Forced?
Well, that’s a strong word.
Mixed in with this week’s news salad of sabotaged escalators and songs from a showgirl was a variety of reports on the Serenade of the Seas–a story reported as a whisper on some news channels and a scream on others.
The report that finally sent me over the railing was one that came in a top-of-the-hour teaser with the blaring headline, “FORCED TO STOP IN FLORIDA: A Royal Caribbean ship forced to dock after an outbreak of the Norovirus.”
Forced? Calm down, people.
I mean, sure, I suppose…if your definition of “forced” is “completing a stop that has been on the ship’s itinerary for years.”
The Serenade of the Seas was not forced to dock in Florida.
The ship was scheduled to end its repositioning sailing in Florida after wrapping up its Alaskan cruise season in mid-September and making its way from British Columbia to Florida by way of Vancouver, San Diego, Puerto Vallarta, Huatulco, Puntarenas, through the Panama Canal, Cartagena, and Columbia before docking in, yes, Miami.
Repositioning cruises are long and delightful and exhausting and exhilarating and, yes, passengers often get sick for a variety of reasons that range from stops in a variety of random places to refill the ship’s pantry to random rough waters to randomly shared viruses. The Norovirus’ arrival on the Serenade was not its first visit to a cruise ship in 2025.
It was, in fact, the nineteenth reported case on a cruise ship in 2025 making it, well, less than unique than reported, albeit icky. That means that, out of 320 ships on the water in 2025, only five percent offered the Norovirius. The average cruise length is seven days so if we take that number, do some higher math, carry the one and divide by 19…well, it seems the Norovirus affected a mere .001 cruise ship sailings in 2025.
Hearing that seventy-two people were praying to the porcelain goddess does sound alarming, of course. But if you think of a cruise as a home to 3,000 people you can quickly extrapolate that only .006% of that household’s members were sick. In the more standard, four-person household, that equates to a little over a tenth of a person being affected so…no need to buy Kleenex in bulk.
The annoying reality is this: People get sick, even when away from home and, yes, even on vacation. From the common cold to Covid, there is the potential of illness around every dang corner even when that corner is on a cruise ship. If you have been in public ever or will be in the future, you are at risk of picking up an errant germ from doorknobs, cart handles, ATM keypads, the people dining at the next table, the people dining at your table, and, well, the air you breathe.
It’s just more exciting when on a contained cruise ship because…I actually don’t know why unless there are truly people who really believe that stepping onto a cruise ship is akin to stepping into a bubble free of contagions as if this mode of travel was invented for the boy in the bubble before being enlarged to accommodate thousands of people.
Spoiler Alert: Cruise ships were not invented contagion-free for the boy in the bubble before being enlarged to accommodate thousands of people.
The seasoned traveler knows that the smartest suitcase holds a small first aid kit that includes both preventatives and solutions for most common illnesses, including the pesky stomach bug. The even more seasoned traveler knows that using those preventatives is a must. There’s nothing more challenging than maintaining a poker face when hearing about a queasy traveler who didn’t apply their seasickness patch until after they’d lost the first of many cookies.
Spoiler Alert: “Norovirus” is just a really scary word for “stomach bug.”
Yes, the same stomach bug that most school districts pass around each year yet without the scary, clickbait headlines. “FORCED TO THE SCHOOL NURSE, a first-grader forced to visit the school nurse after a projectile rejection of his chicken nuggets.” Norovirus and seasickness also share a handful of symptoms (dizziness, nausea, vomiting) that sometimes cause one of the two to take the blame for the other.
As soon as the reports of Norovirus on the high seas started gurgling to the surface last week, I knew I’d hear from at least one person compelled to animatedly tell me that, “This is exactly why I refuse to get on a cruise ship!!!” In fairness, these are usually the same folks who report in after a man-over-board report, refusing to entertain the idea of cruising for fear of falling off.
FORCED TO ENGAGE HER POKER FACE! A seasoned traveler was forced to engage her poker face while quietly nodding, smiling, and wondering if common sense was dead.
Full-disclosure end note: This is actually the same ship that I’ve just booked myself and fourteen others onto for a 2026 cruise. I have full confidence that it will be sanitized, from tip to tail, though not because of these headlines. I am confident because that’s how cruise ships operate.