Web Analytics

Top 6 of the Cleanest Cruise Lines

cruise ship

Yet another incident has hit the traveling industry. Cruises seem to be getting a bad rapport thanks to a few issues that have cast a negative light on the experience.

The now infamous Poop Cruise has some travelers wary of boarding a boat. The Carnival cruise ship was crippled by a fire and left passengers and crew without power, food and facilities.

Recently, a Royal Caribbean ship had to do an about-face when passengers became severely ill with symptoms including vomiting and diarrhea. The cause is believed to be a highly contagious norovirus. It’s likely a passenger, not wanting miss their vacation they had probably been planning for months, brought illness on board. Being contained on a vessel is just asking for outbreak.

It can happen on any boat, anywhere, but the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released a report that rates of bacterial foodborne illnesses are declining. In the case of norovirus issues, they are resistant to chlorination and freezing, persist in the environment, and require only very low inoculums to infect. Which means even the cleanest of boats could see an issue. However, most boats are actually pretty clean.

hand washIn fact, there are 6 cruise lines that have not failed a CDC sanitation inspection in the past 10 years. Of the 14 major lines, these lines received a no-fail approval: Costa, Norwegian, Oceania, Disney, Crystal and Seabourn.

Costa boasts a 37% perfect score rate, but that doesn’t mean a passenger can’t bring a virus on board. In fact, Norwegian had 143 inspections with a 28% perfect score rate, but reported 4 outbreaks in the past 5 years. Only four Royal Caribbean ships had reported outbreaks of norovirus while nine cases were reported on Princess Cruises ships and eight Celebrity Cruises ships. Oddly enough, a total of 27 ships in the past three years have gotten a perfect score, including six Carnival Cruise ships and four Royal Caribbean and Holland America ships.

Is it possible to completely avoid these viruses and outbreaks? No. You can’t avoid people and shouldn’t live in a bubble in fear of illness, but know that when it comes to airborne illnesses more people are getting sick on land. An estimated 21 million people in the United States are infected with a norovirus every year, according to the CDC while of the thousands of sailings, less than 40 cases have been reported in recent years.