Ultra-Luxe Ship Reports Outbreak Mostly Affecting Crew Members
Even ultra-luxury cruise lines are susceptible to the dreaded norovirus, the bug that causes gastrointestinal illness and has plagued multiple cruise ships in recent months.
This time it’s Seabourn’s Seabourn Encore, an Odyssey-class ship that launched in 2016 and carries 600 guests and 450 crew members.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the federal agency that tracks onboard illnesses, it is the crew members who are most affected by this recent outbreak. Twenty-two team members, or 5.4% of employees, have reported symptoms while just 7 guests out of a total 461 onboard, 1.5%, have done so.
The presence of norovirus, which can cause diarrhea, vomiting, and abdominal cramps, must be reported to the CDC when the percentage of affected people onboard reaches 3%. Following the outbreak, Seabourn Encore staff increased their cleaning and disinfection procedures, isolated impacted guests and crew, and collected specimens for testing.
The ship is currently at sea, headed toward Honolulu, Hawaii, following a port call to Yokohama, Japan on March 20, 2025. She departed from Singapore on March 2, 2025, sailing a 39-night Southeast Asia, Japan & Hawaiian Islands voyage.
Seabourn Encore already had called at ports in Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and several in Japan. Following her visit to Oahu and Kauai, Hawaii, the ship’s itinerary will conclude in Los Angeles on April 9, 2025.
The outbreak was the first to be reported on any Seabourn ship so far this year.
New outbreak confirmations at the CDC also shed light on a recent viral illness reported on Cunard’s Queen Mary 2. The iconic ocean liner revealed there were multiple cases of gastrointestinal illness during her 29-night Eastern Caribbean cruise that sailed roundtrip from Southampton, UK, on March 8, 2025.
During her port call on March 22, 2025 in Barbados, guests not impacted by the bug were asked to go ashore while an intensive cleaning took place across the vessel. Many guests would have had shore tours booked, so the request would not have seemed unreasonable.
Any guests who did not wish to leave the ship were asked to vacate their staterooms and to enable cleaning crews to access those spaces for thorough disinfecting.
The exact number of affected guests and crew was not initially known, but the CDC has now confirmed that 183 of 2,538 guests were impacted, representing 7.2%, and 14 of 1,232 crew members, or 1.1%, reported symptoms.
The current outbreak is at least the third onboard Queen Mary 2 since mid-December. The earlier viral infections also were confirmed as norovirus and happened on back-to-back sailings. The first voyage impacted was a December 21, 2024 departure from New York.
Persistent Norovirus Impacts Ships Across Industry
Norovirus has affected several of the major cruise lines in 2025. Three Holland America Line ships, Eurodam, Rotterdam, and Volendam, all experienced spread of the bug onboard, with Rotterdam having to deal with it twice — once on a February voyage and again in March.
Read Also: How Not to Overeat on a Cruise – And Why It Matters
Princess Cruises’ Coral Princess also was hit with the virus twice, once in late January and again in late February. Other notable ships that experienced norovirus were Royal Caribbean’s Radiance of the Seas and Viking’s Viking Mars.
Not all gastrointestinal outbreaks turn out to be norovirus. Silversea Cruises’ Silver Ray in early January reported illnesses that turned out to be E. coli. In that case, 56 guests out of a total 681, or 7.5%, were affected.
Onboard Sea Cloud Cruises’ Sea Cloud Spirit, the ship’s January 4, 2025 cruise was affected by ciguatera, a food-borne illness that affected only crew members — but quite a few of them. On that sailing, 28 of 93 crew members — 30% — became ill.
Ultra-Luxe Ship Reports Outbreak Mostly Affecting Crew Members