5 Ways to Avoid Getting Sick on a Cruise
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Time to read 3 min
After quite a few cruises, I've developed a highly sophisticated five-step strategy to avoid getting sick on a cruise:
- Wash your hands.
- Wash your hands.
- Wash your hands.
- Wash your hands.
- Wash your hands.
😂
Jokes aside, if there's one thing I pay particular attention to when cruising, it's handwashing.
Cruise ships bring thousands of people together in a relatively small space, all touching the same lift buttons, handrails, door handles, buffet utensils, arcade machines and goodness knows what else.
You can't avoid every germ onboard (and I'm certainly not suggesting spending your holiday following the kids around with disinfectant spray), but there are a few simple habits we use to reduce our chances of spending part of the cruise confined to the cabin.
1. Seriously. Wash Your Hands.
Soap and running water are your best friends onboard.
The Australian Centre for Disease Ccontrol recommends washing your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, particularly before eating and after using the bathroom. Handwashing is also particularly important for norovirus because hand sanitiser doesn't work as well against it.
And don't just save it for bathroom visits.
I'll wash my hands after returning to the cabin, before meals and whenever I've been touching lots of high-contact surfaces around the ship.
Many ships now have handwashing stations at the entrance to the buffet. Use them.
Twenty seconds of handwashing is considerably preferable to 48 hours spent getting extremely well acquainted with your cabin bathroom.
2. Carry Hand Sanitiser
Hand sanitiser doesn't replace proper handwashing, but it's handy when you don't have immediate access to soap and water.
I carry a small bottle with me around the ship and encourage the kids to use it too.
Some of the times I'll reach for it include after touching:
- buffet serving utensils
- stair and escalator handrails
- lift buttons
- arcade games
- casino machines
- other heavily used surfaces.
I'll also use it before eating if we can't conveniently wash our hands first.
If you're buying sanitiser specifically for travel, look for an alcohol-based product containing at least 60% alcohol.
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash
3. Use Your Cabin Bathroom When You Can
This isn't always practical, obviously. If you're at the opposite end of a very large ship, I'm not suggesting a 15-minute hike back to your cabin because you refuse to use a public bathroom. 😂
But if we're reasonably close to our cabin, I'll generally use our own bathroom.
It's one less high-traffic shared space, and you know exactly who's been using it.
Regardless of which bathroom you use, wash your hands properly afterwards.
Yes, we're back to handwashing again.
There's a theme here.
4. Take the Stairs
I avoid lifts onboard whenever it's practical.
Partly because lifts are small enclosed spaces that hundreds (or thousands) of people move through every day, touching the same buttons and standing fairly close together.
But there's another benefit.
More steps = more cruise food.
That's definitely how the maths works. Don't check. 😂
Taking the stairs for a few decks here and there also means you're not waiting around for packed lifts during busy periods such as embarkation, after shows or when everyone returns from a port.
Obviously this won't be practical for everyone, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with using the lifts if you need them.
For me, though, the stairs are usually the first choice.
Photo by Steve Davison on Unsplash
5. Choose Table Service When It Suits You
I love the convenience of a cruise buffet, but it also involves a lot of shared serving utensils being handled by a lot of people.
Where it suits our plans, we'll often choose the dining room or another table-service option instead.
That doesn't mean you need to avoid the buffet completely. We certainly don't.
If we are eating there, I'm particularly conscious of washing my hands before entering and cleaning them again after I've finished handling the shared utensils and before I start eating.
It's a tiny bit inconvenient.
Still considerably less inconvenient than gastro.
And If You Do Get Sick...
Sometimes you can do everything right and still get sick.
If you develop vomiting, diarrhoea or another potentially contagious illness while cruising, don't try to soldier on because you don't want to miss part of your holiday.
Contact the ship's medical centre, tell them what's happening and follow their instructions.
And most importantly, keep yourself out of circulation.
It may mean missing dinner, a show or even a port, which obviously isn't how anyone wants to spend their cruise. But wandering around the ship while contagious risks turning your miserable couple of days into someone else's miserable couple of days too.
Cruise lines have procedures for dealing with illness onboard and can tell you what assistance is available while you're confined to your cabin.
Hopefully you'll never need any of that.
In the meantime?
Wash your hands.
Sorry. Had to say it one more time. 😂