a virus is quite different I would not have even wanted to step a foot away from the bathroom, or be ale to do so There should have been some way to differenciate between food posioning and a virus, but it is really hard when you have the whole boat to worry about.

Either way, so sorry about your experince, you only wanted a great disney dinner , not a controversy

 

[NADINENURSE]

HELP! ON MY COMPUTER MY REPLY POSTED THREE TIMES ! WHY DID IT DO THAT ?

 

[dianthus]

Ann~ What you posted is my main concern as well. With threads like this one & others that have popped up advising cruisers NOT to go to seek medical attention if sick, or they will risk quarantine. This scares me, as illness can spread faster.

I can certainly understand the OP's frustration and anger too. It does not sound like she was treated well concerning the matter, but the Disney doctor did make the right call. You can't risk the welfare of many, because of a few...

3 days before our Nov. cruise, my DD's friend who was coming with us got a stomach virus & was very sick. I took the position that even if she got better, I couldn't risk the health of us & other passengers on our cruise. My DD was devastated, but that's the way the cookie crumbles... it just wasn't mean't to be. Yes, I lost the fare paid for her, but I did purchase trip insurance & I am in the process of a claim to get the $ back. We had a great time and were healthy! I just didn't feel comfortable traveling with her being sick so soon before the cruise.

~ Linda

 

[Alex]

The problem is Disney is putting themselves in a box here. As more and more of these stories surface people WILL report illnesses less and less. It's human nature and it's not going to change no matter how much people beg others.
The only thing that would stop that is if Disney came out with a standard published policy. If you are denied boarding or become sick on the cruise we will do "X". If people felt that was reasonable then more people would report it. Short of that I think it's hopeless.

 

[BibbidyBobbidyBoo]

Alex, I agree with you- and want to also add that part of it isn't just what they'll get if they are quarantined or denied boarding... part of it is that people are afraid that even if they report an illness of ANY type (be it vomitting from eating something bad, vomitting from upset stomach due to seasickness, etc.) that it's always going to automatically be assumed as Norwalk or some contagious virus and boom- they are either quarantined or denied boarding.
If there is no way to know whether it's a virus or not and they make the standard of ANY vomitting or stomach problem being considered a contagious virus and making you either quarantined or denied boarding - then people are going to be afraid to report it unless they think they are really ill in that way... and some might be wrong about that and really have the virus!

But for instance, on our last trip a few nights into our 12 night stay at WDW my son- and ONLY my son of 3 children/5 in family- threw up once during the night. It was very obvious that it was from the hotdog he'd had earlier (don't ask me how I know- just trust me on that LOL) and apparently it hadn't been cooked well or kept up on temp (from buffet) or something because he has eaten hotdogs before. But he was not running fever, no diarrhea and only threw up that once. He was fine before & after and no one else in the family was ill- although we didn't let the children eat hotdogs the rest of the trip.
Had we been on the cruise- I wouldn't have reported that episode of vomitting. Why? Because they might (probably from what it sounds like...) have assumed immediately that it was a virus and quarantined us for 2 days even though it was vomitting from a hotdog eaten earlier.

In this case I would have been right about the illness and it wouldn't have mattered that I hadn't reported it- but in some cases people are going to be afraid that even seasickness is going to be assumed to be a virus and get quarantined- so they won't report it and it could turn out to actually be a virus- and by the time they know it... many others could be exposed to it and get ill themselves.
So in essence, them (ie: DCL/dr) being SO paranoid about every stomach irregularity at all being a virus and acting accordingly IS going to cause people to report less... you're right- no way around that happening. And to be honest- for myself it wouldn't matter even if they DID say "we'll give you a free cruise if you end up being quarantined or denied boarding"- that would not make it up to me if we weren't really sick. If we were- great... but we have insurance anyway so that's not doing us any favors. But if we weren't- it's not going to make it up to me... who knows when we can go again or if we'd want to and risk being denied boarding or quarantined again for an upset stomach or seasickness/etc. What would make me report illnesses of any sort would be if they didn't consider ALL stomach irregularities as automatically meaning virus and quarantine for 48hrs or whatever.
I have worries about seasickness- out of 5 of us and this being our first cruise- who knows how many of us might have some seasickness on the trip. I'm going to try to come prepared for that as much as possible, even to staying on deck 2 to try to help that, but I worry that if seasickness (or maybe even eating foods we aren't used to eating- since we're basically an Atkins family now and DH tends to get diarrhea if he cheats & eats more decadent high carb foods now- his stomach can't handle change I guess) causes one of us to throw up- that reporting it would basically be the death of our trip (or atleast ruined a lot- if quarantined for 48hrs)... because apparently any diarrhea, throwing up, etc. is automatically assumed a virus infection that is contagious.

Oh and btw, my eldest daughter and myself both have a higher than normal NORMAL temperature. At this point I'm considering bringing documentation of that from our dr's to prove that we aren't running a fever should the need to take our temp arise. I'm only half joking about bringing those docs.....

 

[year2late]

Originally posted by Alex
The only thing that would stop that is if Disney came out with a standard published policy. If you are denied boarding or become sick on the cruise we will do "X".

That is very true.

 

[eek40]

Maybe I am reading this wrong, so forgive me. But the thing is DCL already has said, if you are sick we will do X.

 

[Alex]

eek40 by x I meant some reasonable policy, defined and printed. They haven't done anything like that.

 

[lrmillen]

i've been following the post and this is a really difficult situation. I respect some here who said they'd be honest and say they had some type of illness before the cruise, but what a HUGE risk. I know there are many here who do DCL and the World at least once a year, but speaking for myself...my last cruise could be a once in a lifetime opportunity. Would I risk being denied boarding by admitting a sickness??? NO! My entire family would miss out. I really believe there are a bunch of people who board the ship and knowingly are sick. And i can't decide whether it's a shame or not. I think I'm going to post a poll because it'd be interesting to see number wise the way people feel.

 

[Lisa F]

lrmillen,

What if DCL gave you the full credit toward another cruise? I understand that the cruise may be a once in a lifetime opportunity, but if you were denied boarding but given the opportunity to rebook at no cost to you, how would you be missing your once in a lifetime opportunity?

I always tend to pick up something somewhere on vacation. Sometimes it's just a cold, once it turned into an extremely bad sinus and upper respiratory infection that took two full courses of antibiotics to get rid of. We had a big 2 week vacation planned, do you know what it's like to spend 2 weeks at WDW mostly in bed (sometimes in the waiting room of the centra care?) It REALLY sucks, but I don't blame Disney for my sucky vacation. Sometimes crap happens and you just have to get upset about it then move on and make the best of a bad situation.

If DCL were saying "so sorry, we are going to deny you passage and keep the money for your once in a lifetime cruise" without giving you anything in return THEN I could at least understand people lying about the fact that they are sick. DCL is NOT doing that, though, and I think anyone who has serious symptoms such as the OP described and lied about it would be nothing short of selfish, caring only for themselves and instant gratification IMO.

DCL is not saying you can NEVER cruise, just that you can't cruise while there is a good possibility you are EXTREMELY infectious. I guess I don't see what's so unreasonable about that. Would I be disappointed? Heck yeah. Would I do the right thing and not board? Heck yeah again. I would probably cry about it when all was said and done because it IS an extremely disappointing situation, but I always try to look at the bright side of things... at the end of the week my once in a lifetime DCL trip wouldn't be over.

If more people cared a little more about doing the right thing instead of getting what they want RIGHT THIS INSTANT I think the world would be a heck of a lot better place. Sometimes the right decision is not the easy one or the one that feels good.

Just MHO.

Lisa

 

[lrmillen]

hey lisa, like i said it is really a difficult situation. i do feel i'd say i were sick if i were REALLY sick, like can't stand for more than 15 mins. at a time, which has happened to me before. (and of course I'd use my trip insurance) but if it were something like a stomach bug, which may/may not be a virus, then I would definately be cruising. I think that is one of the main problems that was brought up in this thread. How sick is too sick? If cruisers aren't sure then they probably won't admit it in fear of missing their vacation

I did post a poll. Not necessarily to rehash what was talked about here but to just break it down more visually.

 

[mebmanasquan]

We were staying at the Wildnerness Lodge at the same time, January 3-9 and my son became ill on the last day of our stay. He woke up first thing in the morning and threw up vile, no food. He continued to throw up all morning this yellowish liquid and by evening he was well enough to want to eat. The following day he had diarehha as did my daughter. That evening, 600 miles from Disney, I started throwing up at 11:30 at night and continued throughout the night with diarehha as well.
We talked to a nurse who's doctor make room visits to the Disney property and she said the virus was prevelant throughout Disney. You had a virus, not food poisoning.

 

[The4OfUs]

Originally posted by lrmillen

I did post a poll. Not necessarily to rehash what was talked about here but to just break it down more visually.

Thanks for doing that. It's somewhat disturbing the # of people who say yes...just IMO...