Freedom of the Seas' Sickness

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed)
Dec 4th 2006 at 4:09PM

We spent a bit of time earlier this year covering Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas, the largest cruise ship currently in operation, but a story has just come to light that highlights the fact that not all cruises are as relaxing as the luxury accommodations seem to make them. About 10% of the ship's passengers and 46 crew members came down with a norovirus brought on board by a sick passenger. Such viruses, which case less-than-pleasant gastrointestinal problems, are spread through contact and a cruise ship is one of the worst places to be when one strikes. The age and size of the ship are not necessarily factors, but since the Freedom of the Seas carries more than 4,000 people, maintaining a completely sanitized environment is much more difficult than it is on board a smaller ship.

Tags: cruise, cruise ship, Freedom of the Seas, FreedomOfTheSeas, norovirus

Filed under: Yachts & Sailing

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Raymond Carnevali Dec 11th 2006 12:43PM

I was on the Freedom of the Seas between 11/26/06 and 12/03/06 during the so called out break and to tell you the truth it was alot to do about nothing. The only way we even knew there was a problem was the ships crew anounced it to the passangers and asked everyone to make sure that they washed their hands. My wife and I had the cruise of our lifetime the service was fantastic and the cruise director Ken Rush kept us entertained and is the main reason we can't wait to return. Don't worry wash your hands before putting them in your mouth and you won't get sick.

frankee Dec 11th 2006 1:54PM

in response to mr. carnevali's commentsnon the his recent freedom the seas cruise. i was on the following weeks cruise [3 dec -10 dec]. im not doubting your medical credentials i.e '' just wash your hands and you will be alright''. i was sick as a dog for the final 3 days. i just wish dr. carnevali had been available for for a consultation - on his just wash your hands theory. i don't know how i could have been so sick with such medical giants as doctors carnevali and ken rush. actually ken rush is the cruise director and raymond carnevali is a first time cruiser. actually raymond i think you might be asst, cruise diector - as ken said hundreds of times during this cruise - isn't this the cruise of a lifetime. i've cruised more times than i can remember and will continue cruising in the future - im not blaming rcl for this outbreak - i like rcl. as for ''the cruise of a lifetime'' . indeed it was - for all the wrong reasons however. i'll be cruising again in the fall - maybe we'll run into each other at a hand sanitizing station - if so i'll be glad sit down and have good laugh as we share an imodium coaktail of the day. on the serious side i hope rcl can quickly put all this behind - it is areal shame this has happened to them - they are true inovators in industry and deserve much better the voyager and voyager class ships are great.

WFTigers Dec 12th 2006 7:47PM

Well I was on board Freedom the week of 11/26-12/3 and all i have to say is that that ship is not all cracked up to what they publicised it to be. I mean come on i am 16 years old I had my birthday on board and all i got was a little piece of cheese cake with a candle.I am not so impressed considering my parents told our waiter it was my "Sweet 16" and they would pay extra for them to mae it extra special. And for the whole sickness thing it was HORRIBLE! out of the 25 people that were in our group 9 of them got deathly ill. The whole bull crap that RCI is putting out about there only being about 400 ppl sick our week was a HUGE missleading estimation! our waiter and the Teen Staff told me that the week before our sailing date there were 1,300 people sick and RCI didnt wanna leak it out to the public. So yea I wont ever go on another RCI cruise and that is pretty bad coming from a 16 year old who should have had the time of her life on the wolrd's Largest cruise ship!!!

The Professional Cheapskate Dec 13th 2006 3:59PM

I love RCI. I'm going on the Freedom pretty soon and will have a blast! A norovirus can happen on any cruiseline. Unfortunately, the Freedom was attacked. Why blame the cruiseline?

Rae Dec 16th 2006 4:51PM

As for one of the previous comments, I'm sorry, but isn't being able to go on the largest cruise ship alone present enough for your sweet sixteen? And you're going to complain that you only got one lousy piece of cake? what did you expect, fireworks? Were the rock climbing wall, ice skating rink, wave rider, hot tubs, great food, great destinations not enough for you? Obviously not. Yes, it is very unfortunate that people got sick during the cruise but I don't think that people should be lashing out at RCI. They have fantastic cruise ships. I am leaving on Freedom of the Seas tomorrow and I think I'll have a good time even if I don't get a piece of cake. If I end up getting sick, well, that's life and that sucks but I refuse to go on and bash RCI because it might make me feel better. Grow up darlin' and appreciate what you have and what you got.

Courtney Cox Jan 4th 2007 10:58PM

We were on the Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas 19-26 Nov over Thanksgiving when there were 4,300 guests on the ship 1,000 of whom were children and that week also had hundreds of guests sick. Everyone we talked to on the ship was either sick or one of their traveling companions was sick. My wife was sick for three days; I came down with it the last day as did the kid; just as WFTigers said: about a third of the people crew and passengers got sick over the week. I think that Rae's comments about not bashing the cruised lines because there is nothing they can do is wrong. There is plenty that the cruise lines can do.

The cruise lines do a very poor job of protecting guests from diseases. The only message was to frequently wash your hands (there were hand sanitizers in key locations). However, at the buffet you have serving spoons that drop into the bowls such that the spoon lays in the food getting sticky so that when you pick-up the serving spoon you transfer anything on your fingers onto the sticky spoon that then rests back in the food. Our assistant waiter served us when he was sick and then missed the next day, but was right back the following day despite a supposed rule about taking time off for intestinal disorders. Many guests reuse their dirty plates at the buffet – if you think about this it means that saliva transferred to forks and spoons while eating is transferred to the plate. Using the dirty plate can transfer saliva to the serving spoons when the dirty plate is used to take a second helping. Some food such as slices of cheese and slices of meat are laid out flat and are so difficult to grab with the tongs (which rest on the food) that people use their fingers. Children sample food with their fingers and rearrange food items with their hands to get to the item they want.

I understand that many of these issues have to do with poor practices by guests, but there are plenty of steps that the cruise lines could take to minimize the risks: smaller serving bowls with large spoons that physically won't fit to fall into the bowl; Tongs on "bungee cords" that won't rest on the food. Rolls of food that can easily be grabbed with tongs; Clear signs about not using fingers and taking clean plates.

We spent an hour at the muster station learning evacuation procedures in the very unlikely event the ship sinks, but not five minutes learning how to protect ourselves and others from diseases that are very likely. Perhaps the cruise lines could have a Stay Healthy orientation to emphasize safe food handling practices for guests. After working through the buffet and watching people get their hands all over the food we were ready to put our plates down and go to the dining room to be served by waiters. I don't understand how the kitchen staff could possible watch their food be repeatedly contaminated by dirty hands and not immediately implement procedures where the guests even at the buffet are served by food server personnel.

Mike Dec 18th 2006 2:36PM

Myself and 16 others were on the Freedom of the Seas ship the week of December 3-10. This week would prove to be the 3rd straight week of illness aboard this ship. Being a Crown and Anchor Society member and cruised exclusively with Royal Caribbean 4 times in the past with excellent experiences, I had great expectations. The ship itself is amazing. But with all of the sanitizing onboard durring our week it made our vacation anything but enjoyable. We were traveling with children and it was very difficult to deal with this illness. Sanitation efforts were horrendous. Imaging if you will, your gardener walking up and down the hallways of the ship with a liquid back pack sprayer, soaking everying in his path, and leaving it to dry. Everything was constantly wet. Try telling your children not to touch the handrails when walking up and down the stairs or not to touch the buttons in the elevator. We spent the entire week telling our children not to touch anything. The service was terrible, the food was cold and the ship was in total disaray. I realize that the virus is not the fault of Royal Caribbean, but the way the issue was handled was totally unacceptable. This was anything but a vacation. When we returned, I continued to follow the developments on RCI's website and the media. I was shocked to hear was was going on the week of the December 10th sailing. The CDC was holding the ship in port until Tuesday for extensive cleaning. Therefore the tip was changed to a modified 5 day sailing. RCI gave all of it's passengers the option to cancel their trip with full refund and a 25% discount on a future booking within the next 12 months OR continue with the 5 day sailing. If they opted to sail on the 5 day trip, they were put up in hotels Sunday & Monday, given $250.00 for meals, were rembursed 50% of the cost of their trip and also given 50% off a future booking withing the next 12 months. (This information was on RCI's website the 11th through the 13th. Then it disappeared from their site. Hummm, I wonder where it went?) Granted the sailing was modified to 5 days, but that seems to be a pretty sweet deal if you ask me. Especially since we were only given 20% off a future booking within the next 12 months, even though we spent and entire week just waiting for it to be over and were never given the option to cancel. The week before us there were over 300 passengers sick. You would have thought that we would have also been given the option to cancel our trip as well. I feel that for what we went through, 20% discount on a future booking is NOT GOOD ENOUGH. For what we paid to vacation on the Freedom with a family of four, I am truely disappointed. The way I see this as a consumer, especally since I have cruised with RCI before, is that I booked the cruise with RCI and on the Freedom because I expected excellent service, excellent food and a beautiful ship, and we received none of that. The short of it all is that "WE DID NOT GET WHAT WE PAID FOR". People have tried to get us to cruise on other lines in the past and I was always firm on my position that RCI was the best line available. Now I'm not so sure. I have written to corporate and received a response. There response was that they apologize and that the 20% discount was a coporate decision and that nothing else would be done. I am going to continue to pursue this until I receive what I think is "CUSTOMER SATISFACTION". If your are thinking of cruising in the future, consider other cruise lines. Maybe they still believe in customer satisfaction and not just think about the all mighty BUCK$$$.

Alex Curnutte Dec 18th 2006 1:19AM

So, basically you are stating that RCL should turn their buffet style dinner into a middle school cafeteria?

Mike Blanco Dec 18th 2006 1:08PM

We we also on the Freedom the week of December 3-10. I have cruised exclusivly with RCI 4 times in the past and the service, food, entertainment and the ships were always excellent. "TOP NOTCH" However, this week was quite the opposite. I had convinced 13 people to go on this vacation with my family of 4, telling them that they would not be disappointed. Sadly, that was not the case. Due to the virus, the ongoing disinfecting throughout the week was enough to make you sick. Everything was soaking wet. They were spraying a liquid bleach solution on everything. Hallways, handrails, doors, elevator buttons etc... Some of us were traveling with children. Imaging how that was. Trying to keep you children from using the handrails when walking up and down stairs, or not to touch the elevator buttons. The entire week was spent telling out kids to not touch anything. It was awful. Having cruised with RCI in the past I had very high expectations. I expected the food to be great, the service to be high quality and the ship to be beautiful. We experienced none of that. The food was cold, the service was less that acceptable and the ship was in total disaray. The dinning room was only open for breakfast the first day. From then on you could only eat breakfast and lunch in the Windjammer Cafe. Imagine 3,900 passengers all trying to eat at roughly the same time. From a consumer standpoint, I see it as not getting what we paid for. All passengers were given a 20% discount on a future sailing. To me "THAT IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH". We booked this trip over 15 months ago and saved for a long time, just for it to be ruined.

If you continued to follow this situation on RCI's website, the had posted a Freedom of the Seas important update for the following weeks sailing. The CDC forced RCI to keep the Freedom in port for extensive cleaning. RCI then gave passengers an option. They could cancel their trip with FULL REFUNDS and a 25% discount on their next booking within 12 months, plus 200 per person to change airline tickets. OR they were also given the option to still cruise on the modified 5 day sailing set to leave on Tuesday. If they opted to still cruise, RCI was REFUNFDING passengers 50% of the cost of their trip, PLUS 50% off a future booking within the next 12 months. Now that seems like a pretty sweet deal if you ask me. Especially since the passengers that canceled their trips were given better future discounts than those of us who had to endure a week of less than acceptable conditions. They should have offered us the same option to cancel. I realize that the virus is not the fault of RCI, but I do feel that the way it was handled was very wrong. RCI should be ashamed for putting peoples health at risk without even giving them the option to make that decision on their own.

I have been very loyal to RCI in the past, but now I think it's time to try another cruise line. Maybe you should all do the same. I certainly hope that there are still some companies out there that still believe in customer satisfaction.

rosalie Dec 18th 2006 5:37PM

Freedom of the Seas - Dec 10th-17th. Upon arriving in
Miami for our cruise we were told to stand in line along with 4000 passengers. The CDC ordered the ship not to leave until possibly Tuesday. RCL did not provide its passengers with any water, food, or
bathroom facilities while waiting in line. Most important of all those who choose to cancel our cruise
had to fend for ourselves regarding transportation home. The scene was total disorganization.
For those who opted to cruise on Tuesday, hopefully
the ship was cleaned up and people did not get sick.
If anyone out there has info on the cruise leaving
Tuesday and they made out it would be appreciated

Joan Cregier Dec 18th 2006 7:16PM

This was to be my very first cruise, My daughter ,husband ,2 grandchildren and my son-in-laws father.Reservations had been made in Aug of 05.Before we could exit the taxi at the dock we were told the ship was not sailing. Told to stand here, then over there,tired from the plane ride and dissappointed to hear the ship was not sailing,needing water and bathroom and a place to sit.Finally told the ship would possibly sail Tuesday. The staff told us every which way that they would discount our tickets.They had difficullty understanding that there was no option. We refused to sail on Tues.A decision should have been reached when the passengers started to show signs of illness durning the cruise.It should not have been left to a last minute decision. Our family rented a van and drove down to Disney World .And enjoyed our selves. Despite the fact we had packed for a cruise rather then walk the parks.I feel this whole calamity could have been handle a lot better then waiting till the last minute to inform your guests

John Bronzo Dec 29th 2006 6:27PM

I was also on the Freedom of the Seas on the December 3-10. This was my 35th cruise and by far the worse ever! I am still sick three weeks later from inhaling chlorine. I work for the U.S. Government and by the third day when I was sick of hearing that this is not opened because of the U.S. Government (example: Johnnie Rockets, Dining Room, ice cream station) it wasn't until I went to the pursers office and inquired did these comments cease. I then requested a copy of the Hazmat form and was turned down. They first stated it was 1 Part per million and then as the bleach turned my clothes white they re-stated 1 part per thousand. Actually I don't think they new what they were spraying. The cruise reminded of the New Orleans Katrina incident where the government pretended everything was fine when it really wasn't. I have been a true loyal customer to Royal Caribean Cruise line the past several years taking an average of two a year! But I have to say this cruise was terrible. The top managment team should be disciplined harsley! From the captain to the cruise director! They did not offer one credit on the ship or no free anything! Anyone who was on this cruise would agree it was terrible. I am in the process of contacting my attorney and I think others should too. The 20% off your next cruise (if bought in the next 12 months) was a real slap in the face too! I was on Mariner of the Seas the very next week and tried to use the 20% discount and of course couldn't. I am not sure if Royal Caribean is growing to Big to Fast or what but they were built on loyal customer like me and they are sure losing their loyalty base. For people that this was their first cruise I really feel sorry for them. RCCL I can guarantee you that you lost hundreds of repeat customers on this cruise. I hope the managment team back in Miami I reconsidering the Hell that the people on that cruise ship went through. The breathing of tocix chlorine for seven days was enough for a generous credit. The cruise director must of been sniffening to much chlorine if he believed that everything was fine. People are not idiots and he made the majority of us on the cruise ship feel like we were. I could go on for hours with my disappointment. But I feel I will have more recourse directing my complaints to the CEO I hope others will also complain

nazim sayli Jan 2nd 2007 10:18AM

I would like to have your phone number and to have responsible persons number from turkey.Actually i know the naame or man but i dont have noumber of thıs sir.please send me number of Muammer Songur

Trudy Jan 8th 2007 2:33AM

was on the Freedom Dec.3-10. Cruise was ok Did not get sick until home.In bed ever since with URI & sore throat like never before. Been on web whole time trying to find out what it is.Today figured out chlorine damaged my throat. Will go back to Dr and do more test cost me more than cruise. Anyone else has that problem?

Giovanni Jan 18th 2007 11:05PM

Trudy I was on the same cruise and my throat killed me for weeks. I know it was from Chlorine. It started on ship and went to medical facility and they wanted me to buy cough drops. I have written to the president of company and I am waiting for reply a 20% discount on future cruise was NOT only an insult I felt like it was a slap in the face. Will continue to complain until a fair and equitable compensation is offered. RCCL is losing out in the long run because they have definetly lost a large loyal customer base.