Celebrity Cruise third sailing with sickness
 

Celebrity Cruises' disastrous string of "diarrhea-cruises" out of South Carolina continues with the cruise line's decision to return the Mercury to port in Charleston a day early.

It's the third sailing in a row this has been an issue, and they have previously cleaned the ship. If you have tickets you may want to be extra careful. 342 out of the 1,849 passengers became sick this trip.

The next sailing has been shortened from a 10 night leaving on 3/19 to an eight night leaving on 3/21 so the ship can be thoroughly cleaned/disinfected.

Had a number of clients on this past sailing, and 2 cabins on the next.

It's believed the main problem stems not from the ship, but from where she's sailing. There's a higher than usual incidence of noro in the Charleston area right now, and the majority of passengers are from nearby areas. So passengers who are already infected (and many may not yet know it) boarding the ship are bringing on the highly contagious virus.

They are disinfecting not just the ship but also the terminal in the next 3 days, bringing in several experts and outside vendors to do a more thorough cleaning.

An update from this morning:

After several days at sea, the Celebrity Mercury seems finally free of a stomach bug that afflicted nearly 1,000 passengers on its previous three voyages from Charleston.

This most recent Caribbean-bound cruise departed a day late, following an intensive, three-day cleaning. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had issued a "no-sail recommendation" after the third consecutive outbreak of suspected norovirus.

The CDC is still waiting for confirmation that it was the norovirus.

Ouch. That sounds nasty.