When you had a nickel each time there was a norovirus outbreak on a Holland America Line’s Rotterdam this 12 months, you’d have two nickels — and that isn’t quite a bit, however it’s bizarre that it occurred twice.
This current outbreak is being reported on the ship’s present voyage, which is a 21-night roundtrip Southern Caribbean itinerary out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
In keeping with the US Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC), the virus was reported on March 15, 2025 — simply eight days into the cruise.
It’s a CDC requirement that any vessel working throughout the US — together with crusing to or from any US port — has to report any outbreak when instances are greater than 3% of the crew or visitors onboard.
Rotterdam is at capability with 2,700 passengers — and 89 visitors, together with 4 of the 970 crew members onboard, have skilled signs resembling vomiting and diarrhea all through the leg of the voyage.
For perspective, 3.3% of the passengers and 0.4% of the crew reported being ailing.
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The ship departed from Fort Lauderdale’s Port Everglades on March 7, 2025, and had already made stops in Kralendijk in Bonaire, Oranjestad in Aruba, and was in Half Moon Cay within the Bahamas on March 15 when the outbreak was reported.
The ship returned to its homeport on March 16 to start its 12-night cruise — which can be the second phase of the longer 21-night voyage. The itinerary remained unchanged by the outbreak.
The remainder of the voyage consists of passing via the Panama Canal and stops in Panama, Costa Rica, and Jamaica — returning to Florida to disembark passengers on March 28.
Perhaps right here, we point out that the ship returned to the homeport to start its March 16 12-night cruise, which can be the second phase of a for much longer 21-night voyage.
Outbreak Response & Different Offenders
Within the wake of the reported instances onboard, Rotterdam’s crew has upped their cleansing and disinfection procedures, and has chosen to isolate each crew and visitors that had reported signs.
Moreover, stool specimens have been collected for affirmation testing, which has led to norovirus being confirmed because the causative agent.
The ship additionally consulted the Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP) about reporting the sickness and the way it ought to go about its cleansing procedures.
It’s like deja-vu for Rotterdam and its crew as there was a norovirus outbreak on the ship reported to the CDC on February 7, 2025.
This outbreak occurred on the ship’s 12-night roundtrip Panama Canal itinerary, which is also out of Port Everglades.
A complete of 119 people received contaminated — of which 107 have been passengers and 12 have been crew. These instances made up 4.1% of the voyage’s 2,614 passengers and 1.2% of the 969 crew members.
Rotterdam is definitely the second Holland America Line ship to have two norovirus outbreaks in 2025.
Eurodam left Fort Lauderdale on December 30, 2024, for a 9-night southern Caribbean itinerary that included ringing within the new 12 months on the ship. The get together didn’t final lengthy, although, as a norovirus outbreak was reported on January 4, 2025.
On that voyage, 109 passengers (5.1%) and 13 crew (1.6%) got here down with the virus.
The ship had one other outbreak that was reported to the CDC on February 23, 2025 — simply days into its 10-night roundtrip southern Caribbean voyage.
Of the two,057 passengers, 162 (7.9%) reported being ailing through the voyage — together with 17 (2%) of the 834 crew members.
Volendam additionally had an outbreak of norovirus in January in the midst of its 21-night voyage to the Caribbean — with 93 (6.8%) out of 1,369 passengers and 11 (1.93%) out of 569 crew turning into ailing.
Holland America Line just isn’t the one cruise line that has been affected by norovirus outbreaks in 2025.
Oceania Cruises’ Nautica had an outbreak reported on January 3, simply someday earlier than Eurodam’s report. Different outbreaks in January included Viking Cruises’ Viking Mars and Princess Cruise Line’s Coral Princess.
Like Rotterdam and Eurodam, Coral Princess had a second outbreak, which was reported to the CDC on March 7, 2025.
These outbreaks shouldn’t be trigger for concern as solely 0.002% of the 35.7 million cruise passengers in 2024 received norovirus.
These outbreaks shouldn’t be trigger for concern as 35,700,000 cruise passengers sailed in 2024, and roughly 800 received norovirus — that’s 0.002%.
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