Upper respiratory issue following cruise

[Rogillio]

I am one who very seldom catches a cold or gets the bug de jour that is going around the office. I almost never get sick . . . but it seems like following our last few cruises I have found myself coughing/hacking with some sort of upper respiratory issue going on. Anyone else notice this?

 

[PrincessShmoo]

I am one who very seldom catches a cold or gets the bug de jour that is going around the office. I almost never get sick . . . but it seems like following our last few cruises I have found myself coughing/hacking with some sort of upper respiratory issue going on. Anyone else notice this?

Yes. However, put 2,000+ people in an enclosed environment for days on end, you're very likely to have some sort of health issues. Mostly due to the "it's my vacation, and I'm not going to let a "little cold" stop me" mentality. Best you can do is keep those hands washed, and never touch your hands to your face.

 

[jrabbit]

i think its from the air conditioning. Outside hot and humid (if in the Caribbean) and inside sometimes can be pretty darn cold.

Confined space - any one of your cruise mates can be patient zero!! On our last cruise (Baltic / Northern Europe) DW caught something early on - had a bad cough for 9 out of the 12 nights. I didn't catch anything - and I have asthma issues and everything hits my lungs. I know someone onboard was patient zero (maybe DW??) because by the end of the cruise the onboard shops were out of cough medicine - and you would hear people coughing all around the ship.

 

[perditax]

After I got sick on two subsequent vacations (one WDW and one NOLA), I got WAY more vigilant about hand-washing and not touching my face. I also carry a ziploc with a small bottle of clorox hand sanitizer spray and some paper towels, and I wipe down the airplane tray and stuff like that. This particular sanitizer claims to kill noro; so does one called zylast.

On board, I don't do the thing of spraying down the whole cabin, but I wash my hands frequently, spray them with the spray if there's nowhere to wash, and grab the hand wipes whenever offered. Since this new 'protocol', no illness on two subsequent vacations.

That said, I wasn't aware of any sickies on either of my two cruises. (This comes to mind because PP mentions hearing people cough.)

 

[mitsguy2001]

I am one who very seldom catches a cold or gets the bug de jour that is going around the office. I almost never get sick . . . but it seems like following our last few cruises I have found myself coughing/hacking with some sort of upper respiratory issue going on. Anyone else notice this?

Were you on the Sept. 12-19, 2015 cruise on the Fantasy? I only ask because I caught a cold on debarkation day (Saturday, Sept. 19) and I still have it. Better now than during the cruise!

I will write a detailed review of the cruise sometime in the near future. It was a great cruise!

 

[Rogillio]

Were you on the Sept. 12-19, 2015 cruise on the Fantasy? I only ask because I caught a cold on debarkation day (Saturday, Sept. 19) and I still have it. Better now than during the cruise!

I will write a detailed review of the cruise sometime in the near future. It was a great cruise!

No, we were on the 11 - 14 Dream.

My daughter and I both are congested. I just sent an email asking is my mom, sister and son have had any issues since the cruise.


ETA. Ours was a great cruise too! And even if I knew I was gonna catch some bug, I'd still go and won't let this stop me from cruising. As a PP wrote, it is worth being extra dilligent with the hand washing and such....but that won't help for airborne stuff....unless you hold your breath a lot.

 

[holula]

I get this every cruise... A slight sore throat and some sinus thing. It's from the humidity and air conditioning combo, since I suffer from the same thing in FL in the summer. It definitely hasn't stopped me from cruising!

 

[mmouse37]

One of my cruise travel partners often gets an upper respiratory infection after cruising. We share a cabin and I am always fine but she has come down with a lingering upper respiratory infection several times. It can last up to 2 weeks. I think is may happen to a certain percentage of cruisers.

MJ

 

[SuperDry]

Also, don't overlook one of the most common surfaces on the ship that causes disease to transmit: elevator buttons! I make it a point to use a knuckle, rather than a fingertip, on elevator buttons while on board, so in case I accidentally touch my mouth, nose, or eyes before washing my hands, I'm still unlikely to catch whatever was on the last button I pressed. That, and hand sanitizer. and and absolute rule of washing my hands whenever returning to my stateroom, has cut down the number of colds I've caught on board greatly. But still, I'd say I get something at least a third of the time, whereas I rarely get them at home. Fortunately, symptoms don't usually appear until the very end of the cruise. And most fortunately, I've never gotten anything serious, such as norovirus.

 

[tvguy]

Thousands of people on ship, if you flew, even more people, all of them sharing their germs with you.

 

[BethanyRichardson]

We cruised on the Dream last week 9/14-9/19. Sore throat hit us all midway through and the last night was rough. DH and DD1 have a moderate sinus infections... DD3 seemed to escape it. As for me... I just got home from the doctor, who was left speechless by the magnitude of my respiratory infection, pink eye and bleeding eardrums. It's something pretty nasty.

The cruise was still amazing, and I'll definitely do it again. I am going to have to re-evaluate my procedures, because I never missed a chance to wash my hands, squirt sanitizer, and grab the wipes they offered. The 3-year old that didn't get it was actually on a hand-washing strike the whole week. Had to be physically restrained to wash at times. So who knows......

I actually wonder if the reason I got it so much worse than the others was because of my time in the Rainforest Room!!! When I felt it coming on, I went there thinking some good steam would help. But I wonder if that wasn't something of a petri dish....

 

[roobug]

We cruised on the Dream last week 9/14-9/19. Sore throat hit us all midway through and the last night was rough. DH and DD1 have a moderate sinus infections... DD3 seemed to escape it. As for me... I just got home from the doctor, who was left speechless by the magnitude of my respiratory infection, pink eye and bleeding eardrums. It's something pretty nasty.

The cruise was still amazing, and I'll definitely do it again. I am going to have to re-evaluate my procedures, because I never missed a chance to wash my hands, squirt sanitizer, and grab the wipes they offered. The 3-year old that didn't get it was actually on a hand-washing strike the whole week. Had to be physically restrained to wash at times. So who knows......

I actually wonder if the reason I got it so much worse than the others was because of my time in the Rainforest Room!!! When I felt it coming on, I went there thinking some good steam would help. But I wonder if that wasn't something of a petri dish....

IT makes sense that the little one who didn't wash their hands all that much didn't get sick -using all those hand sanatizers and anti bacterial soap gets rid of the bad bugs but it also gets rid of the good bugs that keep us healthy and help us battle the bad bugs.

 

[mevelandry]

I don't know about the cruises but I always seem to catch something on the plane on my way home...