Your Cruise Ship Has a CDC Sanitation Score. Heres How to Find It

Cruise ships often make headlines for disease outbreaks, but are they actually dirty? Here’s what the latest CDC sanitation inspections reveal.Cruise ship sanitation has been in the media a lot lately. A hantavirus outbreak onboard a Dutch-flagged cruise ship in May received wide media attention, with cases reported in various countries—even as far away as the Pitcairn Island.Cruise ships do tend to overrepresent in outbreak reporting, because they’re contained spaces with a relatively tightly packed population of people living and eating together in close proximity for a set number of days. The conditions are good on cruise ships, not only for outbreaks to develop, but also for them to be better tracked than on land (because all of the passengers follow the same travel patterns). The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) tracks the number of outbreaks on ships in its jurisdiction each year, and counts nine confirmed outbreaks so far in 2026. The CDC counted 23 outbreaks onboard cruise ships for the full year 2025, 19 of them between January and August, so 2026 is tracking somewhat behind last year. It’s worth noting the CDC only has jurisdiction over ships that call at U.S. ports, and can only perform inspections at U.S. ports. U.S.-based cruise lines are not inspected when their ships call at foreign ports. Continue Reading Article After Our Video Recommended Fodor’s Video During 2026, the nine outbreaks have been recorded on six different ships belonging to Lindblad Expeditions, Princess Cruises, Oceania Cruises, and Regent Seven Seas Cruises. Four of the outbreaks were attributed to a single ship: Lindblad Expeditions National Geographic Sea Bird, which cruises in Alaska in the summer, the Pacific Northwest in the fall, and in Mexico during the winter months.It’s important to explain that the presence of an outbreak onboard a cruise ship isn’t necessarily linked to violations of sanitary regulations. National Geographic Sea Bird was last inspected under the CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program in August of 2025 and received a passing score of 93 (a vessel fails to pass inspection if it scores lower than 86). FOX News recently reported the lowest-scoring ships from this year’s CDC inspections under the Vessel Sanitation Program. But it’s worth noting that only one ship out of the seven actually failed the CDC’s inspection threshold of 86. It’s also important to explain that several vessels rated near the bottom of the list had previously or subsequently received perfect scores of 100—and a significant number of ships inspected by the CDC achieve that score. The CDC has inspected 39 ships so far in 2026 that have achieved a perfect score of 100, and the ships have been from a variety of cruise lines, including Royal Caribbean, Disney, Oceania, Regent Seven Seas, Viking, Princess, Holland America, Celebrity, Norwegian, Cunard, Virgin Voyages, Carnival, MSC, and Margaritaville at Sea. Ships with a perfect score can also have noted deficiencies and received recommendations for improvement, but not have violations that result in a deduction of points from the total score. Travelers considering a cruise booking or who are booked on an upcoming cruise can review the CDC’s inspection reports for their ship, searching by cruise line or specific ship, and see a full report including specific violations, plus the cruise line’s report of any corrective action taken since the inspection. Ships that have not recently called in U.S. ports may not have recent inspection reports. Travelers who have concerns about safety or sanitation procedures onboard a ship they’re currently traveling on should alert a crewmember at their earliest convenience. Travelers who experience symptoms of gastrointestinal disease or other illnesses should report their symptoms to the ship’s medical staff, who track the number of cases by symptom to track the progression of any potential outbreaks onboard the ship.