We’ve all heard horror stories about tourists getting sick aboard cruise ships. Perhaps this article written by Kate Appleton, Budget Travel, at CNN.com, will answer some of your questions and let you enjoy your next cruise even more.
Jaret Ames, acting chief of the vessel sanitation program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), sheds light on norovirus facts — and fictions — and ways that cruise passengers can avoid getting sick…
Q: What are some of the ways that people can stay healthy while on a cruise?
A: If you’re a person who’s on a ship and you’re trying to prevent transmission, hand-washing is the primary way to do that, and that means a good 30 seconds. It needs to happen quite often throughout the day even if you just have a snack, especially if from a self-service source. If you’re a smoker, you should certainly do a hand-washing before that hand-to-mouth activity. Products like Purell can be of some use, but they don’t replace hand-washing. Even if you do carry something like that, you should make sure that you still wash your hands often.
And that’s only one of the many questions and answers – read the whole article to find out how to avoid norovirus on your next cruise, and what to do if you are unlucky enough to become infected. So wash your hands, use the hand sanitizer on the cruise ship often, and go book that cruise!