Nearly 200 cruise ship passengers who contracted the norovirus while out at sea returned to Port Everglades early Thursday.

This is the second outbreak of norovirus, a gastroinestinal illness, on the Crown Princess in just the past week.

Last Saturday, the ship pulled into Port Everglades with 364 sick passengers and 30 sick crew members.  Crews cleaned and disinfected the ship for hours before allowing the new passengers on board, but apparently the cleaning didn't work. 

The ship left Port Everglades Saturday night, but the new passengers began getting sick immediately.

The Crown Princess returned to port Thursday morning, three days earlier than planned.  The cruise was supposed to last seven days.

Currently there are 198 sick passengers and 62 sick crew members.

In a statement, Princess Cruise Lines said: "We sincerely regret having to cut short our passengers' cruise vacations because of this highly-unusual situation.  We will, of course, be refunding their cruise fare, arranging flights home, including covering change fees if air was not booked through Princess, providing hotel accommodations if necessary, and offering a 25% future cruise credit."

Another Princess ship, the Ruby Princess, also had an outbreak of the norovirus onboard last week.