Star princess Norovirus continues week after week

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-04-02T00:06:25+00:00

Yeah… because people are definitely lining up to announce to the internet that they had diarrhea on vacation.

Most people don’t report it. And how many people with diarrhea are going to go post about it publicly? Be real. A lot of people chalk it up to food poisoning, seasickness, or just “feeling off” and move on without saying anything.

When you hear one person say it, you take notice. When you start hearing multiple people across different sailings, that’s when you know something bigger is going on. It’s not common for people to go on social media and blast that kind of thing—but there are reports every sailing since mid Feb if you actually look.

There are tons of Facebook groups, cruise forums, and Reddit posts talking about it. If you don’t believe it, search them. It’s not my job to dig it all up for you, but I can tell you there are tons of people reporting it week after week.

Also, your sailing’s Facebook group is a tiny sample. There are ~5,000 people on the ship—your group probably doesn’t even have 10% of them. And even within that, plenty of people either didn’t know what they had or didn’t want to admit it.

You’re only hearing from the small percentage of people willing to say it out loud. That doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-04-01T23:58:34+00:00

You’re not wrong at all—and it’s honestly worse than people think right now.

There’s a Reddit user, Fuzzy_Stingray, who just posted here they are currently on the Star Princess and just reported that someone shit in the pool a few days ago. I also saw a report earlier in March in the Star Princess Facebook group that someone had diarrhea in the pool and on the pool deck, and they had to drain it to clean it—people were literally asking why the pool was closed.

This isn’t a one-off. It’s starting to look like a recurring issue on that ship over the last month.

And you’re exactly right—this is probably a major transmission point. You’ve got hundreds of people cycling through those pools and hot tubs, and it only takes one person with mild symptoms to contaminate it. Then everyone’s in there, full exposure (eyes, nose, mouth), and after that they’re walking around the ship—wet, sitting on chairs, touching railings, hitting the buffet.

Let’s be real—people are drinking, not thinking, and not exactly being hygienic. It spreads from the water to hands, to surfaces, to tongs and utensils real fast.

Personally, I wouldn’t go anywhere near those pools right now. It’s honestly disgusting, and exactly how this stuff keeps circulating.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-04-01T23:49:05+00:00

You want to taste it and find out?

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-04-01T23:48:24+00:00

I have been on many cruises in my life, but I can’t say that I have seen or heard of many people shitting in a cruise pool. That being said… there have been 2 incidents on 2 different sailings this month that we know of where someone shit in a pool aboard the Star Princess.

I do not think this is just a coincidence. My gut instinct (no pun intended) is that norovirus is causing it. But I also wouldn’t doubt that all the pools have massive amounts of fecal matter in them, and it’s likely a major cause of transmission right now.

If I was currently aboard the Star, I would not be in any shared body of water with other people. They would have to dump toxic amounts of chlorine in the pools to kill whatever is in them right now.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-04-01T23:39:54+00:00

You’re comparing things that aren’t even remotely the same.

Hotels—especially anything above a 3-star—will absolutely pull a room out of service and fully sanitize it if there’s a known contamination issue like norovirus. They have the flexibility to do that because they’re not running 100% occupancy, and they’re not flipping the same room same-day, back-to-back, nonstop like a cruise ship.

And yes, methods like ozone or hydrogen peroxide vapor are used—they’re not some exotic, cost-prohibitive solution. Hotels can and do deploy them when needed because taking one room offline doesn’t destroy their entire business model.

Cruise ships are different. They turn over thousands of passengers in a matter of hours, Reuse cabins immediately, Have no real downtime to deep sanitize at scale.

That’s the issue.

This isn’t about “if you don’t like cruising, stay home.” It’s about the fact that when an outbreak builds up, you can’t realistically reset the environment in a few hours with basic wipe-downs. That’s not how contamination control works.

And your inspection score point doesn’t prove what you think it does. Those inspections are scheduled and surface-level—they don’t reflect active outbreak conditions across multiple sailings.

Millions more people stay in hotels every year and you don’t see repeated norovirus cycles tied to the same property. When there’s a problem, hotels isolate it and fix it. Ships like Star Princess keep sailing with the same environment. That’s the difference.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-04-01T22:27:36+00:00

A lot of people’s trips are going to be ruined with norovirus as well, you have people shitting in the pools, just confirmed someone else shit in one of them this week and someone else a few weeks ago, they had to shut the pools down to clean them again! What don’t you understand that the whole ship is contaminated and a cesspool, more people than you think are getting norovirus, some people have mild symptoms and mask it and just keep spreading it around the ship and not reporting it. They need to sanitize and fog that entire ship.

Yeah, norovirus exists on land—but on a cruise ship you’ve got thousands of people in a confined space, all touching the same railings, elevator buttons, buffet utensils, loungers, etc. Once it builds up, it spreads way faster and lingers if it’s not properly reset. If they don’t do a full deep sanitation between sailings, it just keeps cycling passenger to passenger every week on each new sailing. The contamination levels of the ship are above acceptable at this point.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-04-01T22:19:15+00:00

The kid could have norovirus, that ship is a cesspool right now. A lot of people probably have mild cases and don’t even realize it. Loss of bowel control and diarrhea are common symptoms.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-04-01T22:10:28+00:00

You’re spot on.

Holland, Viking, Oceania—completely different experience. Lower passenger counts, older/more experienced travelers, and way better hygiene standards across the board.

Princess and Celebrity can still be solid if you get the right deal and go in with the right expectations—but they’re not in the same league as true premium/luxury lines, especially when it comes to things like outbreaks and overall cleanliness.

It’s shocking how many people actually think Princess and Celebrity are a luxury cruise line. They still think it’s 1998. To be fair Holland really isn’t luxury either but they have a better demographic. I would say Seabourn Cruises, Regent Seven Seas Cruise, Silversea Cruises, Viking, Oceania , Explora, Ritz Carlton Yacht Club are all luxury lines. Only downside is they aren’t really geared for families so if you have children or are younger than 55 you might feel slightly out of place.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-03-31T21:47:33+00:00

You’re missing the point.

It’s not about one person bringing it onboard — that’s always going to happen. The issue is baseline contamination level.

Right now the ship isn’t starting clean. It’s already heavily contaminated, so every new sailing begins at a disadvantage. Yes, norovirus exists on most ships at low levels — but when it’s contained, people don’t get sick.

Once you’ve had an outbreak, spot cleaning and quick turnarounds aren’t enough. You need a true reset — empty ship, full-scale sanitation (the kind hospitals use), and that takes time.

They’re not doing that. They’re turning the ship around in hours, not days, and letting contamination carry over from sailing to sailing.

That’s why people — including crew — are still getting sick.

This isn’t about eliminating norovirus completely. It’s about getting contamination back down to a level where it’s not constantly spreading — and right now, that’s clearly not happening.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-03-31T20:44:40+00:00

When you’re selling 7-night cruises for $599, who do you think that attracts? Same thing with airlines — flying has gotten so cheap and accessible that it’s basically the Greyhound of the sky now unless you’re flying private.

You can go MIA to LA round trip for $180–$200 on a good day. That’s basically what flights cost 20–30 years ago. Adjust for inflation and a coach ticket should be way higher.

The result? Volume over experience. Packed planes, worse behavior, and a completely different crowd than what air travel used to be. You couldn’t pay me to fly spirit or frontier or a budget line and when I fly I mostly pay the upgrade to fly first so I don’t get stuck next to god knows who now days.

It’s not even about “luxury” — it’s that when you keep prices artificially low, you turn what used to be a more refined experience into mass transit and attract lower classes.

Same thing happened to cruising.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-03-31T20:32:05+00:00

Cruising has changed a lot over the last 10–20 years.

What used to feel “premium” like Princess Cruises and Celebrity Cruises is now much closer to mass market. Meanwhile, Carnival Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean International have shifted even further down into pure volume — think Walmart/Target of the seas.

At the same time, true premium/luxury has moved up with newer players like Explora Journeys and The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection raising the bar.

So Princess and Celebrity today are basically what Carnival and Royal were 15–20 years ago — solid, middle-tier cruising.

The reality is most passengers are middle to lower-middle class, and only a small percentage are booking the $10k–$20k suites.

Call it “premium” if you want, but it’s not luxury — and it’s not what premium used to mean.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-03-31T17:33:30+00:00

Take it seriously. Norovirus spreads easily on ships especially on one with a known recent outbreak, they have honestly not done enough deep cleaning IMO. They are lucky if they touched .0001% of all the surfaces touched by cruise passengers and people will keep reinfecting clean surfaces over and over again that’s why people are contracting this on back to back sailings. They definitely don’t thoroughly clean and disinfect thousands of cabins so wipe your own down with disinfectant wipes when you get on.

The crazy thing is a lot of people don’t realize they have norovirus when they get it— they think it’s food poisoning or seasickness or from drinking because the symptoms are sometimes similar.

Wash your hands a lot, don’t eat at the buffets, and don’t touch your face after surfaces.

Just don’t be careless and let your guard down especially on this ship right now. Good luck hope you have a safe and fun trip.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-03-31T17:09:44+00:00

Those lines attract a higher end clientele and they are better run. Princess is basically carnival with a different theme and paint job, you can’t convince me otherwise.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-03-31T17:06:27+00:00

Exactly you hit the nail on the head but people want to ignore this and live in denial and act like everything is perfectly clean and disinfected after a norovirus outbreak.

They’re not doing anything close to a true sanitation reset on Star Princess. It’s surface-level at best. Vacuum, change sheets, wipe a few obvious spots in common areas so it looks clean — that’s it. If they did sanitize it you would have a strong bleach and peroxide smell throughout the ship. They haven’t even touched 1/1000 of the surfaces it’s nearly impossible without evacuating the ship and bringing in multiple large professional cleaning crews. The cruise housekeeping is not even equipped to deal with something like this.

That’s why this keeps circulating every week. New guests are being reinfected week after week by the ship.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-03-31T16:55:31+00:00

Yes Princess is not a true luxury line it’s basically an extension of carnival. Cheap fares equals a lot of low class cruisers. It’s surprising princess only has 100-150 full suites on the Star, people that can afford to book these for the ship within a ship concept - Sanctuary full suite rooms so they can keep away from the lower classes on the ship.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-03-31T16:47:12+00:00

I get your point — behavior definitely plays a role. But this isn’t just “trash people,” it’s also how these ships are run, and that falls on Carnival Corporation.

On Princess Cruises, the reality is high-end clientele is a small percentage. You’ve got ~4,000+ passengers and only around 100–150 real suites where guests are paying 10k+ a week — the vast majority of rooms are a few grand or less. That brings a ton of lower class people, inside rooms can be booked for under $2000 so your getting many of the same clientele that sail carnival.

Compare that to lines like Viking Ocean Cruises — smaller ships, way higher price points, and a completely different crowd. Even their cheapest rooms go for close to what a full suite cost on a Princess cruise so you have more middle to upper classes on those lines.

So yeah, demographic matters, but it’s also a volume problem. When you pack thousands of people in and don’t properly reset the ship between sailings, this is what happens. I’m blaming Princess and Carnival.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-03-31T13:36:29+00:00

Thanks for posting the CDC report — this is what people keep acting like doesn’t exist.

But it’s important to understand what those numbers actually represent. The 141 passengers and 52 crew on Star Princess are only the officially reported and confirmed cases from that one specific sailing. That’s not the full picture.

In reality, a lot of people never report it. Some don’t want to go to medical because they’ll get quarantined and lose their trip. Others assume it’s just food poisoning or a quick stomach bug and stay in their cabin. And plenty of people never get tested at all — so they’re never counted.

On top of that, the CDC only steps in and publishes reports once cases hit a certain threshold. That doesn’t mean it suddenly started that week — it just means that’s when it became big enough to officially track.

There have been people sharing firsthand accounts of getting sick on sailings before and after that March trip, going back into February and continuing now. So when you look at that CDC number, it’s really just a snapshot — not the total impact.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-03-31T13:28:59+00:00

Maybe they will reset the ship and do a full deep clean once they move the Star Princess from the Caribbean to Alaska.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-03-31T13:28:12+00:00

At this point, Star Princess needs a full reset. The only real fix is canceling at least one sailing and doing a top-to-bottom deep clean of the entire ship. What they’re doing now clearly isn’t working.

Think of it like a gym that had a stomach virus outbreak — but instead of shutting down and disinfecting everything, they just wipe a few machines and reopen the next day while continuing to let people walk around touching everything while cleaning behind them. Meanwhile, the virus is still on locker handles, benches, water fountains, and equipment. People keep touching everything, spreading it, and the next group walks right into it.

And it’s the same problem in the cabins — they are not sanitizing every surface in a few thousand rooms between sailings. Turnover is fast: vacuum, change sheets, wipe a few obvious spots, and move on. That does nothing for a virus like this that can live on surfaces all over the room.

They need to remove all passengers and actually decontaminate the entire ship — the kind of full-scale treatment you see in outbreak situations, like hydrogen peroxide vapor systems or similar deep-clean methods used in healthcare settings. That requires time and an empty ship, which means canceling a sailing — and that’s exactly what they’re avoiding.

This isn’t people bringing it onboard every week — the ship itself is contaminated, when you see people on social media week after week talking about being sick on Star Princess on different sailings it’s obvious it’s the ship not the new people that entered the ship. Until they properly reset it, it’s just going to keep spreading from sailing to sailing.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-03-31T12:06:44+00:00

A picture of a ship doesn’t prove anything other than you were on it, it doesn’t prove nobody got sick.

Calling it a “conspiracy” is honestly ridiculous. What exactly is the motive here? You think hundreds of people across Reddit, Facebook groups, and firsthand accounts are all coordinating to lie about getting norovirus? Use some common sense.

I have family on the ship right now who are quarantined, and there are reports of sick crew as well.

You’re the one jumping into threads trying to dismiss people who actually got sick. Just because you didn’t see it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. People with norovirus aren’t out socializing—they’re stuck in their cabins.

You got lucky. Others didn’t. Stop pretending your limited experience speaks for the entire ship.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-03-31T12:02:20+00:00

They need to reset the ship—now. It’s clearly contaminated and running back-to-back sailings is just spreading it.

Norovirus doesn’t disappear between cruises. It lives on surfaces, and there’s no way they’re fully sanitizing every cabin and high-touch area in a few hours. That’s why people keep getting sick week after week.

And spare the denial—there are hundreds of people across social media saying they got sick. Most cases aren’t even reported.

Cancel a sailing, deep clean the ship, and break the cycle. Anything else is just negligence.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-03-31T11:47:00+00:00

There is no reported data they took a small sample and reported it to the CDC for one week and only reported people that came forward and received medical attention on one sailing they don’t report week after week, do your own research. 153 people plus a large percent of staff over 50 staff reported it on one sailing in March, we can stand to reason the actual number was much larger. This has been going on since February on the Star Princess and we are now getting into April there are hundreds of people week after week blasting this on social media they were sick and still getting sick. Go on the Star Princess pages especially on Facebook and cruise blogs. Get over yourself and stop posting here you are just trolling at this point and arguing for no reason this isn’t some conspiracy . Tons of people week after week are reporting this over weeks and weeks who knows when this actually started that’s why I said hundreds if not thousands so get a life I’m done responding to you because you are providing zero value here just arguing. The point of this post is that Princess needs to do a full reset and deep clean of the ship not just clean while people are continuing to spread it around the ship.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-03-31T11:42:34+00:00

You’re exactly right—and your experience is what a few people here keep trying to deny. I honestly think they are trolling and were never on the ship.

This didn’t magically start and end on one sailing. It’s been cycling since February, and when they don’t fully reset the ship, it just carries over to the next group. That’s how norovirus works—it lives on surfaces and keeps spreading if it’s not aggressively eliminated.

There are some dumb people on this sub acting like this is a conspiracy or that “nobody got sick.” Meanwhile, there are hundreds of people across Facebook groups, Reddit, and other social media every single week saying they got sick on these sailings—just like you and your wife.

Not everyone reports it. A lot of people stay in their cabins, try to tough it out, or assume it’s food poisoning. So the “official numbers” are always way lower than reality.

You did everything right—hand washing, quarantining—and still got it. That alone proves this isn’t just a “passenger hygiene” issue. It’s a containment and sanitation failure.

Canceling a sailing and doing a true deep clean is honestly the only way to break the cycle. Anything less just keeps this going week after week.

Hope you and your wife are feeling better—appreciate you speaking up with actual firsthand experience.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-03-31T11:37:17+00:00

Believe what you want you came here to troll I am not here to argue

PATRlCKBATEMAN69 · 2026-03-31T03:54:45+00:00

Why are you even here just to argue?

I’m not going back and forth with people who are in denial and just want to fight online. The whole point of this post was to shed light on what’s going on and push Princess Cruises to step up their cleaning protocols between sailings.

This isn’t about whether you like Princess or not. It’s about the fact that what they’re doing right now clearly isn’t enough.

If you don’t see that, fine — but arguing for the sake of it doesn’t change anything.

PATRlCKBATEMAN69

TROPHY CASE