A less-than-ideal start to Portland's cruise ship season
The 2016 cruise ship season at the second-busiest cruise ship port in Maine got off to a rocky start as more than 200 passengers aboard the cruise liner The Balmoral were sick with the gastrointestinal condition norovirus when it docked in Portland on Sunday morning.
According to CNN, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 252 of the 919 passengers and eight of the 520 crew members were stricken with norovirus.
The existence of the virus was first confirmed when CDC employees boarded the ship on April 30 when it was docked in Baltimore, Md., during the Balmoral’s 34-day "Old England to New England" tour.
A spokesperson for the city of Portland told WCSH-TV 6 that all of the ill passengers were quarantined during the docking period.
The Balmoral is only the first of 77 cruise ship visits planned for Portland this year, bringing over 106,000 passengers to the city. According to CruiseMaine, the state's cruise ship marketing entity, 2016 is expected to see a 6% increase in the statewide cruise passenger total from last year, with more than 283,000 passengers expected to visit Vacationland this year.
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