Topic starter
27/10/2006 10:34 pm
I saw this on this news website.
"HANNIBAL - Nine ailing passengers from the Mississippi Queen riverboat have been taken to Hannibal Regional Hospital following what is believed to be a viral outbreak."
28/10/2006 12:37 am
As of now, 7:30PM, she hasn't locked through 21, which would have been about 4 this afternoon. I suspect she's still in Hannibal....
28/10/2006 3:30 am
MAL ended the MQ's trip to St. Paul in Hannibal today. Passengers will be bussed to St. Louis. My guess is MAL is shorthand for malady!
28/10/2006 5:47 am
Hi all,
According to an email I received the current upriver cruise has been cut short and stopped in Hannibal due to another outbreak of the virus. The downriver cruise is also cancelled. The next cruise running again will be Nov 8 St. Louis - St. Paul. The virus is supposed to be brought in by a passenger. Officials confirmed that there is no sanitary problem on the MQ. According to CDC information it takes about 6 days for the virus to die out. MAL is trying to be on the sure side cancelling the downriver cruise.
Carmen
28/10/2006 6:12 am
If that is true, the sick pax and the 6 day bit, it seems they shouldn't have started this trip in the first place. Monday was the last day pax were aboard, and I presume the crew remained, so there's no 6 day gap there to starting this cruise on Wednesday. As of now, Capt. Gabe's tramping trip is still a go, according to Doc...
28/10/2006 3:46 pm
Sorry folks,
My fault, the Nov 8 cruise is not going to St. Paul but it´s Capt. Gabe´s tramping cruise and a St. Louis roundtrip.
Carmen
28/10/2006 9:53 pm
Nick-Taylor;1899 wrote: I saw this on this news website.
"HANNIBAL - Nine ailing passengers from the Mississippi Queen riverboat have been taken to Hannibal Regional Hospital following what is believed to be a viral outbreak."
Howdy....just a note that the last we heard mid week was that it was found that it was not a bacteria that made the folks ill. That they didn't know what it was. Say, what. But, it was thought to be something similar to the Norvalk (spelling) virus that has been found on cruise ships. Supposedly, as the boat went down the river some more were let off at the hospital. I know that every time my mother flew to Europe for a few years straight she'd come back and get pneumonia. Then when there was an outbreak of the scars/schars--whatever spelling virus, she waited two years later to travel on the jet and still got pneumonia when she came back. I just wonder if it is folks not taking care of themselves, not caring to take precautions around hords of other people, and plain not staying home when sick. That is why I like staying home during the winter for any planning I have to do for the following year. At Christmas Eve service, if it is a bad break out of something two days later that is when I would get sick the worst. No other time. And, no it isn't from credit card debt--I pay cash. Well, hope the boat recovers.
If they keep it out there that they handled it properly that should help. Mary
30/10/2006 12:14 pm
Same Virus?
I was on the MQ 22 Sep - 29 Sep, and there was an outbreak of a simular virus towards the end of the trip. I'd say about 20 passengers and crew came down with a stomach virus, two passengers had to leave the ship early.
Sounds to me that it's the same virus that just hasn't left the boat!
John
31/10/2006 7:32 am
31/10/2006 3:52 pm
Article in today's Post-Dispatch
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has an article in today's paper. Click here to read it. The article also contains some info on the characteristics of the virus.
31/10/2006 4:59 pm
from Darin's article
Another passenger, June Behrens, 81, spent all day Sunday and much of Monday in bed recovering from the virus at her home in Santa Barbara, Calif.
"It's like the flu — you just want to stay in bed and cover up your head," she said.
She said her main complaint is that the company did not notify passengers of the outbreak before they left home.
Instead, she learned about the illnesses when she was in a holding room to board the boat on Wednesday. By then, she had already flown from California, paid for the trip and was committed to going. If she had known in advance, she said, she might have canceled.
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It doesn't matter who the owner is or where they are headquartered, they just refuse to alert people ahead of time of a problem, be it medical, mechanical, or navigational. Several years ago when Lock 15 was closed, the AMERICAN QUEEN had to sit here in Davenport for 3 days, after killing time upriver. They ended that cruise here rather than in St. Louis, and bussed the new St. Louis to New Orleans pax from St. Louis to Davenport. None of those pax were told before they left home that there was a problem. I heard one couple from HAWAII screaming at the poor purser, to come all that way to sit in Davenport??? That cruise never did make it to NOLA. Then in '04 history repeated here with the MQ's 6 day boiler layup. Same story...trip ended here instead of St. Louis, new pax kept overnight in St. Louis, then bussed up here. Their trip was supposed to be St. Louis-NOLA. It ended up being an express trip, Davenport-Natchez, no stops. Once again, the company didn't notify people at home. Seems to me to be the decent thing to do, and if some people opted to stay home and rebook or refund, at least the company would be saving a lot of money from not having to house them and fly them home...
31/10/2006 5:01 pm
Hi Darin,
An intersting article! I have one question: One lady is quoted that she would have cancelled the cruise if she had known about the virus in advance. I had a similar statement on another board regarding a European river cruise during the summer draught ("I´d rather cancel than doing a bus tour"). According to German law you won´t get any of your money back if you cancel in any of the two cases. Travel insurance would not cover the cruise price either (they only cover the price in case you are ill and can´t travel and some other cases). Is this different in the US??? So from my point of view the best thing which can happen in this case is that the cruise company is cancelling the cruise because they have to give a refund.
Carmen
31/10/2006 7:01 pm
People just love to bitch and the U.S. media loves to report it. I've been on a cruise ship and during my stay got bit by the Norwalk Like Virus (NLV). It isn't fun, I didn't like it, but I didn't go running to report it to the nearest TV station. I got over it!
When the new passengers boarded the MQ in St. Louis last week there might not have been any lingering NLV on the vessel. All it takes is one carrier to bring it aboard and the cycle can start again. I'm critical of the new regime, but they did the right thing by ending the trip to St. Louis from Cincinnati early and then ending the next trip in Hannibal.
From what I understand the NLV can live for approximately six days on surfaces. The heavy duty cleaning the MQ is undergoing now, plus letting the virus die out that's lurking on surfaces onboard should take care of the current malady. The company may have to go a step further and implement a passenger screening program. Ask each new passenger if any of the NLV symptoms have been manifested by them within the past three days. If so that passenger may have to be quarantined in their room or refused passage for the safety of the vessel.
The new west coast office needs to develop some fleet wide protocols as to how to handle future outbreaks, and at least temporarily have health care professionals onboard to offer aid to those stricken and education to those not.
31/10/2006 11:59 pm
I've had it twice on the DQ and once on the AQ, and all three times, there were others, most of them in the crew, who also had it or had had it, but there was no reporting of it anywhere. Just part of life on the boat. On the AQ, Mom and I both had it. My aged mother bounced back immediately. Not me. With my compromised immune system, I ended up in the Touro Infirmary emergency room in New Orleans on a Saturday night, quite possibly more dreadful an experience than the virus itself at its worst. (Never saw so much blood in my life ...) Other than the inconvenience of the hospital stay and rearranging travel plans (and the post-traumatic stress from the emergency room experience), it was okay. Heather (from the boat) helped me with it all. I consider it part of the price to be paid for our traveling as much as we do. Just goes with the territory. We just scrub a lot and try to slip the Purell past the airport screeners.
01/11/2006 12:14 am
and there was an outbreak on the Empress of the North when we were on it last June. Both passengers and crew members were affected. Ralph got it, I didn't, despite being in such close quarters. Scrubbed my hands raw!! As far as I know there were no newspaper reports and no panic among passengers. The company seemed to be handling it well, but I have no idea if they notified the passengers of the next cruise.
01/11/2006 3:54 pm
Another MQ article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
In today's paper, there is another article on the MQ's most recent cruise (that ended in Hannibal) and the Norwalk virus. The article interviews a passenger, who tells of how precautions were taken amongst the crew and passengers. Waves instead of handshakes, pushing elevator buttons with elbows, constant hand washing... Click here to read the article.
Although the online version doesn't show the photo that the paper copy contained, there was a very nice photo of the boat, tied up in Grafton, IL.
16/11/2006 2:12 pm
Norovirus on Carnival Liberty
It also happens on big cruise ships, see
http://www.cruisecritic.com/news/news.cfm?ID=1858
Obviously a 2 day clean up is what´s required after the first outbreak.
Carmen