Your one-stop shop for health and safety data on cruise ships

By Lena Groeger,

For more than 22 million passengers each year, a cruise is a dream vacation, an all-inclusive journey of fun and luxury, a chance to simply relax.

But for hundreds of people, the reality is far from the dream. Last year over 1,700 passengers and crew members fell sick from gastrointestinal illnesses like norovirus. Since 2012 at least seven children have drowned or nearly drowned in cruise ship pools that rarely have full-time lifeguards. This year, a 21-year-old college student fell overboard and was never found — one of at least two dozen incidents in the last two years in which cruise passengers or crew have gone overboard, according tomedia reports.

The dangers aboard cruises range from the exotic to the familiar: Crime, though less common than on shore, does happen. Victims…