What happens when you send a health reporter on a cruise? He might just become a regular

The Queen Anne's seven-day voyage sails across the North Sea to Norway and Denmark, and back again.

As someone who has been writing about infectious diseases for more than four decades, the idea of taking a cruise never really crossed my mind.

In public-health circles, massive cruise ships have long been looked upon derisively as little more than floating petri dishes, a reputation that was magnified at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic . The first large outbreak of the novel coronavirus outside China occurred on the Diamond Princess in February, 2020. In the months that followed, many ports prevented cruise ships from docking, leaving crews stranded at sea. The industry took a beating.

The pandemic, while not quite over, is largely forgotten. Cruising is back and more popular than