Norwalk Virus at Animal Kingdom Lodge - January 2009
Most of the 14 members of our traveling party at Animal Kingdom Lodge came down with a horrible stomach flu about a day and a half after arriving on January 15, 2009. Symptoms include vomiting, diarrhea, and low-grade fever. The children got it the worst and my four year old threw up for 6 days. I left information with housekeeping about which rooms needed special attention because of the illness in those rooms. When my sister purchased some children's Tylenol in the gift shop, one of the cashiers asked if the kids were sick. When she said that most of our party was sick with a stomach flu, the woman said, "God, no matter how much they clean, they can't get rid of that. It's been going around for at least 3 weeks. About two weeks after returning home, our preschool director noted that another family got sick at Disney in late January and asked which hotel the other family stayed at: Animal Kingdom Lodge! Twelve of them were there from January21st through January 25th, 2009 and had the same symptoms as we did. My mother, who got sick while we were there gave it to my dad after we got home, so this is clearly contagious and not necessarily a food-borne illness or part of the current peanut scare. The Orange County Board of Health has taken information from the members of the two traveling parties that became ill. I reported it to them after reporting the problem to Disney. No response from Disney so far, but the Board of Health is clearly taking this seriously since I've gotten foru calls in three days from them...each time collecting more and more specific information. Our doctor is sending them information as well. The kids get it far worse than the adults! Just be forewarned that this is highly contagious!