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CNN Live Today
Passengers Sickened on Cruise Ship
Aired September 02, 2003 - 10:41 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, ANCHOR: Hundreds of cruise ship passengers are safe on shore this hour after a rough ride at sea. More than 300 people fell ill during a voyage aboard the Regal Princess, forcing officials to cut the cruise short and return to dry land a little bit early.
CNN's Maria Hinojosa joins us now with the very latest on all of this.
Hello to you, Maria.
MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Heidi.
Well, the Regal Princess docked here -- you can barely see it because here, let me explain this so we get a sense. This is the west side highway. Behind me is the Hudson River, and that's where the Regal Princess is docked. But of course, you can't see that because there's a huge docking area.
But the boat is behind me. It arrived here at about 6 a.m. this morning. Just about five minutes ago, we started to see the first people coming off of this ship, and it appears that they are cruise members. And they don't speak English.
Now we did see some other people who, perhaps, might have been on this ship, didn't look very happy. And that's, of course, because for two weeks now they've been at sea.
This all started about six days into their two-week European cruise, when the first signs of stomach virus started appearing. The health officials on the boat started testing and, in fact, confirmed that it was the Norwalk virus. They flew in two health specialty specialists and an extra sanitizing crew to try to keep this under control.
At its peak, there were about 60 people who were sick at any one time. A total of 296 passengers out of about 1,500 became sick, and also 44 crewmembers. So this wasn't fun, even for the people working on this ship.
Now, what did happen today is that an emergency response contracting group called the PNC (ph) -- it's a cleaning crew -- was brought out and immediately put on board. This is what the vice president of the Princess Cruise lines said to us earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) STEVEN NIELSEN, V.P., PRINCESS CRUISES: We cut the cruise short to make sure we can get the ship cleaned up when she sails on Thursday. We have a cleaning crew coming down. In fact, they're on board now. And they'll start sanitizing all of the surfaces that passengers or people touch: handrails, door knobs, counter tops, anything that people come in contact with will be sanitized with a sanitizing agent.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HINOJOSA: Now, there were no quarantines that went on on this ship, but people were told to wash their hands often, to stay indoors, inside their rooms when they didn't feel well.
People will be getting a one-day credit because the boat was docked here one day earlier, and that's because the boat goes back to sea on Thursday.
We also heard that people will be getting a $300 on board credit. But for a lot of people, that's just not going to make a big difference.
What we do know is that when they finally docked this morning, there were only two people sick with this Norwalk virus. Pretty nasty contagious flu virus is what it is -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Certainly, this virus has been getting a lot of press. It happened several other times, Maria. Any idea, or have you had a chance to talk with folks about what this is doing to the cruise line industry?
HINOJOSA: Not yet. We've been focusing on trying to talk to some of the passengers. And at this point, all they can tell us is they think that this particular virus got on the board with one of the passengers, and so it's their job to try to keep it controlled.
But clearly there's a lot of press here in New York City watching this, so we'll see what happens to the Princess Cruise line, at least to this Regal Princess when it tries to take off again to port on Thursday -- Heidi.
COLLINS: All right. Very good. Maria Hinojosa, thanks so very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired September 2, 2003 - 10:41 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, ANCHOR: Hundreds of cruise ship passengers are safe on shore this hour after a rough ride at sea. More than 300 people fell ill during a voyage aboard the Regal Princess, forcing officials to cut the cruise short and return to dry land a little bit early.
CNN's Maria Hinojosa joins us now with the very latest on all of this.
Hello to you, Maria.
MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Heidi.
Well, the Regal Princess docked here -- you can barely see it because here, let me explain this so we get a sense. This is the west side highway. Behind me is the Hudson River, and that's where the Regal Princess is docked. But of course, you can't see that because there's a huge docking area.
But the boat is behind me. It arrived here at about 6 a.m. this morning. Just about five minutes ago, we started to see the first people coming off of this ship, and it appears that they are cruise members. And they don't speak English.
Now we did see some other people who, perhaps, might have been on this ship, didn't look very happy. And that's, of course, because for two weeks now they've been at sea.
This all started about six days into their two-week European cruise, when the first signs of stomach virus started appearing. The health officials on the boat started testing and, in fact, confirmed that it was the Norwalk virus. They flew in two health specialty specialists and an extra sanitizing crew to try to keep this under control.
At its peak, there were about 60 people who were sick at any one time. A total of 296 passengers out of about 1,500 became sick, and also 44 crewmembers. So this wasn't fun, even for the people working on this ship.
Now, what did happen today is that an emergency response contracting group called the PNC (ph) -- it's a cleaning crew -- was brought out and immediately put on board. This is what the vice president of the Princess Cruise lines said to us earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) STEVEN NIELSEN, V.P., PRINCESS CRUISES: We cut the cruise short to make sure we can get the ship cleaned up when she sails on Thursday. We have a cleaning crew coming down. In fact, they're on board now. And they'll start sanitizing all of the surfaces that passengers or people touch: handrails, door knobs, counter tops, anything that people come in contact with will be sanitized with a sanitizing agent.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HINOJOSA: Now, there were no quarantines that went on on this ship, but people were told to wash their hands often, to stay indoors, inside their rooms when they didn't feel well.
People will be getting a one-day credit because the boat was docked here one day earlier, and that's because the boat goes back to sea on Thursday.
We also heard that people will be getting a $300 on board credit. But for a lot of people, that's just not going to make a big difference.
What we do know is that when they finally docked this morning, there were only two people sick with this Norwalk virus. Pretty nasty contagious flu virus is what it is -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Certainly, this virus has been getting a lot of press. It happened several other times, Maria. Any idea, or have you had a chance to talk with folks about what this is doing to the cruise line industry?
HINOJOSA: Not yet. We've been focusing on trying to talk to some of the passengers. And at this point, all they can tell us is they think that this particular virus got on the board with one of the passengers, and so it's their job to try to keep it controlled.
But clearly there's a lot of press here in New York City watching this, so we'll see what happens to the Princess Cruise line, at least to this Regal Princess when it tries to take off again to port on Thursday -- Heidi.
COLLINS: All right. Very good. Maria Hinojosa, thanks so very much.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
