- 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.
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- 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.
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- Disney will clean and disinfect the ship at sea, spokesman
Mark Jaronski said. Disney's terminal and other locations also will be
cleaned.
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- Sick passengers will be offered compensation. There are
no plans to cancel any scheduled cruises aboard the Magic, he said.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- The cruise line had spent more than 10 hours scrubbing
the Amsterdam with a chlorine solution before it departed on its latest
voyage.
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- On the cruise, passengers were barred from serving themselves
at buffets or touching any food or drinks but their own.
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- ``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.
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- The cruise line is working with the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
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- Holland America Line is owned by Miami-based Carnival
Corp.
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- On the Net: Holland America: http://www.hollandamerica.com
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-2190472,00.html
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