Another Holland America Line ship has been hit with a gastrointestinal outbreak, the fourth in less than two months. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the norovirus outbreak on HAL’s Volendam ship has sickened 53 ship guests and seven crew members.
The ship is carrying 1,369 guests and departed Florida in early January. It is scheduled to call at Ocho Rios, Jamaica, George Town, Grand Cayman, and Key West before docking in Fort Lauderdale.
The CDC has been remotely managing the outbreak and said it was first reported on January 15. The main symptoms are vomiting and diarrhea, the health agency says. The cruise line said cases were “mostly mild and quickly resolved.”
“We initiated enhanced sanitation protocols to minimize further transmission, including continuous disinfection of the ship,” HAL said in a statement. Ill passengers and crew were isolated.
Fourth HAL Ship with Outbreak in Recent Weeks
Volendam is the fourth Holland America ship struck with an illness outbreak since early December. Recent outbreaks were recorded in Eurodam, Rotterdam, and Zuiderdam. All were confirmed as norovirus outbreaks. There were seven outbreaks last month, including back-to-back outbreaks on Cunard’s Queen Mary 2. All but one was found to be caused by norovirus. In total, the CDC reported 18 illness outbreaks in 2024.
The CDC says outbreaks on land and sea tend to be more common during the winter months. This outbreak is the third so far this year after cases were reported recently on smaller ships, Silversea’s Silver Cloud and the Sea Cloud Spirit. The CDC says the latter is presumed as Ciguatera seafood poisoning.
Based on most metrics, cruise ship outbreaks are on the rise. “While 2023 and 2024 both had higher numbers of cruise ship outbreaks than in years prior to the pandemic, we do not yet know if this represents a new trend,” the CDC said recently.
“Prior to the pandemic we saw that the rates of gastrointestinal illness on cruise ships decreased during 2006-2019.”
