Photo courtesy of Holland America Line
It's one thing for a cruise ship to score a perfect 100 on the twice-yearly surprise health inspections conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It's another thing to repeat it.
Holland America Line's Eurodam just received a 100 on its Feb. 1 inspection, making it the ship's eighth consecutive perfect score in the Vessel Sanitation Program operated by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The ship was inspected Feb. 1 at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., at the start of a seven-day Caribbean cruise. Its last inspection in October 2014 in Boston, Mass., also resulted in a perfect score.
The Eurodam also got perfect 100s in February 2014, November 2013, September 2013, January 2013, March 2012 and October 2011.
Before that, there was a 96 in March 2011, a 97 in October 2010 and a 98 in March 2010. And two more perfect 100s in November 2009 and April 2009. The ship scored a 95 in October 2008, which was likely its first-ever U.S. inspection after entering service earlier that year.
"Achieving eight consecutive perfect scores during USPH inspections is an amazing accomplishment, and it shows how diligently everyone works to continuously exceed our goals," said Holland America Line President Orlando Ashford. "Congratulations to the Eurodam team for consistently demonstrating how a commitment to excellence and hard work delivers results."
Eurodam isn't the only pristine ship in the fleet. In the past year, Noordam, Zuiderdam, Statendam and Westerdam also earned perfect scores of 100.
Has any other cruise ship earned so many perfect scores in a row? A cursory review of the publicly available records shows that P&O Cruises' Aurora earned eight consecutive perfect scores from January 2008 through September 2012. Its score dipped to 97 in January 2014. But in all, the Aurora scored 13 perfect 100 scores since January 2001, and its lowest score is the 97 last year and in January 2002. P&O Cruises is a British sister company to Holland America Line under the Carnival Corp. & plc umbrella.
TravelPulse also called the CDC to ask about other high-performers. We didn't immediately hear back but we'll let you know if and when we do.
CDC inspections are part of the Vessel Sanitation Program, which was introduced in the early 1970s and is required for all passenger ships that call at a U.S. port. The inspections are unannounced and are carried out by officials from the U.S. Public Health Service twice a year for every cruise ship.
The score, on a scale from one to 100, is assigned on the basis of a checklist involving dozens of areas of assessment, encompassing hygiene and sanitation of food (from storage to preparation), overall galley cleanliness, water, shipboard personnel and the ship as a whole.
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