Heroes and villains: Norovirus and a Crown Princess passenger’s story

• David Jones, the former communications director for Carnival Corporation, managed the company’s response when there were norovirus outbreaks on vessels.
• While a guest on Princess Cruises’ Crown Princess, he’s just experienced an effective and robust response to “the bug” that cruise passengers dread. 
• He believes the captain and crew were the heroes of the day.

As a cruise passenger, there are times when you want your ship’s captain to behave like a bloody ship’s captain with all the authority the title suggests. 

Specifically, on those occasions when the norovirus stomach bug hitches an unwelcome ride on a cruise ship. 

Princess Cruises’ Captain Christopher Lye is one such ship’s master, unafraid to use the authority of his office and his 46 years of seafaring experience to tackle it. 

Along with 3000 other passengers on Crown Princess, I’ve been witness to Captain Lye’s diligent and transparent approach to “the bug” — as he liked to call it — while travelling on a 17-night voyage from Fremantle to Sydney via Broome, Darwin, Cairns and Brisbane. 

Having from time to time, managed cruise ship norovirus outbreaks in my past professional life at Carnival Australia, I was interested to see how a “noro” outbreak was handled from the inside out. 

There was no work involved on this voyage. It was strictly holiday time as my wife, Anne and I celebrated our fiftieth wedding anniversary in style. 

I was impressed with the energetic response of Captain Lye, the medical centre team and the commitment of the ship’s worker bees patrolling Crown Princess with yellow buckets in hand constantly wiping hard surfaces — unsung health management heroes. 

Within minutes of a show ending in the theatre, for example, the bucket brigade would march in to wipe down handrails, seat backs and hard surfaces. 

It doesn’t matter that the dreaded norovirus, with its unpleasant gastrointestinal symptoms, can erupt in schools, hospitals and aged care facilities — anywhere that people gather really. 

It’s just a fact that holidaymakers, understandably, don’t want their long awaited cruise holidays marred by illness of any kind. 

I thought Captain Lye and his team offered a masterclass in health management practice. 

But first let’s broach some of the misconceptions about cruising and “noro”.

For most people it’s a self-limiting illness that passes in one to three days. It’s unpleasant for a holiday to be marred by illness but, in spite of the overworked portrayal of outbreaks in some parts of the media, at any given time, relatively few guests are affected. 

And it certainly doesn’t take many cases to be reported before heightened preventative health measures are applied. 

As I saw, that means an end to self-service in the buffet, intensive ship cleansing on port days, medical centre follow up of isolating guests and regular reminders of good personal hygiene practice. 

Guests generally took all of this in stride and, importantly, did what was asked of them and were publicly acknowledged by the Captain for doing so. 

Shiplife in dining rooms, theatre entertainment and other gatherings continued albeit with sensible precautions applied. It wasn’t uncommon for some guests to wear masks as an added personal measure and one that was encouraged to stifle coughs or sneezes. 

Nor was Princess Cruises keeping news of the Crown Princess outbreak to itself. Embarking guests in Brisbane were advised ahead of time of a delay in boarding while deep cleansing of the ship was carried out in response to the spike in gastrointestinal cases. 

Captain Lye spoke openly about it in his ‘Meet the Captain’ chat in the theatre with the ship’s Canadian cruise director Holly Nimens. 

One guest asked the Captain if he’d ever experienced a cruise where there was no illness on board. Helping to put the ship’s norovirus outbreak in perspective, Captain Lye said outbreaks had been relatively few in number in his many years as a ship’s master. 

He clearly wasn’t happy that some of his guests were being affected this time and was doing everything in his power to deal with it. 

Frankly, anyone who said they were blissfully unaware must have simply tuned out for the duration. 

Measures were also in place to shield crew members from illness. Cabin stewards stepped back from the cabins of isolating guests to allow a flying squad of masked and suitably clad staff to carry out cleaning duties. 

The British-raised and trained Captain Lye from Folkestone, who began his seafaring career as a cadet on P&O cargo ships before switching to passenger vessels, was as regular as clockwork with his daily health updates. 

And he clearly wasn’t satisfied when, at first, case numbers stubbornly kept rising. Calling it his daily mantra, Captain Lye was on repeat cycle with commonsense advice to guests to wash their hands, cover coughs and sneezes, isolate immediately if gastrointestinal symptoms appeared and report any illness to the medical centre. 

By tone and words, delivered in a friendly and measured way, he made clear he wasn’t suggesting adherence to the health protocols, he was demanding it for the benefit of everyone. 

There was spontaneous applause across the ship when Captain Lye disclosed some unnamed guests, who had breached their isolation orders, were located and escorted back to their cabins. 

Firm but fair. Captain Lye is my sort of captain!

Needless to say, thanks to the robust onboard response, a day or so from Brisbane, Captain Lye was pleased to report a downward trajectory in new case numbers while expressing sympathy for guests still in isolation battling “the bug”. There was no hint of gloating, he said, that new case numbers were falling.  

For the record, I had my own comparatively mild close encounter with the illness closely managed by the medical centre while serving my time in isolation. A cruise credit of a few hundred dollars to acknowledge the holiday disruption was welcome. 

Based on my experience, Captain Lye runs a tight ship when it comes to health management. I, for one, wouldn’t want to disappoint the Captain. Like most, I did what I was told. 

Read our guide to the Crown Princess here.