Cruise Port Quick*Lists

The use of "Cruise Port Quick*Lists" is an easy way for readers to access information relating to cruise ports that participate, or have participated, in the Centers for Disease Control Vessel Sanitation Program. The links provide Cumulative Cruise Port Data, Cruise Port Voyage Alerts, Cruise Port Annual Reports as well as detailed information relating to the overall health of cruise ports.

While Cumulative Cruise Port information is a excellent baseline for judging competing cruise ports over an 8-year period, Voyage Alerts by Cruise Port can be accessed using a color-coded scheme consisting of Yellow, Orange, Red, and Black representing Tier I through IV levels of GI Illness. Within this context, Tier IV, the forth voyage category, is considered a "Voyage Black Alert", which means the GI Illness Incidence on a particular voyage meets the Vessel Sanitation Program's definition of outbreak.

Interestingly enough, around the same time multiple GI Illness Outbreaks could be associated with several identifiable ports during mid-2006, the Vessel Sanitation Program stopped reporting the origin and destination ports when reporting GI Illness outbreaks to the general public.

Cruise Port Annual Reports use the same color-coded scheme as Cruise Port Voyage Reports with one additional color, "Green", to represent the healthiest cruise ports over an entire calendar year. Respectively, Yellow, Orange and Red represent ranges of increasing GI Illness and Black is not defined.

Of course, cruise ports can also be searched by name or year. Please be aware that GI Illness is a managed risk situation, that is, GI Illness can strike any ship or cruise port at any time, and it's up to the cruise port, and the cruise lines that utilize that port, as to how health risks are managed on a proactive basis. Of course, it's always possible for a port on the "Cruising Healthy Green Reports" to have a GI Illness Outbreak due to either its crew or passenger populations.