![\"24](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/169a598f-3cd4-4565-b007-f067c0dbcf8a.jpg\")
<\/p>\nGuests on the Rotterdam ship reported gastrointestinal symptoms during the round-trip from Fort Lauderdale.<\/p>\n
Departing on 28 December, the journey included stops in Cura\u00e7ao, Colombia, Costa Rica and Jamaica, per CruiseMapper.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
24 December 2019 – Key West, Florida, USA. Holland America Rotterdam Cruise ship at the popular Florida destination of Key West<\/p>\n
Today’s News in 90 – Friday January 16 <\/p>\n
According to the US\u2019s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), of 2,593 passengers and 1,005 crew onboard the vessel, 94 people reported being ill during the voyage.<\/p>\n
Norovirus is a highly contagious virus that causes acute gastroenteritis, leading to sudden vomiting, diarrhoea, nausea, and stomach pain.<\/p>\n
The CDC listed the impacted voyage dates as between 28 December and 9 January.<\/p>\n
While the recovery time for most people with norovirus is one to three days, the virus is still contagious for a few days after symptoms fade.<\/p>\n
In response to the outbreak, the crew increased cleaning and disinfection procedures, collected stool samples for testing, isolated ill passengers and consulted the CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP).<\/p>\n
VSP said it \u201cremotely monitored the situation, including review of the ship’s outbreak response and sanitation procedures\u201d.<\/p>\n
Holland America told USA TODAY that cases were \u201cmostly mild and quickly resolved\u201d.<\/p>\n
The cruise line added: \u201cThe health of our guests and crew is a top priority, and consistent with CDC protocols, we conducted a comprehensive sanitisation of the ship when the cruise ended Friday in Fort Lauderdale.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Independent has contacted Holland America for comment.<\/p>\n
In 2025, the CDC reported 23 separate outbreaks of gastrointestinal illness on cruise ships, 17 caused by norovirus.<\/p>\n
Holland America\u2019s Rotterdam also experienced an outbreak in March with 89 of 2,670 passengers reporting illness during a voyage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Guests on the Rotterdam ship reported gastrointestinal symptoms during the round-trip from Fort Lauderdale. Departing on 28 December,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,19,17,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-287386","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-latest-news-ticker"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115904372093373231","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}