09-05-2025
Cruise excursion leads to illness; Princess Cruises limits drinks
When considering shore excursions for your cruise, booking directly through your cruise line is usually the safest route, especially in cruise ports that have travel warnings.
Booking a shore excursion through your cruise line comes with the peace of mind of knowing that the activity and tour operator have been vetted by the cruise doesn't mean that cruise line-recommended shore excursions don't come with safety risks, however.
One type of shore excursion that's regularly promoted by cruise lines sailing in The Bahamas was recently linked to a severe infection that impaired a cruise passenger's life for years.
Doug Parker shared more details on this shore excursion-related health scare and other cruise news on the May 8th edition of Cruise News
Cruise News Today with Doug Parker.
Good morning, here's your cruise news for Thursday, May 8th.
Be careful if you're swimming with the pigs. Yeah, a New York woman says a six-year health scare began after swimming with the pigs on an excursion near Nassau, Bahamas.
She reportedly contracted a parasitic roundworm after holding a piglet near her face. Now, symptoms included facial lesions and severe pain, which were misdiagnosed for years until that parasite was confirmed.
Experts say human infection is rare but possible through contact with contaminated feces. The "swimming with the pigs" excursion remains popular with cruisers in The Princess Cruises is tightening its drink package rules and scaling back what's included. Now, starting Friday, guests can only order one drink per transaction and won't be allowed double pours.
At the same time, the line has quietly dropped its canned sodas from its Plus and Premier packages, now only covering fountain drinks. Although cans can still be bought at a discount or come included with soda-only packages. The updates are said to curb misuse while keeping onboard services goodbye, shore excursion tickets. Carnival Cruise Line is going digital with its shore excursions. The company announced yesterday that it's phasing out paper tickets, replacing them with a system that uses its Hub app and Sail & Sign cards.
Now, the new platform is already in use on select Caribbean and Bahamas itineraries and will be fully implemented at Celebration Key in The Bahamas this goal, they say, is to streamline shore excursion check-ins and offer real-time updates. A full rollout across North America is expected later this year; in Europe and Alaska in 2026.
And cruise stocks were all up around 1% on Wednesday. Carnival Corporation: 19.69. Royal Caribbean: 228.01. Norwegian Cruise Line: 17.31. And Viking: 43.03.
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And this week's Cruise Radio Podcast, a review of Carnival Horizon, where you listen to your favorite podcasts.
I'm Doug Parker with Cruise News Today. Have yourself a great Thursday.
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