The Crown Princess, The Norovirus and Titanic

It’s been a tough week for cruisers. Almost two days after the crowded Crown Princess rolled 15-degrees to its left while sailing off the coast of Florida, the injury total has reached more than 200. All who were thrown out of swimming pools and onto railings were expected to recover, according to the Miami Herald. We’re also seeing the day-after rush of on-board video and reaction from passengers. Miami’s CBS affiliate has some good home video of the post-tilt aftermath. Kudos to the local anchor who kept a straight face when he ended the segment with the revelation that the scheduled movie aboard the Crown Princess the night of the accident was Titanic.

In Canada, authorities were dealing with a new bout of the norovirus, a common “cruise ship virus.” From the AP: “Kevin Carlisle, a Health Canada environmental health officer, said nausea, vomiting and diarrhea afflicted 105 of the 2,282 passengers and 20 of the 952 crew members on the [Celebrity Cruise] ship Infinity, which returned to Vancouver on Sunday from a seven-day Alaskan cruise.”

On a brighter note, the University of Houston just announced that two of its professors were given a $280,000 grant to study the cruise ship viruses by the National Institutes of Health’s Western Regional Center of Excellence (RCE) for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases.

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