Virus Ship Disney*

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November 22, 2002

Passengers Sickened on Disney Cruise

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 5:31 p.m. ET

PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- About 100 passengers on a Disney cruise ship contracted a contagious stomach virus, shortly after more than 500 people on another cruise ship came down with a similar illness, Disney officials said Thursday.

Passengers and crew members on the Disney Cruise Line ship Magic became ill Wednesday. The ship departed Nov. 17 from Port Canaveral with 3,200 people on board and returns Saturday.

Disney will clean and disinfect the ship at sea, spokesman Mark Jaronski said. Disney's terminal and other locations also will be cleaned.

Sick passengers will be offered compensation. There are no plans to cancel any scheduled cruises aboard the Magic, he said.

Disney made its announcement the same day that Holland America's cruise ship Amsterdam returned to port for a stem-to-stern scouring after more than 500 people on its last four voyages became sick.

The ship had been scheduled to leave on a 10-day Caribbean cruise Thursday, but the voyage was canceled so the vessel could be sanitized.

After the latest passengers disembarked, 573 crew members began cleaning the ship, emptying garbage cans and wiping down remote controls, clock radios, even Bibles. During the next 10 days, crew members will replace 2,500 pillows and dry-clean, steam-clean and disinfect every surface aboard the ship, which is 780 feet long and has 690 staterooms.

The Holland America cruise line said that during the ship's just-completed 10-day voyage, 58 passengers and 18 crew members developed symptoms associated with the Norwalk virus. Eighty-seven of the 1,305 passengers left the ship at various ports in the Caribbean and were flown home.

In all, 454 passengers and 70 crew members have become sick within the past month during four successive voyages aboard the Amsterdam. The virus, spread through food and water and close contact with infected people or things they have touched, can cause diarrhea, stomach pain and vomiting.

The cruise line had spent more than 10 hours scrubbing the Amsterdam with a chlorine solution before it departed on its latest voyage.

On the cruise, passengers were barred from serving themselves at buffets or touching any food or drinks but their own.

``They were cleaning all the time. You'd see people and then they would not be there for dinner, so you knew they got sick,'' said Lori Druckeroff, a Boynton Beach retiree.

The cruise line is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Holland America Line is owned by Miami-based Carnival Corp.

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