AN EAST Yorkshire family holidaying on the virus-stricken cruise ship MS Aurora, said today they were anxious to get home.

Ronald Martin and his wife Doreen, both 40, of Snaith, said they are looking forward to docking in Southampton, on Thursday, after a 17-night stay on board the P & O luxury liner.

The couple's daughters Lynsey, 15, and Rebecca, 11, were both confined to their cabin for 72 hours after they caught the highly infectious sickness and diarrhoea bug, norovirus, which attacked 500 of the ship's British passengers.

Mr Martin of Ponton Walk, Snaith, said it had been "alarming" how quickly the bug took hold of the ship.

"It has been a very difficult time," he said.

"We have obviously been disappointed with our holiday, and the children were very poorly, but it was a 48-hour bug and they are better now." Mr Martin, an associate director for the Bank of Scotland, said it was the second time his family had boarded a cruise ship this year.

"It was a little bit alarming the way we were kept in the dark," said Mr Martin. "We weren't really told how many people were ill, but everybody was given injections to stop the vomiting and extra doctors were flown in."

The ship visited Palma, Sicily and Venice, but was refused access to Athens.

It docked in Gibraltar yesterday, when all 1,500 passengers were allowed onto dry land.

The health scare turned political when Spain closed its border with Gibraltar - for the first time since 1969 - after the liner docked in the British colony.

The move, sparked angry criticism from senior British and Gibraltarian politicians who labelled it "unnecessary and disproportionate."

The frontier was eventually reopened last night, three hours after the Aurora had left for its final leg of a 17 day cruise.

The Foreign Office welcomed the reopening but a spokesman stressed: "The Foreign Secretary did not believe it should have been closed in the first place."

Gibraltar's Chief Minister, Peter Caruana, said the British passengers on board had been forced to "float around the Mediterranean like unwanted refugees".

MS Aurora was today sailing home from Gibraltar and is scheduled to return to England on Thursday.

Updated: 10:38 Tuesday, November 04, 2003