A stomach flu outbreak aboard a Celebrity Cruises ship has left 100 people sick

• Almost 100 travelers reported being sick following a norovirus outbreak aboard a Celebrity Cruises sailing.
• This is the first cruise ship outbreak of 2024, according to the CDC.

New year, same old outbreak: 100 people aboard Celebrity Cruises' recent Celebrity Constellation sailing reported norovirus symptoms, making it the first cruise ship outbreak of 2024, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On January 3, the Celebrity Constellation and its 2,056 guests departed on a nine-night cruise. Unfortunately for these vacationers, seasickness wasn't their only issue. By the end of the cruise on January 12, 100 passengers — 92 guests and eight crew — had reported being sick, the CDC said.

Amid the outbreak, the ship and its crew isolated the infected travelers, ramped up cleaning and disinfecting, and collected stool samples for testing, the agency reported. Celebrity Cruises did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider about this incident.

Norovirus, also known as the stomach flu, is one of the most common virus outbreaks on cruise ships. These packed floating hotels create the ideal environment for the highly contagious bug to quickly spread, often through infected people and contaminated water, food, and surfaces.

Once a traveler has been infected, it can quickly ruin their vacation: The four predominant symptoms are vomiting, diarrhea, nausea, and stomach pain.

This recent incident isn't the premium cruise line's first run-in with the stomach bug. According to the CDC, three of the 13 norovirus outbreaks aboard cruise ships in 2023 were on Celebrity's vessels. This includes an episode in May 2023 that infected almost 200 travelers on the Celebrity Summit.

Despite these outbreaks, in 2023, three Celebrity Cruises ships received a perfect sanitation score from the CDC following random ship inspections.