A norovirus outbreak forced crew and passengers aboard a Princess Cruises ship to evacuate the vessel on Wednesday, November 13, the final day of the voyage.
Sun Princess departed on November 1 from Fremantle-Perth Australia to Singapore on a 12-night repositioning cruise with 2000 guests when the contagious virus spread across the cruise ship. Approximately 229 travellers had symptoms of the virus, including stomach pain, vomiting, diarrhea, and nausea before the trip evacuated in Singapore.
Cleaning of Sun Princess was conducted on Wednesday, as was an extra cleaning of the cruise terminal “out of an abundance of care and in line with best practice,” Carnival Australia (subsidiary of Carnival Corporation / shipowner) revealed in a statement.
Following the outbreak, some cruisers chose to fly back to Australia instead of going on aboard the ship, which has since resumed her scheduled sailings. A spokesperson for Carnival Australia said, “the vast majority of the 2,000 guests on Sun Princess were unaffected.”
Note: When the itinerary doesn’t include US cruise ports, the ship is not required to report to CDC, thus no official illness report would be issued.
For other Sun Princess accidents and incidents see at the ship's CruiseMinus page.