Cruise ship due in NJ port after illness outbreak

BAYONNE, N.J. >> A cruise ship on which hundreds of passengers and crew members fell ill is due back in the New Jersey port it departed from last week.

A spokesman for The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says the Explorer of the Seas is due to dock Wednesday afternoon in Bayonne.

The Royal Caribbean ship had to cut short a 10-day cruise after more than 600 passengers and crew members experienced vomiting and diarrhea.

Officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention boarded the ship during its U.S. Virgin Islands port call to investigate the illness. But tests have not yet confirmed the cause.

The ship’s medical team has said the symptoms were consistent with norovirus.

The ship left Bayonne on Jan. 21.