Dozens of cruise guests have fallen ill aboard a Princess Cruises ship, the Coral Princess’s second norovirus outbreak this year.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed 69 passengers and 13 crew members became ill during the Panama Canal cruise, which finished in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on March 9.
The ship, which departed Los Angeles on February 21, carried 1,906 guests and called at ports in Mexico, Costa Rica, and Aruba.
The CDC said the outbreak’s main symptoms, reported on March 7, were vomiting and diarrhea. In response, Princess Cruises undertook enhanced cleaning and disinfection procedures in accordance with standard outbreak response measures. Ill passengers and crew were isolated while the CDC monitored the situation remotely.
There Was a Previous Outbreak on the Ship Last Month
It is the second confirmed illness outbreak aboard Coral Princess this year. A voyage that concluded in early February sickened 128 guests and 20 crew members. The causative agent of that outbreak was also confirmed as norovirus, which has similar predominant symptoms.
Princess Cruises hasn’t responded publicly to the latest outbreak. Including this, nine confirmed cruise ship outbreaks so far in 2025 have triggered the threshold for public notification, based on the percentage of people who fall ill.
While most cruise ship outbreaks are ultimately announced as norovirus, this is not always the case. Of the nine so far in 2025, two-thirds have been confirmed norovirus outbreaks. Of the other three, the cause of one remains undetermined and one was an E. coli outbreak.
The first outbreak of 2025, aboard small ship Sea Cloud Spirit, was unique. The CDC presumed it to be a ciguatera outbreak, which is food poisoning from certain fish caught in the tropics. It didn’t sicken any guests but around 30% of the ship’s crew fell ill.
