Travel Tips: Stay Healthy on Your Next Cruise
Travel Tips: Stay Healthy on Your Next Cruise
Regardless of where or how you travel, follow these simple tips to prevent Norovirus, swine flu, and other illnesses!
Travel Tips: Stay Healthy on Your Next Cruise
When cruise season (regardless of the destination) hits full-throttle, it brings with it the Norovirus (24-48hr stomach flu with symptoms of vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, chills and weakness). Most ships sailing the waters off North America, and many in Europe, will have hand-sanitizer stations, but not all do and not everyone uses them (please give the next person you see ignoring them a reminder).
You can keep yourself healthy on your upcoming cruise (or resort vacation) by observing a few of the following germ-avoiding tactics:
- When you first arrive at your cabin (put on your rubber gloves), spray or wipe everything down with a disinfectant product (such as Lysol or Clorox)
- Make sure to wipe door handles, bed headboards, shower/tub handles, phones, remotes, etc. (all areas you are going to be in contact with)
- Remove the bedspread and place in the closet. Leave the cabin steward a note to leave the bedspread off for the entire cruise (you’d be horrified with all the nasty things on those bedspreads)
- Ask the cabin steward to put an extra sheet on the top of your blanket (who knows when it was last cleaned) – known as triple sheeting
- If you go to the buffet, use one hand for handling the tongs and the other hand for eating food. You don’t know where other hands have been, and trust us this method really works!
- Food that is cooked will typically be safer to eat than food that isn’t – remember that the Norovirus often comes from food-handling staff who don’t wash their hands properly (if at all) after using the toilet. YUK!
- Wash your hands frequently and keep them away from your mouth, eyes and nose
You may think these tips are over-much and paranoid, but think how much you spent for your cruise and why you’re there. You’re probably not on vacation to spend 2-5 days locked up in your cabin, only making friends with the toilet.
NOTE: You can also use these simple precautions on planes, trains, in hotels, or when on a cruise ship to stay healthy during your travels.
