Not Enough To Combat Bugs on Britannia

So most of my customers will know that I have been off sick since last week, with what I have now coined, ‘The Britannia Bug’.

Without going into too much detail I have had a genuinely awful infection that has rendered me utterly useless for the last week.

As readers of my blog will know, I was lucky enough to be among the first to see Britannia last week.

We drove down Sunday morning and spent the day and overnight aboard.

Had a fantastic time as you will know and thought the ship was pretty darn good!

Got back on the Monday evening and worked Tuesday and Wednesday as normal, but started noticing a sore throat towards the end of my shift on Wednesday but thought nothing really of it – I should mention that I am almost never ill, I usually get a stinking cold once a year but with a load of medicine and plenty of fluid it’s normally in and out within 24 hours, I actually pride myself on my immune system!

Anyway I woke up on Thursday morning feeling absolutely horrific, didnt sleep well which never helps, but had hot and cold sweats, runny nose, painful to swallow etc etc. Blokes out there will be reading and nodding when I use the well known disease that is Man Flu as my initial self diagnosis. Pretty obvious I thought given the symptoms…………..How wrong was I!

This basically continued for the next 5 days and as I write this I am still not feeling all that great and still having to blow my nose every so often.

The docs told me it was a chest infection, but I know it was something worse. I’m no softy when it comes to these things, but I will use 24 to 48 hours to get better so that I am fighting fit and on top form when I work – nobody likes talking to a snotty bloke over the phone. Which is why I have ended up having an embarrassing amount of sick time, I just cannot seem to shake it!

But enough about my infection, I’m almost better now and that’ll be it for another 12 months!

It was my illness though that has prompted the thought, ‘Where did I get this bug?’

And after speaking to a couple of the staff who came down with me to Britannia who oddly enough have also been ill, led me to the conclusion that I must have caught it on board.

How though? Ships are so on point with hand gels to combat it?

That’s when it hit me, I can only remember a few occasions where I actually had the opportunity to use the hand gels, it was when coming into dining areas, and when boarding the ship.

In my opinion this is not enough by a long way. Previously I have been on P&O and there was hand gel around every corner!

So i honestly believe this was the reason for me becoming so ill. Of course I can’t prove it and it’s not really P&O’s fault directly but I think this issue must be addressed before it’s too late! It would be a massive shame for the ship to suffer an early knock like that. It is a corner than no cruise line should be allowed to cut.

There was an outbreak of something aboard QM2 when I went on her in December and the precautions that Cunard took were exemplary. P&O should be doing the same.

Have you been on Britannia and suffered the same illness? Or any other ship and been ill? Does it put you off cruising or is it just an occupational hazard of this type of holiday? Do you blame the staff or the customers?

Thanks for reading and as always, until next time………..