I am currently on the ship now. The issue actually made the front page of CNN. It looks like almost 6% of the passengers on the previous sailing reported suffering from symptoms of a gastro-intestinal illness. That doesn't include the ones who probably never went to medical.
The ship is in some level 3 protocol, so you are served everything by crew. This includes needing to ask for salt,pepper, and condiments. As a result, every line is pretty long no matter when you want to eat. Main dining room seems to be a more "normal" experience, but everywhere else it definitely takes longer to get anything done. Staff won't set drinks out for people to grab, so you are served individually. The staff literally can't keep up, so I gave up trying to get _anything_ to drink at breakfast. At times the drinks would only be half full to try to keep up with demand.
I don't know if Indy normally has self-serve soda machines, my last cruise did on a sister ship, but it was almost 5 years ago. In any case, it is very hard to get your money worth out of a drink package since you need to allow quite a bit of time to wait in line. My kids have given up on using it outside of seated dining with adults. It is hard for a minor to get through the line to get any drink at all.
The staff is doing a good job, and they seem to be friendly as usual. Unfortunately, because of the situation the _feeling_ is that the first priority is keeping people from getting sick, and providing the traditional cruise experience is secondary. I'm not sure if they really have any choice, but we definitely feel like we lost the lottery on this one. I still get served alcohol whenever I want it pretty quickly.
Independence Norovirus Outbreak?
in Royal Caribbean International
Posted
I am currently on the ship now. The issue actually made the front page of CNN. It looks like almost 6% of the passengers on the previous sailing reported suffering from symptoms of a gastro-intestinal illness. That doesn't include the ones who probably never went to medical.
The ship is in some level 3 protocol, so you are served everything by crew. This includes needing to ask for salt,pepper, and condiments. As a result, every line is pretty long no matter when you want to eat. Main dining room seems to be a more "normal" experience, but everywhere else it definitely takes longer to get anything done. Staff won't set drinks out for people to grab, so you are served individually. The staff literally can't keep up, so I gave up trying to get _anything_ to drink at breakfast. At times the drinks would only be half full to try to keep up with demand.
I don't know if Indy normally has self-serve soda machines, my last cruise did on a sister ship, but it was almost 5 years ago. In any case, it is very hard to get your money worth out of a drink package since you need to allow quite a bit of time to wait in line. My kids have given up on using it outside of seated dining with adults. It is hard for a minor to get through the line to get any drink at all.
The staff is doing a good job, and they seem to be friendly as usual. Unfortunately, because of the situation the _feeling_ is that the first priority is keeping people from getting sick, and providing the traditional cruise experience is secondary. I'm not sure if they really have any choice, but we definitely feel like we lost the lottery on this one. I still get served alcohol whenever I want it pretty quickly.