The Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) assists the cruise industry in the prevention and control the introduction, transmission, and spread of gastrointestinal (GI) illnesses on cruise ships. Cruise ships that carry 13 or more passenger and have a foreign itinerary that also call on United States Ports are inspected as part of the Vessel Sanitation Program, including periodic, unannounced operational sanitation inspections.
More often than not, cruise ships pass with flying colors. In order to do so, a ship must receive a score of 86 or higher. So it came as a surprise to learn that Queen Mary 2 flunked her most recent inspection. It's no surprise that cruise lines take these inspections seriously and Cunard Line is no exception, as you can tell from the following statement issued by the company on Friday, June 24, 2011.
Cunard Line Responds
Cunard's Queen Mary 2 received an uncharacteristically low score of 84 following her voluntary Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP) inspection in New York on June 10, 2011. On most previous inspections she has scored over 95, on three occasions achieving the maximum of 100.CruiseDiva.com publishes the scores on a quarterly basis in our Summary of Sanitation Inspections of International Cruise Ships.
The poor assessment on June 10th resulted largely from one small area of the ship's overall operation. All the issues raised in the report were immediately addressed and have now been corrected.
Ship and shore management have now redefined certain roles and responsibilities to clarify accountability and the Company's already rigorous training schedule has been stepped up. The Company is confident that failings of this nature will not occur again, and that the ship's VSP scores in the future will return to the customary consistently high level.
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