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People onboard Royal Caribbean cruise ship report sick from gastrointestinal illness

In:
23 May 2024
By: 
Matt Hochberg

It appears a case of food poisoning on Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas has resulted in sick passengers and a delay in the ship not allowed to disembark at one port.

According to posts on Reddit, guests sailing on the 4-night cruise began reporting feeling ill on Allure of the Seas on social media.  Many different people posted on Reddit that a case of food poisoning resulted in the ship undertaking drastic measures to combat the spread of illness onboard.

Allure of the Seas is one of the biggest cruise ships in the world, and is sailing a 4-night cruise to Nassau, Bahamas and Perfect Day at CocoCay.

Asian-style-pork-bao-tacos-mdr-food

These reports say this is not a case of norovirus, but instead the result of undercooked pork tacos served on the ship in the Main Dining Room on Tuesday. It's not clear yet what the source of the illness is.

friedyolk posted, "It’s been confirmed not norovirus from the Captain. Everyone that was sick ate pork tacos."

Creative-Craft-2370 wrote, "On the Allure now defo pork tacos had them Tuesday evening and ill all night, table next to us husband had same as me ended up in medical centre."

Allure of the Seas main dining room

According to BradW91, the tacos were the issue, "200 cases of food poisoning , pork tacos is the underlying problem every person with the issue has said they had the tacos."

It appears crew members have implemented new protocols to stem the spread of anyone else getting sick. Dr-Bison posted, "They are being protective of customers touching bar menus, Windjammer entrance line being enforced, and Windjammer self service is now roped off so only staff can serve guests one at a time."

Hallway on Allure of the Seas

No matter what the source of passengers getting sick, Royal Caribbean has health protocols in place to enact once a certain percentage of guests report symptoms.  

Royal Caribbean's protocols include:

  1. Stopping self-service in buffets if the onboard rate exceeds 1.5%
  2. Enhanced acute GI training for onboard medical teams
  3. Switching to PDI SaniCloth Prime hospital-grade disinfectant wipes 
  4. Enhanced crew training on what to do when experiencing acute GI symptoms and how to avoid cross-contamination in food and beverage service areas
Allure of the Seas in Perfect Day at CocoCay

In addition to passengers not feeling well, Bahamian officials delayed entry of Allure of the Seas to Royal Caribbean's private destination of Perfect Day at CocoCay.

Much-Evening-4301 wrote, "I'm on Allure right now, we are docked at Coco Cay but they aren't letting us off the ship."

A bit later, Allure of the Seas was cleared to disembark passengers, and Royal Caribbean added an extra hour to its visit to make up for the roughly 90 minute delay earlier.


Matt started Royal Caribbean Blog in 2010 as a place to share his passion for all things Royal Caribbean with readers. He oversees all the writers at Royal Caribbean Blog, and writes a great deal of content on a daily basis.  He has become one of the foremost expert on a Royal Caribbean cruise.

Over the years, he has reached Pinnacle Club status with Royal Caribbean's customer loyalty program.

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