Royal Caribbean International will compensate passengers on the shortened voyage struck with a gastrointestinal illness outbreak with a 50 percent refund and a 50 percent credit on a future cruise.
Sick passengers who were confined to staterooms will get an additional credit of one future cruise day for each day of confinement. The line said it also will reimburse airline change fees and accommodations for guests whose travel home was complicated by the shortened cruise.
The Explorer of the Seas (pictured above) is due to arrive back in Bayonne, N.J., on Jan. 29, cutting two days off its 10-day Caribbean cruise. The latest report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said 622 passengers, of 20.25 percent of 3,071, reported vomiting and diarrhea, along with 50 crew members (4.29 percent).
"The number of reported new cases of gastrointestinal illness has dropped sharply after a spike in the first days of the cruise, and most guests who fell ill are up and about," Royal Caribbean said in a statement. "The drop in new cases is encouraging. However, it is not unusual in an outbreak to still have smaller, secondary spikes.
"That is why, after discussions with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and our medical team, we decided the most prudent course for the health of our guests and crew was to bring the cruise home on Wednesday, two days earlier than planned. We are glad to see many guests are feeling better. Still, in the end, the exceptional disruptions caused by the early wave of illness meant that we were unable to deliver the vacation our guests were expecting."
And so, the line announced the compensation plan.
After the ship returns to its homeport, it will undergo "the third aggressive sanitizing procedure the ship has undertaken since we became aware of the issue, and will additionally provide a window of more than 24 hours where there are no persons aboard the ship, which is a significant help," Royal Caribbean said. "Guests scheduled for the next cruise on Explorer of the Seas can be confident that all possible measures will have been taken to prevent further problems."
Explorer of the Seas departed New Jersey, on Jan. 21 and was scheduled to call at the private Haiti destination of Labadee, San Juan, St. Thomas and St. Maarten. The cruise missed the calls to Labadee and St. Maarten.
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