Goguinness
Ordinary Seaman
Well we are back from our cruise on the USS Clorox, a.k.a. the plague ship, or as Celebrity chooses to call it, The Mercury. I think the final count was 411 passengers, & 32 crew down with the Norovirus. My wife & our friends wife were two of those people. My wife's symptoms started 7 PM last Sunday and stopped around 9 AM Tuesday, however she could not leave the cabin until 24 hours after the last symptom showed. So she was confined to the cabin for 62 hours. I was surprised that I was not also. The first 7 days were fine.
The crew worked so hard on this. Anybody who has cruised knows how hard these people work normally. They were constantly wiping down everything and standing in entryways to give you a squirt of hand sanitizer as you walked by. All food was served to you in the food lines. All coffee, tea, etc was done by a crew member. Salt & pepper shakers were removed from the tables on upper deck, but not the dining room.
After we got back I found some stories about an extensive outbreak of Norovirus in South Carolina, the first of which were dated Feb 22/23 so I think the virus was brought aboard in Charleston. I would not hesitate to cruise again on the Mercury. Not sure about my wife though. She did feel better after I read about the land based problems with the virus.
Cheers, Paul & Melanie
The crew worked so hard on this. Anybody who has cruised knows how hard these people work normally. They were constantly wiping down everything and standing in entryways to give you a squirt of hand sanitizer as you walked by. All food was served to you in the food lines. All coffee, tea, etc was done by a crew member. Salt & pepper shakers were removed from the tables on upper deck, but not the dining room.
After we got back I found some stories about an extensive outbreak of Norovirus in South Carolina, the first of which were dated Feb 22/23 so I think the virus was brought aboard in Charleston. I would not hesitate to cruise again on the Mercury. Not sure about my wife though. She did feel better after I read about the land based problems with the virus.
Cheers, Paul & Melanie
