Royal Caribbean - They operate some 'infected' ships, these ships are 'risky' to many, and they're not people friendly

"landlocked" wrote in message
oups.com...
Let me respond to some of your comments after quoting them...

"It is easy enough to find out in other ways"
Please enlighten me. I saw no signs in the Cape Liberty NJ port
terminal advertising that the Voyager of the Seas that just docked 4
hours before after the Bermuda cruise was infected. The ship's staff
said nothing. By the way, I don't own a crystal ball and I don't
believe in psychics.

"And you still chose to sail on her?"
I'll take your comment as a joke. Someday you'll may as old as me and
you might just have a bad stomach. Lots of people have bad stomachs.
That keeps the TUMS, PEPCID, and NEXIUM people in business. The cruise
ship isn't an amusement ride where all you have to be is 44 inches tall
to board her. This is a ship that has to meet defined safety and
health regulations to protect everyone onboard, from babies through
seniors, including her staff and crew.

"How do you know what you had?"
Have you ever had food poisoning or just had an eating binge where you
ate too much? How about too much to drink? My illness was pretty
obvious. It wasn't a hangover, so it had to be the food or water. The
ship's food wasn't that good and the water from the tap tasted bad. I
was sitting with a restaurateur, an owner and chef, at our dinner table
each night. She felt some of the fish and meat served tasted bad and
thought the ship's refrigeration may have been broken.


Again, blah blah blah. I am an epidemiologist, and I can say with all
professionalism, that you are full of bunk. Yes, you probably had a food
borne illness. You could have picked it up days before you got on board.
Food tasting bad is not indicative of it being infected with one of a few
thousand variants of bacteriological or virus pathogens that may or may
not
make you sick.

You got sick, it sucks, it ruins a vacation sometimes. Get over it, move
on,
and enjoy life while you still have it....

Also coming from someone who has spent a week in the hospital with EColi
147:H7. Now that's food poisoning!!!

Chip wrote:

Blah, blah, blah. Learn to wash your hands next time, and you wont have a
problem.

As long as you understand that this won't infections you get from
bacteria that is airborne

On one ship we had to keep returning the dishes,and silverware because
they were dirty, This was on the lido deck,and in the main dining
room,but we survived

Thus spake (Surfer E2468) :

Warren:
Thank you,my husband said i'm too old to worry about anything,we are
just going and we will enjoy it like we did our other 36 cruises
surfer e2468


Agreed. I spend more time worrying about my garage door falling down
on my car than I do getting some disease on a cruise ship.

--
dillon
Linux, it's not just an OS, it's a way
of life.

And a damn fine one, at that.

FYI
I was on the Voyager May 7th to the 15th (Repo cruise) and yes I did get
sick on board. Being an avid reader of the r.t.c. and mostly lurking, I was
aware to to go to sick bay, My wife went down and got me some pepto-bismol
and was asked 20 questions as to why. I also put myself on a self
quarrentine because I could not be far from the toilet. This was for the
last two days of an 8 day cruise.
Royal Caribbean was at blame for one major fault, I also had cruised the
Explorer in January and was fine. The difference between the two sister
ships is that on the Explorer there are hand sanitation areas on the way
into the Windjammer and nothing on the Voyager. Now, I wash my hands before
going into the buffet line, but not everyone does, leaving their germs all
over. The other problem I had with them was once we disembarked at Port
Liberty there was a sever taxi shortage and we had to go to the Amtrak
station which meant that we were the lowest prioity. Combine a 3 hour wait
and no bathrooms once outside the terminal with my gastro attacks and you
can only imagine the condition I was in once I made it to the train.
I called RCCL and told them of my problems and asked if they could please
install some hand sanitizer at the entrance to the
Windjammer. They said that they would pass it on to the ship. and offered me
a $75 off a future cruise coupon plus one for my wife.
Mike


Well, my discussion topic centers on these 4 questions:

(1) Should Royal Caribbean warn you before boarding that they had a
sickness and disease outbreak on its last sailing?

(2) Are you entitled to a full refund if you're told the ship had a
sickness and disease outbreak on its last sailing and you decline to
board?

(3) Are you entitled to a full refund if you're on an infected ship,
you're personally impacted, and you lose a substantial amount of
pleasure and ports-of-call?

(4) What responsibilities do you think the cruise line should have for
exposure, possible injury, or prolonged convalescence after the cruise
due to any of the items listed above?

These were important issues to me because I discovered Royal Caribbean
does operate 'infected' ships, their ships are 'risky' places to be -
especially for me and many older citizens, and they're not very people
friendly. Even the President of Royal Caribbean is unsympathetic and
cold-hearted.


[ Background story ]

I boarded Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas with a long history of
gastrointestinal sicknesses. I have had esophagitis, acute gastric
ulcers, erosive inflammatory gastritis, and a hiatal hernia for over 40
years. The effects of my long list of medications for my stomach and
heart look like and have exactly the same reaction as a viral
infection. I didn't have a viral infection. I had stomach
poisoning. My wife dragged me to the ship's doctor - my stomach was
'crampy' and my chest hurt. She was worried. I just had a pacemaker
put in. I provided the ship's doctor with my medical history and list
of medications. I was grossly misdiagnosed by the ship's doctor, if
you call him that.

The virus wasn't present in me, but I had gone to the ship's doctor for
'relief' and he prescribed 'pain'. He isolated both me and my wife in
my cabin for 3 days at the very instant we docked for 3 consecutive
days ashore at different ports.

The ship gave us a dish of chocolates and strawberries and a small note
of apology for our trouble. Being stuck on the boat for all 9 days
ruined our good time. We were celebrating our 39th wedding anniversary
and my 65th birthday. The ship absolutely didn't resolve the situation
in a people friendly way. I was especially frustrated after shelling
out $4,200 hard-earned dollars for the cruise.


[ Was Royal Caribbean responsible? ]

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta monitors and
administers control of potential disease outbreaks aboard ships. The
CDC runs a Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP). I made a request for
information to the CDC. The CDC informed me a disease outbreak did
occur aboard the Voyager of the Seas (my ship) on three (3) cruises in
a row (in sequence) this spring (2005). Royal Caribbean and the
'Voyager of the Seas' provided the information below to the CDC's
Vessel Sanitation Program. Here are three (3) very recent outbreaks
and the 2005 cruise dates:

(1) For the cruise starting May 15 and ending May 20, there were 45
passengers and 14 crew infected. I believe this was a Bermuda sailing
from Cape Liberty NJ.

(2) For the cruise starting May 20 and ending May 29, there were 85
passengers and 14 crew infected. This was our Western Caribbean
sailing from Cape Liberty NJ.

(3) For the cruise starting May 29 and ending June 3, there were 3
passengers and 0 crew infected. I believe this was a Bermuda sailing
from Cape Liberty NJ.

Were you sick on any of these cruises, or after you got home from them?
Did you have an extreme stomach illness or bowel ailment? Did you
leave the ship throwing up?

The numbers in the three (3) listed items above are only for those
passengers who reported to the Voyager of the Seas' ship Medical
Center. I personally saw the list of the people actually isolated,
interfaced with some of them, and spoke to many others who chose not to
see the ship's doctor for fear of being similarly isolated,
rightfully or wrongfully. The population of infected passengers was
under-reported between 50 and 100 percent. Did Royal Caribbean
possibly have a financial motive for conducting 'business-as-usual' and
for being dishonest with the CDC? What conclusion would you draw from
this? If the choice to the cruise lines was to lose millions of
dollars versus possibly making hundreds of innocent people sick, what
choice do you would they have chosen if the CDC didn't intercede-
which it didn't? It doesn't take a 'rocket-scientist' to decide.

In order for the CDC VSP to devise and implement effective strategies
to prevent recurrence of similar outbreaks, the cruise line must first
be factual and straightforward about their reporting statistics. If a
serious disease outbreak is 'under-reported', effective remedies cannot
take place.

The real question is, what were the actual levels of these outbreaks?
If Royal Caribbean's medical center statistics are either 'artificial'
or have been intentionally manipulated to minimize the actual
population affected, the outbreak would not appear on the 'radar'. The
absence of a thorough inspection after three (3) successive infectious
outbreaks favors Royal Caribbean financially. Does Royal Caribbean
return your lost cruise costs? No, they haven't as far as we know.

Did the Voyager of the Seas give boarding passengers at Cape liberty NJ
a choice before sailing on three infected ships? From other postings
on Google, it appears Royal Caribbean acted more humane in calendar
2004, but not in 2005. No, boarding passengers were denied the choice
three (3) times. Where is the cruise lines responsibility? Is this
the way to intentionally run a business?

If you want to discover what ships are infected and how often, go to
this URL: http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/vsp/surv/GIlist.htm#2005

If you want to read about how really dirty and infected your cruise
ship is, go to this URL: http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/vsp/default.htm

I don't pretend to be very fragile. But I have noticed many discussion
forum postings from people concerned about their health while on the
ship. Some people have Lupus and other immunity issues. The broad
spectrum of passengers on my cruise consisted of infants through people
in their 80's. The youngest and the oldest were those most at risk.
People get sick in any environment. But the real issue is, would
people of their 'free' intentionally board a 'sick' ship any more than
they would willingly walk into a fire?

There was no 'free' will when the 'Voyager of the Seas' kept their
knowledge of the three (3) infected sailings 'under-wraps'. Passengers
had no choice! If Royal Caribbean had said before we boarded there was
an infection, we would have not boarded. With my bad heart and
previous gastrointestinal issues, I would have stopped in my tracks,
and returned home rather than board the ship and be held captive for 9
days. Royal Caribbean didn't say anything. So, not given that choice,
we would have preferred to have been allowed to leave the ship during
the cruise immediately upon the ship's doctor's wrong diagnosis,
finish our vacation at one of the ports-of-call and then flown home at
our own expense. Seems like a simple solution, but the ship refused to
even allow us to do that.

We had a miserable time, and we thought we could recover something
afterwards. Reliving the moments of our wedding anniversary and
birthday were not retrievable, but Royal Caribbean's good will was.
Maybe a voucher for another cruise would have calmed our feelings. I
think the cruise line should have done something better than offer us a
dish of candy, don't you think?

I wrote Adam M. Goldstein, President of Royal Caribbean International.
Adam Goldstein's letter to me in response stated, "I apologize that
your cruise was not at all what you had hoped for..." Now that is an
understatement! Mr. Goldstein should just advertise the Centers for
Disease Control (CDC) sanitation reports on the Royal Caribbean web
site. That should make for increased business!

Royal Caribbean is in the business to make people 'happy'. That is
their only business. When they make people 'unhappy' for whatever
reason, for every unhappy person, the negative story they tell others
propagates and they (RC) lose the potential business of 10 other
customers. I know this is true in every other business model.

Royal Caribbean, as with any person, has an implied responsibility to
right a 'wrong' in some fashion. It should have been a voucher for
another future cruise, not a dish of candy and a few hundred dollars
falsely labeled as 'resolution credit'. We got that because we stayed
in our cabin. Many people didn't. Royal Caribbean's small
insignificant gesture may have been meant to intentionally spite their
customers even more. Royal Caribbean calls this 'Risk Management'.
They prefer to take a risk because they only expect a very small number
of people who were made unhappy to carry their complaint to an end
point that will bring financial harm to Royal Caribbean. The odds are
in their favor. If you're in the 97 percent that didn't get sick,
you're happy. If you're in the 3 percent that got food poisoning or
actually got the virus, you're miserable. When your sickness is no
fault of your own in the latter situation, then you're doubly
aggravated.

Most people in this country believe they have no responsibility for
their negative actions. Big businesses like Royal Caribbean think the
same. It is time to stop this notion.