At least 140 passengers on Sun Princess (currently docked in Brisbane) are suffering from notoriously contagious gastro bug in an unfortunate repeat of the ship's previous cruise to Papua New Guinea a couple of weeks ago.
ABC journalist Kathryn Perrott and her brother decided to abandon ship in New Zealand after the captain announced that the norovirus, which afflicted 90 passengers on the previous voyage, was doing the rounds once again.
Perrott says Princess Cruises refused to compensate them after they forked out for airfares, but other passengers say that the policy of isolating the stricken seems to have contained the virus.
Princess Cruises has vowed to give the ship a "deep clean", and stressed that the number of passengers taken ill were pale in comparison to the thousands of others enjoying the trip.
"On any given day during the cruise 12 to 15 of the 2,000 guests were in self-isolation while symptoms ran their course before they returned to their usual cruise activities," the company said.