Our cruise on the Island Princess should have been terrific. After all, we were visiting some interesting Caribbean and Central American ports, and going into the Panama Canal (a bucket list trip). But the cruise was a disappointment for many reasons. First, we were advised that there had been an outbreak of norovirus on the cruise that just ended, causing widespread diarrhea and vomiting. They advised us that they were doing an extra thorough disinfection, which we found reassuring. But when we got on board, they had done more than just disinfect.

They removed all the interior shelves from the stateroom refrigerators, along with the metal racks in the fridge doors that hold drinks. They never explained this, and never returned the shelves and racks, which made the small fridges even less useful.

Also in the interest of hygiene, passengers were not allowed to serve themselves at the buffet. Anything you wanted – from an orange to a dinner roll to a spoonful of scrambled eggs or a pastry – had to be pointed out to one of the crew, who would put it on your plate. This extended to salt and pepper packets, ketchup, tabasco sauce and other condiments. You couldn’t touch anything. You had to stand in line to have a crew member pull a glass of water or iced tea. You had to have them pull your cup of coffee and guess at how much cream to put in. It made the process slow, irritating and chaotic. At the pool grill, you couldn’t put ketchup on your own burger or fries. You had to wait for someone to put pepper flakes or oregano on your pizza slice. Read more