33 Flies, a Blackout and a Clogged Galley Toilet: Emerald Princess Fails Its First CDC Inspection

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At about 9:30 on the morning of October 16, 2026, the power went out on Emerald Princess. Then the CDC’s inspectors walked aboard.

Inspectors can’t have picked a worse day to arrive, but surprise is the whole idea. Vessel Sanitation Program inspections are, in the CDC’s own words, “periodic and unannounced”. By the time the team left, they had written up 39 items, counted 33 flies, and given the ship a score of 78 out of 100.

Ships fail at 85 or below. Emerald Princess had been inspected 30 times since 2007 and had never failed until this one.

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What the Inspectors Actually Wrote

The full report is public in the CDC’s inspection database (search “Emerald Princess”, inspection date 10/16/2026), and it’s more specific than any headline. Highlights, quoted or closely paraphrased:

• The flies. “A total of 33 flies” across food areas, itemized by location. The bakery had eight small flies. Five more were near the juice machines in the World Fresh Market buffet galley on Deck 15. Two were in the galley men’s toilet.
• The toilet. The only food-employee toilet in the Deck 6 main galley was out of service, clogged, with a “We’re working on it” sign on the locked door. “No crew were able to identify how long the toilet had been out of service.”
• The sandwiches. Trays were cooling in a walk-in fridge with trays laid over them, which slows cooling. Ham and cheese sandwiches “only cooled by 3°F in three hours.”
• The fridge stacking. Medium-rare roast beef sat above cut boiled eggs. Sushi with raw tuna sat above ready-to-eat canapés. In the buffet’s hot galley, raw pork chops sat above thawed hot dogs.
• The fruit. Three “visibly moldy and/or rotten oranges” were on the crew mess service line.
• The ice. “Black, brown, and pink debris” had built up in the water bath trays of ice machines in pantries on Decks 8, 9 and 10.
• The dishwashers. Six warewash and potwash machines were soiled, some of them while in use. In the Deck 5 scullery a clogged drain sent gray water over the deck.

The report’s own summary is blunt. It blames “insufficient managerial controls and crew knowledge” for “several significant food safety issues noted across the vessel”.

And one deduction goes the other way. Item 02 marks the ship down for sending the CDC a gastrointestinal illness update it didn’t need to send. Case counts hadn’t changed since the previous report.

The Blackout and the Alarm Nobody Heard

The strangest finding isn’t about food. Cruise ships make and chlorinate their own drinking water, and an analyzer at the “far point” of the piping checks that the chlorine has reached the far end of the system.

When inspectors went to test it at 12:30, the analyzer was switched off and its chart recorder had read 0.0 ppm for about three hours, since the blackout. A low-chlorine alarm had been sounding in the engine control room the whole time, according to the report, but “crew in charge of the potable water system had not been notified.”

The water itself was fine. A calibrated test kit measured 1.27 and 1.22 ppm of chlorine. The failure was the monitoring: an alarm went off and nobody who needed to know about it heard it.

A 99 in May, a 78 in October

This is the bit that makes the score so jarring. Until October, Emerald Princess had a strong record. Here is her history, pulled from the CDC’s full score list for the ship:

Inspection	Score	Note
November 26, 2007	100	First inspection
November 11, 2011	89	A pass, but a low one
July 16, 2017	87	Her lowest before 2026, two points above failing
May 23, 2018	100	The last of seven perfect scores (2007 to 2018)
December 30, 2025	92	Pass
May 12, 2026	99	Pass, with 28 items noted
October 16, 2026	78	First failure in 31 inspections

The first-ever fail is confirmed by Cruise Hive and Cruise Fever, which both count 39 violations. The two disagree on the port. Cruise Hive says Long Beach and Cruise Fever says Los Angeles. The CDC report doesn’t name it.

None of the reports we read included a statement from Princess Cruises. As of November 2, the corrective action page for this inspection on the CDC site was still empty.

The Next Day, a Second Ship Failed

On October 17, Ponant’s small expedition ship Le Lyrial scored 83 in her first-ever CDC inspection, with 27 items. Cruise Fever reports the inspection was in New York.

Her report has its own odd details. The ship arrived at 7:30 a.m. and the rat guards, the discs that stop rodents climbing the mooring lines, weren’t up when inspectors boarded. They were in place “by at least 0840”. The certificate for the only pesticide applicator on board wasn’t available. A crew member sick with gastroenteritis refused cabin cleaning for a day.

How a Ship Gets to 78

The Vessel Sanitation Program covers ships that carry 13 or more passengers and sail a foreign itinerary with U.S. ports. Those ships get two unannounced inspections a year, unless they spend long stretches outside the U.S.

The score isn’t a count of problems. Emerald Princess had 28 items in May and still scored 99. According to the CDC’s FAQ, inspectors take points off for a single significant violation, or for a pattern of similar ones. Thirty-three flies spread across a dozen food areas is a pattern. So are six dirty dishwashing machines.

A fail doesn’t take a ship out of service. The FAQ says failing ships are reinspected within a reasonable period, and critical violations have to be fixed immediately. The CDC can recommend that a ship stop sailing, but says that is rarely needed. It’s kept for imminent risks, such as a ship that can’t chlorinate its water, keep food at safe temperatures or control an outbreak. Emerald Princess’s water, remember, tested fine.

What to Do If Your Ship Is on the List

1. Look up your ship yourself. The CDC search tool is free. Choose your ship and open “All Scores” to see the whole history rather than one number. Our CDC rankings guide explains how to read it.
2. Read the report, not just the score. Moldy oranges on the crew mess line and a missing water alarm are very different problems.
3. Check the corrective action statement. Every ship has to file one explaining what it fixed. The CDC says it doesn’t verify the fixes until the next inspection, but the statement shows whether the line took the findings seriously.
4. Don’t cancel over one number. A score is one day on board. The reinspection is the one to watch.
5. Protect yourself either way. Wash your hands before every meal and after the bathroom, and tell the medical center early if you get stomach symptoms. Ships have to report gastrointestinal illness to the CDC, which is why a duplicate report could even show up on Emerald Princess’s sheet.

Emerald Princess spent nineteen years without a fail, and lost that record on a morning that started with a blackout. The reinspection will show whether October 16 was a bad day or the start of a trend.

Cruise Chaos earns nothing from cruise lines and doesn’t run booking affiliate links. Scores and report text come from the CDC Vessel Sanitation Program database, read on November 2, 2026. Spot an error? Tell us and we’ll correct it.

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Keep Reading

• The Dirtiest Cruise Ships According to the CDC
• The “Love Boat” Turned “Vomit Comet”: Inside the AIDAdiva Norovirus Outbreak
• Bees Took Over a Utopia of the Seas Umbrella. Then the Beekeeper Brought a Vacuum.

Sources

• CDC Vessel Sanitation Program: inspection search (Emerald Princess, 10/16/2026, score 78; full score history; Le Lyrial, 10/17/2026, score 83)
• CDC: Vessel Sanitation Program FAQ
• CDC: Public health inspections
• CDC: About the Vessel Sanitation Program
• Cruise Hive: Emerald Princess Fails CDC Inspection for the First Time in 19 Years
• Cruise Fever: Two Cruise Ships Fail Health Inspections on Back to Back Days