P&O luxury cruise ship Oceana returned to Southampton yesterday after a Mediterranean cruise during which about 200 passengers were stuck down with the suspected Norwalk virus. Then the ship headed back to the Med for another cruise.

As the ship docked after a 17-night cruise the mood among the 2,015 passengers was upbeat.

A P&O spokeswoman said the 77,499 tonne ship had been completely clear of the bug for the last four or five days.

A comprehensive programme had been put in place to minimise the spread of the virus.

She said: "It is a 24 hour bug and I think people are very educated and informed about these things nowadays."

The Oceana left Southampton on May 19 and passengers starting going down with the bug while it was cruising to Lisbon, Palma, Cagliara in Sardinia, Civitavecchia in Italy, Naples, Dubrovnik, Corfu, and Malaga.

Passengers hit by the bug were asked to confine themselves to their cabins until the symptoms of the virus, which includes sickness and diarrhoea, had subsided.

The symptoms usually take about a day or two to clear.

David Dingle, managing director of Carnival UK - the company which owns P&0 - said of the virus: "It is always extremely difficult to identify a single cause of this. Typically it is brought on board by, most likely, a passenger with symptons which had not come out.

"We write to passengers before and ask them to take every possible precaution.

"It has been a long time since we have had an outbreak."

Passengers paid from £1,499 for an inside twin cabin to as much as £7,319 for a luxury balcony suite.

Passengers would be compensated for the time that they lost when they had to be confined to their cabin areas.

As the cruise liner was turned around yesterday thorough disinfection procedures were carried out to make sure that the bug did not return.