Norovirus on the Noordam

I just received the following from my TA:

I just received the following from my TA:

 

Please be advised that we have recently been experiencing a heightened level

of gastrointestinal (GI) illness on the ms Noordam. Therefore, the ship will

follow a special cleaning and sanitizing protocol developed in conjunction

with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) prior to our

February 24, 2012 departure from Fort Lauderdale.

To enable us to complete a thorough cleaning in Fort Lauderdale, embarkation

will not begin until approximately 1:30pm on February 24. We encourage our

guests to delay their arrival at the pier until this time, as there is limited

seating at this facility.

Well, that's darn decent I must say. Wish we had gotten advised when we were boarding last time. We wouldn't have gone to the port when we did.

Hopefully the deep cleaning solves the problem and you don't have any issues:)

Unfortunate, but it happens. This seems to be the standard policy and procedure.

I just received the following from my TA:

 

Please be advised that we have recently been experiencing a heightened level

of gastrointestinal (GI) illness on the ms Noordam. Therefore, the ship will

follow a special cleaning and sanitizing protocol developed in conjunction

with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) prior to our

February 24, 2012 departure from Fort Lauderdale.

To enable us to complete a thorough cleaning in Fort Lauderdale, embarkation

will not begin until approximately 1:30pm on February 24. We encourage our

guests to delay their arrival at the pier until this time, as there is limited

seating at this facility.

Thanks for the notification, we will arrange our arrival until after 1:30 pm. Hope this doesn't mean we will have an after sunset sail-away.:(

Thanks for the notification, we will arrange our arrival until after 1:30 pm. Hope this doesn't mean we will have an after sunset sail-away.:(

It shouldn't hopefully - when the P'dam had to be cleaned and we couldn't board until 2:30 - we still left on time:) They were loading all the stuff while others were cleaning. We had our bags within 10 minutes of arriving in our room:eek:

I hate to hear there is Noro virus on Noordam (or any ship) but hopefully the deep cleaning will rid it from the ship.

Have a great cruise on that very beautiful ship. :)

at least we wont have to get up really early on friday....we will be staying in st augustine on the 23rd....

let's hope nothing more serious happens....they still have two sea days to infect more ....

JMA - Thanks for letting us know since I hadn't gotten notification yet and now we'll delay our pier arrival (I'm going to see about late check-out at hotel, too).

Now I'll be on extra high alert to watch when/what I touch this cruise . . . :(

Standard on all HAL cruises these days is for the first 48 hours all food and drinks at the Lido are served by crew members, to minimise norovirus risks.....a really good practice.

Standard on all HAL cruises these days is for the first 48 hours all food and drinks at the Lido are served by crew members, to minimise norovirus risks.....a really good practice.

That didn't happen on the Maasdam January 13. The last time she came in to Ft. Lauderdale before our cruise she was given the special cleaning because there was an outbreak of noro on the cruise before. Then she sailed for 14 days and everything was fine. When we boarded we were able to serve ourselves. I much prefer a few days of being served just to be sure there's no new illness on board.

I am glad HAL was open about it. Sorry to hear of the outbreak.

I do know that Norovirus is everywhere ... in my area, it is going around the George Washington Univ. They even had to disinfect the closest subway station to the campus!

Anyway ... lately it seems that quite a few cruises on different lines out of Ft. Lauderdale have been infected.

Is it possible that there is an outside source of the virus, maybe one of the food suppliers?

Found this online, no notice sent to me or my Travel Agent.

Released this morning to passengers on the Noordam’s February 24th sailing, this follow up to a previous announcement, earlier in the week that mentioned a slight delay to the embarkation process.

"We want to update you regarding the ms Noordam sailing scheduled to depart

Ft. Lauderdale

on February 24, 2012. As previously advised, the Noordam hasexperienced a heightened level of gastrointestinal (GI) illness on the currentsailing. Therefore, in order to conduct the most thorough cleaning andsanitizing regimen recommended by the

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

(CDC) prior to our departure,

embarkation on February 24 will nowbe delayed until approximately 4:00pm.

We encourage our guests to delay theirguests to delay their arrival at the pier until this time, as there is limitedlimited seating at this facility."

http://www.chriscruises.net/2012/02/holland-america-not-immune-to-norovirus-either/

I can not find the schedule for port Everglades to see when the estimated departure will be. Does anyone have that site?

Bummer that 4 pm is now the boarding time. Can you imagine what a mess that terminal will be. Most won't know of the change. We never got word from TA or HAL....

I am just hoping that we do sail on Friday and are able to get to the first two ports.....

I can not find the schedule for port Everglades to see when the estimated departure will be. Does anyone have that site?

 

Bummer that 4 pm is now the boarding time. Can you imagine what a mess that terminal will be. Most won't know of the change. We never got word from TA or HAL....

 

I am just hoping that we do sail on Friday and are able to get to the first two ports.....

They're showing departure at 6:00 PM but I don't see that they're going to be able to do that if they don't start boarding until 4:00 PM. Here's a link to their schedule.

https://pevweb01.broward.org/Public/PublicMovements.aspx

Bruce

I do know that Norovirus is everywhere ... in my area, it is going around the George Washington Univ. They even had to disinfect the closest subway station to the campus!

Anyway ... lately it seems that quite a few cruises on different lines out of Ft. Lauderdale have been infected.

Is it possible that there is an outside source of the virus, maybe one of the food suppliers?

There are many outside sources that keep the virus active on ships sailing out of Ft Lauderdale.

1. The many other sick ships visiting and contaminating the same Caribean ports.

2. The many other sick ships visiting and contaminating the Ft Lauderdale terminals.

3. Many sick passengers staying in Ft Lauderdale hotels before and after their cruise.

4. Many sick passengers contaminating Ft Lauderdale taxis and shuttle buses after their cruise.

5. Many sick passengers contaminating the flights that make daily round trips from Ft Lauderdale.

6. Many sick people arriving for their cruise, and hiding the fact from the cruise line.

There was an interesting article in USAToday yesterday (Thursday) about Norovirus ... getting ready to check out of hotel so no time to do the link ... but very interesting info about possible vaccine, although there are apparently many different strains so I don't know how one vaccine would work!

Anyway, we'll be boarding the Noordam this afternoon ... catch y'all on the flip side!