UPDATE 11:46: So it turns out that when I go to find a quote from Princess, their news site is down!
96 passengers became ill with the norovirus on Princess Cruises, Sapphire Princess. She was on the return leg of a 7-Night Inland Passage cruise in Alaska. Port officials decided to dock the ship at Pier 91 in Seattle as it offers easier access to the ship to commence extreme cleaning operations. The passengers disembarked and the vessel went into sanitation mode before starting the embarking process.
She set sail yesterday with 2,000 passengers onboard for another Inside Passage cruise to Alaska.
King5 in Seattle has some quotes from Passengers and officials:
Kym Boisvert, passenger in cabin across from an infected cabin:
You go on vacation, you pay quite a lot of money for this. It’d be nice if they gave you the courtesy, or at least get the sick people off. We didn’t mingle with anyone on the boat because we didn’t want to get sick, so we pretty much stayed to our room.
Cindy Hedum, Passenger:
All the time people were wearing latex gloves. They were being very careful and they made you sanitize your hands before you went into the food area and you weren’t allowed to touch any of the food utensils.
Joyce Jordan, a not so worried passenger:
I took all the precautions, I washed my hands a lot.
Rodney Liverman, longshoreman, props to King5 for getting a quote from them. We usually don’t hear from them:
We’re wearing gloves, latex gloves. You just take precautions. We’re handling money, touching luggage, dealing with people.
Robert Bowen, another Longshoreman:
If people are really, really concerned, they have the masks.
P.S. How weird is this. Right as I go to post this, the story is mentioned on CNN!