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Disinfecting your cabin question.


TinkBellaMom
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Nothing.  And I am on immunosuppressive therapy.  My doctors have always told me that using Lysol is of minimal to no impact at all and the best defense is proper hand washing and keeping your hands away from your face/eyes.

 

overuse of antibacterial anything has resulted in stronger germs and weaker immune systems.  Besides.  Norovirus is.. wait for it..a VIRUS.  Which means anti bacteria stuff is useless against it

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I don't do anything special other than wash my hands frequently.

 

As has been already said, housekeeping will be using the same rag in multiple rooms and touching things in other rooms.

 

I want my immune system to work as it's meant to. Germs and bacteria are living, evolving things. It has been proven there are some stronger bacteria that have evolved and the sanitizers aren't effective anymore. Our society did that. People that did not want any germs on them did that.

 

If you step back and look at the effect your actions could have compared to your lack of actions in everyday life, you may just chuckle. I would say it's safe to assume you don't wipe down anything at the mall, or at Target/WalMart, or at the grocery store....and before you say you wipe down the handle with a waipe, do you wipe down every canned good you pick up? Every box? Go one step further...do you wash your produce with more than water? Kids are gross and like to pick up/touch/lick everything.

 

I'm not trying to be accusatory. I'm just saying don't do it half way. 

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We have never wiped down any surface in any room we have ever stayed in, both on land and on sea. In over 60 years of travelling, never experienced any reason to start now. People who obsess about sanitizing everything in sight are only doing themselves a disservice by preventing themselves from building up immunity to common viruses. Most of us seniors never worried about such things growing up and many of us seem to avoid getting ill on regular basis. 

 

Besides, all the effort to wipe down every surface in your room is undone the minute you walk out of it and touch banisters, door knobs, chair arms, menus, salt and pepper shakers, etc. 

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1 hour ago, nolatravelgirl said:

Unless you are banning housekeeping from your room then you are pretty much wasting your time. They will be cleaning your room with the same rags they use in many rooms. As others stated, wash your hands frequently and don't just depend on that spritz of hand sanitizer

And that rag goes into a sanitizing solution between cabins, and the strength of the sanitizing solution is checked every hour to ensure it is still effective.  And the cabin stewards will wear gloves when cleaning various areas of the cabin (bathroom, of course, but also the trash).  This is the reason they have several cabins open at the same time, so they can do the same steps in each cabin at the same time, and not have to reglove a couple of times for each cabin.

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We do absolutely nothing to clean our cabin, the corridors, the floors, ceilings, bulkheads, chairs, cushions, etc etc.  How silly to think that wiping down a miniscule part of a huge vessel will have an impact.  What we do is wash our hands, wash our hands, wash our hands....and try to avoid touching our face.   Any by the way, those Lysol wipes are really not effective against Noro virus.  The cruise lines use powerful effective chemicals in their cleaning/disinfecting procedure.  We are quite content to trust the real professionals and go about enjoying ourselves.    Having cruised extensively for over forty years (with far more then 1000 days on ships) we have never been infected with Noro on a ship (have had it on land).  On the other hand, we sure have had our share of respiratory issues on ships.  With many bugs spread by sneezing and coughing that can be hard to avoid.

 

Hank

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1 minute ago, chengkp75 said:

And that rag goes into a sanitizing solution between cabins, and the strength of the sanitizing solution is checked every hour to ensure it is still effective.  And the cabin stewards will wear gloves when cleaning various areas of the cabin (bathroom, of course, but also the trash).  This is the reason they have several cabins open at the same time, so they can do the same steps in each cabin at the same time, and not have to reglove a couple of times for each cabin.

 

I have come to value your knowledge and expertise on here. I also have no doubt the standards on a ship are much higher than land based food service(my area of expertise).

 

What I am saying is that sanitizer solution....depending on the type(Quaternary, Chlorine, or Iodine(rarely used anymore..at least in my experience)) typically needs to remain at a certain temp. This is certainly not hard to achieve on the ship. However, I'm pretty impressed that they check the pH of it every hour....again, this is the standard and we are taking it at face value it is done routinely. The life of a bucket of sani is 4 hours, or as needed. Obviously, the more you use it, the faster it loses its ability to sanitize the way it's supposed to. They are going above and beyond by testing every hour. But what happens when your neighbors are total slobs and have room service plates with food spilled on the coffee table and glasses piled up on the desk from those sweet fruity drink of the day and the desk is all sticky. It's very possible that sani bucket needs to be changed at 30 min as it has been used too much and the dirt/debris/bacteria picked up by the towel has already broken down the solution.

 

Yes, I am painting a worst case scenario. But what about tossing that rag into the bucket and there is still a corner of the rag hanging over the top...not getting sanitized?

 

Every business has safety and cleanliness standards. Some are more stringent than other for obvious reasons. Many of the ship employees are 20 somethings from all over the world. They are not perfect and they will take shortcuts. Their supervisors are there to minimize their shortcuts.

 

Still, pretty impressive at checking sani buckets hourly. 

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2 hours ago, TinkBellaMom said:

I always take Lysol wipes and wipe down certain parts of cabin, like remote, door handles etc.  

Just wondering what others do?  I know noro is sometimes impossible to avoid, but I would like to do everything I can do to lessen the chances.

Deb

I also pack Lysol wipes and do a wipe down as soon as we arrive to our cabin. It may do nothing but it may help! If anything it makes me feel better!!!! 

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1 hour ago, MCC retired said:

For those that do not wipe down , what do you do with that TV Remote Control (nasty) ?

 

Gingerly toss it into a baggie or ziploc and never touch that thing again.

 

That is almost impossible to clean, with all the various buttons and crevices, and it can't really be soaked in a cleaning solution (even if they used one that actually *was* effective against Noro).

 

GC

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1 hour ago, MCC retired said:

For those that do not wipe down , what do you do with that TV Remote Control (nasty) ?

Pretty much nothing. I stay in hotels on average twice a month and don’t sanitize them either. Maybe I’ve been lucky. 

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3 hours ago, txflood33 said:

 

Every business has safety and cleanliness standards. Some are more stringent than other for obvious reasons. Many of the ship employees are 20 somethings from all over the world. They are not perfect and they will take shortcuts. Their supervisors are there to minimize their shortcuts.

 

Still, pretty impressive at checking sani buckets hourly. 

They are checking the ppm of chlorine in the sanitizing solution, not pH.  It is a USPH requirement that all sanitizing solutions be checked hourly, whether on a steward's cart or in the galley, where the food contact surfaces must be sanitized at least hourly.  You are correct that people will take shortcuts, but that is why the cruise lines inculcate the USPH culture on a daily basis, with daily inspections by supervisors, and weekly or monthly inspections by the senior staff who are trained by the USPH itself, and all have the motivation of losing their job if they are found to not be following procedures.  It becomes "muscle memory" after a while, and it is just easier to follow the prescribed procedures than to deviate from them.

 

And, at 200ppm minimum chlorine, the solution is kept several times higher in concentration than what is needed to sanitize the surfaces, to allow for your total slobs in a few cabins.

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3 hours ago, MCC retired said:

For those that do not wipe down , what do you do with that TV Remote Control (nasty) ?

 

3 hours ago, txflood33 said:

I use it to turn my tv on and off and change the channels....what do you do with it?

 

LOL.....yes, they're impossible to get fully clean, and I'm OK with that.  Nothing ever gets fully cleaned.  I'm not eating it, I'm using it to turn on the TV!

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6 hours ago, MCC retired said:

For those that do not wipe down , what do you do with that TV Remote Control (nasty) ?

 

 

It is pretty much never used except to turn off the TV.  Besides I don’t wipe down the half dozen remotes in my own home.  

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9 hours ago, TinkBellaMom said:

I always take Lysol wipes and wipe down certain parts of cabin, like remote, door handles etc.  

Just wondering what others do?  I know noro is sometimes impossible to avoid, but I would like to do everything I can do to lessen the chances.

Deb

We do the same at the start of every cruise...just makes us feel better.  One thing we do: we ask the cabin steward to put a bedsheet over the sofa or loveseat in the cabin. 😁

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