- More than 20% of passengers report being ill, CDC says
- The symptoms are consistent with norovirus
- Explorer of the Seas is cutting its cruise short by two days
- “Just unhappy people everywhere — waiting to get back to New Jersey,” says passenger
(CNN) — Like a combination of disinfectant and vomit.
That’s how a Royal Caribbean cruise passenger described the ship’s smell after hundreds aboard fell ill.
Shannon Blace had boarded the ship in Cape Liberty, New Jersey on January 21 for with her fiance and 10 other friends and family members.
Of the 12, nine got sick, she said Monday night. One of the women in her group got sick twice.
By Tuesday morning, the number had risen to 10 when her fiance fell ill and was ordered quarantined in his room, she said.
It was supposed to have been a 10-day cruise. But the liner announced it was cutting it short by two days as a result of the outbreak.
The atmosphere in the ship’s usually bustling promenade deck was subdued on Tuesday. “Everywhere you look, you see dreary sad faces,” Blace said in a telephone interview. “Just unhappy people everywhere—waiting to get back to New Jersey.”
In all, 622 of the 3,071 passengers and 50 of the 1,165 crew members became ill, according to
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