Gastrointestinal Outbreak Sickens 90 on Royal Caribbean's Radiance of the Seas Cruise with Vomiting and Diarrhea

Mar. 15, 2025

Royal Caribbean’s ‘Radiance of the Seas’ cruise ship.Photo:Sergi Reboredo/VW PICS/Universal Images Group via Getty

Sergi Reboredo/VW PICS/Universal Images Group via Getty

Over 90 people aboard aRoyal Caribbean International cruiseare sick with gastrointestinal illnesses, causing vomiting and diarrhea as staff members try to pinpoint the source of the outbreak.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced ina press releasethat 89 passengers and 2 crew members aboard theRadiance of the Seashad contracted gastrointestinal illnesses from an unknown “causative agent.”

The CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP) said that the outbreak was reported on Feb. 4, halfway through theRadiance of the Seas' 8-day journey.USA Todayreported that the Caribbean cruise left from Tampa, Fla. on Saturday.

Royal Caribbean International and the crew aboard the ship have collected stool samples from infected passengers and crew members for testing, isolated all of the sick people and are consulting with the CDC as they “[increase] cleaning and disinfection procedures according to their outbreak prevention and response plan.”

The ship was carrying 2,164 passengers and 910 crew members, the CDC added.

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“VSP is remotely monitoring the situation, including review of the ship’s outbreak response and sanitation procedures,” the organization added.

Per the CDC, gastrointestinal illnesses are often another way of referring to acute gastroenteritis, which theMayo Clinicstates is an “intestinal infection that includes signs and symptoms such as watery diarrhea, stomach cramps, nausea or vomiting, and sometimes fever.”

Acute gastroenteritis is often contracted through contaminated food or water, and sometimes through contact with other infected people, per the Mayo Clinic.

The CDC wrote in its press release thatnorovirus— a highly contagious virus that causes gastroenteritis — is a common illness that breaks out oncruise ships, “but we don’t always know the cause of the outbreak when we begin an investigation.”

“Finding the agent that caused an outbreak (causative agent) can take time. When an outbreak occurs, people whose symptoms met the case definition are asked to provide stool or vomitus samples. These samples are tested to determine the causative agent,” the agency continued. “In this outbreak, samples are pending confirmatory testing.”

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The causative agent in this case is still unknown, the CDC said.

“Enhanced measures have been implemented onboard in an abundance of caution to protect the health and comfort of all our guests and crew," a spokesperson for the line’s parent company, Royal Caribbean Group, said in a statement to PEOPLE.

A similar incident took place on a Royal Caribbean cruise in September 2024, per theCDC, when 180 people aboard theRadiance of the Seascontracted gastrointestinal illnesses from salmonella as the cruise ship was traveling from Vancouver to Alaska.

source: people.com