Holland America Cruise Ship Hit With Second Outbreak
If you had a nickel every time there was a norovirus outbreak on a Holland America Line’s Rotterdam this year, you would have two nickels — and that is not a lot, but it is weird that it happened twice.
This recent outbreak is being reported on the ship’s current voyage, which is a 21-night roundtrip Southern Caribbean itinerary out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the virus was reported on March 15, 2025 — just eight days into the cruise.
It is a CDC requirement that any vessel operating within the US — including sailing to or from any US port — has to report any outbreak when cases are more than 3% of the crew or guests onboard.
Rotterdam is at capacity with 2,700 passengers — and 89 guests, along with four of the 970 crew members onboard, have experienced symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea throughout the leg of the voyage.
For perspective, 3.3% of the passengers and 0.4% of the crew reported being ill.
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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 in the Bahamas on March 15 when the outbreak was reported.
The ship returned to its homeport on March 16 to begin its 12-night cruise — which is also the second segment of the longer 21-night voyage. The itinerary remained unchanged by the outbreak.
The rest of the voyage includes passing through the Panama Canal and stops in Panama, Costa Rica, and Jamaica — returning to Florida to disembark passengers on March 28.
Maybe here, we mention that the ship returned to the homeport to begin its March 16 12-night cruise, which is also the second segment of a much longer 21-night voyage.
Outbreak Response & Other Offenders
In the wake of the reported cases onboard, Rotterdam’s crew has upped their cleaning and disinfection procedures, and has chosen to isolate both crew and guests that had reported symptoms.
Additionally, stool specimens have been collected for confirmation testing, which has led to norovirus being confirmed as the causative agent.
The ship also consulted the Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP) about reporting the illness and how it should go about its cleaning procedures.
It is 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 happened on the ship’s 12-night roundtrip Panama Canal itinerary, which also is out of Port Everglades.
A total of 119 individuals got infected — of which 107 were passengers and 12 were crew. These cases made up 4.1% of the voyage’s 2,614 passengers and 1.2% of the 969 crew members.
Rotterdam is actually 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 in the new year on the ship. The party did not last long, though, as a norovirus outbreak was reported on January 4, 2025.
On that voyage, 109 passengers (5.1%) and 13 crew (1.6%) came down with the virus.
The ship had another outbreak that was reported to the CDC on February 23, 2025 — just days into its 10-night roundtrip southern Caribbean voyage.
Of the 2,057 passengers, 162 (7.9%) reported being ill during the voyage — along with 17 (2%) of the 834 crew members.
Volendam also had an outbreak of norovirus in January in the middle 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 becoming ill.
Holland America Line is not the only cruise line that has been affected by norovirus outbreaks in 2025.
Oceania Cruises’ Nautica had an outbreak reported on January 3, just one day before Eurodam’s report. Other 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 should not be cause for concern as only 0.002% of the 35.7 million cruise passengers in 2024 got norovirus.
These outbreaks should not be cause for concern as 35,700,000 cruise passengers sailed in 2024, and roughly 800 got norovirus — that is 0.002%.