The cruise industry has implemented prevention programs for norovirus for nearly 20 years, with the right chemicals and appropriate training for use. Hand hygiene is crucial to prevent the spread of the highly contagious virus, and the easiest way to avoid the ailment is to wash your hands with soap and water after using the bathroom, before eating, and after touching surfaces touched by the virus.
To avoid Norovirus on a cruise ship, follow these four tips:
1. Wash your hands frequently, especially before eating, for at least 20 seconds with soap and warm water.
2. Make sure food is protected, especially after using the restroom, when returning to the cruise ship after a day in port, and every time you touch a stranger or an oft-touched surface.
3. Keep your immune system strong by washing your hands frequently, especially before and after eating, after using the restroom, when returning to the cruise ship after a day in port, and every time you touch a stranger or an oft-touched surface.
The only way to completely avoid norovirus is to seal yourself from all human contact, which is not what travel is about. Beach water sports should be done with soap and water, as alcohol-based hand sanitizers are not effective against norovirus.
Cruise lines are always on your side, so remember every precaution they take and do too. Avoid touching banisters and hand, as hand washing and sanitizing are particularly effective in preventing norovirus, which causes gastrointestinal illness. If you feel ill from norovirus while on a cruise ship, visit the ship’s doctor and drink plenty of water, as dehydration can lead to further complications.
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Tony, great informative article. Having Norovirus is the absolute worst one can experience. My husband had Norovirus in 2005 on the QM2. Under quarantine, the ship doctor came to our cabin 2X/day to give him a shot. We missed 2 ports…Gibraltar & Lisbon. Every day a hazmat team came in & removed our bedding in red bags. He actually asked the ship doctor to through him overboard. No kidding…it was that bad. Fast forward to today. We are Celebrity cruisers and every dining venue has someone give you a squirt of Purell, which was better than 2005. BUT the BEST precaution is WASH YOU HANDS. I am a Volunteer in a hospital and in our training we actually are told how to wash your hands properly. You can’t expect everyone to know how to do this but your points are very valid and I hope those perusal take ALL of your recommendations to heart so to avoid this horrible illness. Well done!
Any item touched by others, tongs rails whatever. I use one hand only, the same hand to touch communal items. The other hand remains a virgin! That way if I do have bread, or some other food item that is a finger type food I have a hand that is still relatively clean. By the way, I came down with Noro in Orlando years ago after having dinner at a buffet, at least that’s what I blamed it on. So sick and it came on strong fast and mean! There was no holding back from both ends of my body. Man I was so sick!
We make sure that we carry hand sanitizer and wash our hands before we use the sanitizer. I use a napkin to handle the utensils. I use my knuckles to punch the elevators, wipe down the remotes and door knobs in our cabin and everything. But… I got a little sick for the first time ever on my last cruise after I went past a server with a plate full of what I thought was leftover food. The smell was awful. Maybe it was something else?
Tony, Nice piece. I know that we are excited about starting our holiday straight away, but the cruise line industry should take some accountability in education in buffets procedures. During the muster drill, address Nora virus and proper technique of food handling. Proper 20 second hand washing; properly return placement of tongs after use; don’t reuse tong, if dropped on floor. Finally, as you state in “Just use your hands….”, wash your hands before you eat, after going through the buffet. Continue the good work, Tony!
Tony, we use the Hand Sanitizer from the Dollar Tree Store. It has a convenient clip to carry it on your belt loop if your pockets are full. After climbing the stairs (no elevators for us) we use the sanitizer. After getting our lunch at the Buffett, we use the sanitizer before we touch our silverware. It really has helped over the years.
Cruisers should not have to touch utensils in the buffet. The servers at each food station should place your selection on your plate. The food should be protected behind a see thru covering to avoid contamination by coughing and sneezing cruisers. This will be a little slower but more orderly as everyone would need to stay in line.
Second cruise that hubby and I took, saw a woman rushing her child out of MDR. Didn’t make it and the child vomited. She continued on with child. Didn’t tell anybody. Needless to say, one of the servers stepped in it. Cleaned up shortly after but then she and child came back. Now, maybe child tasted something that it didn’t like and that was why it happened but it could also have been sick. If you (or your child) are sick, stay in your room. People don’t realize that we can self quarantine. And if we are better a short time later, we can resume normal activity. I suffer so bad with motion sickness. Last cruise I spent the last day in the room. Last place I want to be when I don’t feel well (even if I know why I am ill) is around other people.
I have caught the norovirus on a cruise back in 2013 on the Royal Caribbean Explorer of the Seas. I sanitized the entire room and used hand sanitizer all the time. I went in the hot tub, and kids were in there. 5 minutes later, I noticed one of the kids vomited right in the pool area. It was all downhill after that!! I was quarantined, received a shot (which was ineffective), and missed Coco Cay 😔
Great point on the tongs. The cruise lines should switch to Copper as it is much more resistant to bacteria. I also bring my own tumbler and inspect all utensils before I use them. Motion sickness is another good reason to avoid elevators. Those elevator buttons are probably the most touched item on the ship.
On my last cruise there was a guy who was so greedy he couldn’t wait until he got to a table to eat, so he was standing at the buffet shoving food in his mouth with crumbs flying all over the place. I think people forget they’re not at home sometimes and that there are other people around who don’t want someone else’s mouth crumbs on their food.
Honest time…..my kids are terrible at a buffet. I have seen heads under sneeze guards, I have seen them take things, then put them back. I try to be quick enough but I am not always. We adopted 3 of them in 2018 and already had 2….so we are still in training stages of buffets and we are out numbered. We are try our best, but I am grateful that the cruise ships will be blocking their hands out…..sorry….so sorry.
After having the Norovirus once way back in the 1990’s (it hadn’t even been named Norovirus yet – it was called Norwalk or Norwich virus) – never want to go through that again (and I haven’t in my 30 yrs of cruising)! I was on a cruise to Alaska with 5 friends – 2 inside cabins with 3 of us in each cabin – and 3 out of the 6 of us got sick. My friend Kathy actually got sick on the plane on the way to Seattle (yes, it is carried on planes too) – and she spent a day & night in bed in the hotel – and felt ok when she boarded the ship. It was a rocky cruise – lots of people were getting seasick (according to the ship’s doctor – the entertainment was canceled at night, entertainers were sick – crew members who had been on ships for years & been through worse sea conditions were sick – kids were sick & were too sick to come out of their cabins for days (I remember being in the atrium one mornings, right near the guest services desk – and the atrium was empty – not one other passenger! Then Kathy got sick again – we were in port in Juneau & took her to the ships doctor who said she had “delayed seasickness” gave her a shot of something for the nausea & she stayed in the cabin & slept (missed the helicopter to the glacier excursion)! By this time we learned that many elderly people were being sent to the hospital in Juneau – and by the 3rd day if the cruise my SIL Teri got sick – although mildly sick (she did come with us in the White Pass RR in Skagway) – and I got sick on the last night of the cruise – right after the midnight buffet – and it hit me like a ton of bricks – I didn’t want to leave the bathroom the next morning- the cabin steward made me leave to disembark the ship.
Hand washing is good practice at any time. I think it is the number one practice to reduce the risk of any illness and keep your hands away from your face. Do cruises with a higher proportion of children have a higher instance of these gastro viruses? It seems that once school is in kids seem to be more prone to getting ill. I was just wondering if there is a similar correlation on cruise ships?
People in the comments who are ridiculing those who take what some view as extreme cautions to avoid getting Noro or any other AGE-causing virus have obviously never had the Bazooka Bug while on a cruise. It is the most miserable thing I’ve ever experienced and I lost 3.5 days of my 7-day cruise because of it, as well as 3 days at Disney afterwards. It’s nothing to sneeze (yeah, I went there) at.
Yup. Anti-bacterial lotions only work on bacteria. So they will have no effect on a virus. All you can do there is not touch things and generally stay clear (about 6′) from people who might sneeze or cough on you and then regularly wash your hands, etc. Isolation works best. 🙂 As a former Federal Disaster Response and Operations planner, I can tell you that these techniques are used for the common cold to pandemic influenza (or bird flu… etc.) Yeah, we’re always just a simple genetic mutation away from the Zombie Apocalypse. Wouldn’t want to be on a ship when that happens… might make for a good movie, though. Thanks, Tony.
I find it ironic that so many say do not use the handrails. If you fall and break a hip or the neck of the femur you can be incapacitated for a year. If you catch a virus you will start getting better within 48 to 72 hours. After walking steps you just need to not touch your face and wash your hands. However want I find really funny is that people actually defended the ladies that were eating in the buffet line.
Don’t touch te food! I wash my hands constantly and use sanitizer all the time. I use a napkin on the tongs in the buffet and I will tell people not to touch the food, and let the servers know that people have touched the food. I don’t want my vacation ruined because people don’t wash there hands. I’ve even called people out for not washing their hands as they leave the bathrooms.
Buffets are nasty, germ ridden affairs. God knows if your fellow cruisers scratched their butts, picked their noses, coughed into their hands before picking up serving utensils. I see this a lot with the older crowd. They DGAF and put their hands all over food. Disgusting. I’d rather be served at a sit down restaurant where there’s less interaction between what I’d like to eat and the rest of the passengers.
Even prior to COVID, and especially with Norovirus, I’ve always thought that people handling food with their bare hands at a buffet, or even eating while you’re standing near the food display is completely irresponsible. I won’t even handle the food sitting on my own plate with my bare hands. We may never see cruise ship buffets again, which to me is incredibly tragic, but if we do see them come back again, I think it’s reasonable to punish an offense like that by dropping the person off at the next port and say, “Find your own way home. You’re hereby banned from this cruise line.” Sorry, I know I’m a bit totalitarian. It’s just that I think this is basic common sense that everyone should automatically know and be responsible for. I would DIE if I thought anyone got sick because I either handled food with my bare hands or even one micro droplet of my saliva landed on a buffet item. Buffet utensils to me are a huge no-no. EVERYONE has touched them, and that is why everyone should glove up WITH NEW GLOVES each time they cruise the buffet. Watched a small boy toss his cookies right smack in the middle of Sorrento’s. You wanna talk about moving away quickly, I turned around and beat feet so fast I could have walked on water. Droplets can fly 6 feet into the air in all directions, and you don’t want to be near that. On my last cruise, there were no hand washing stations available, so the staff squirted our hands with hand sanitizer. I made sure to voice my displeasure because of the fact that common hand sanitizer does absolutely NOTHING to prevent Norovirus.
I can’t believe in this day it has to be said…but it has to be said… ” Don’t touch the food!” This isn’t your kitchen, there are thousands of people moving through the ship, wash your hands all the time, don’t touch any food that is not on your plate. Don’t pick your nose or your ass or your teeth in public for sanitary reasons. Don’t touch your mouth, nose or face at all. Or hair. My pet peeve- blowing your nose while seated for a meal. I will lose my appetite and possibly my lunch- hopefully on the offenders shoes. Seriously, I can’t believe it has to be said. Bon Voyage.
And last on the list–Do not kiss your wife. Well that is my story and I am sticking to it. Seriously I follow most of the rules but I do not avoid handshakes because the odds of getting it from that one person is very slim. I also do use handrails because my odds of falling and breaking something is far greater. I do however always wash my hands after using the steps.
All these comments from people so paranoid and germaphobic. Here’s an idea: let’s all just wrap ourselves in sanitized bubble wrap and never leave the house. You can get sick at work or literally anywhere else just as easily as you can on a cruise ship. If you’re that worried about it just carry hand sanitizer with you and wash your hands often and you should be good. Life is too short to live in constant fear of germs. Germs are everywhere, and they aren’t going away.