"We have been advised that two patients have tested positive to swine flu." It's safe to say at least one of those two patients is Sammy, whose road to infection began on onboard the nine-day Pacific Dawn cruise.

Sammy's mother said her son played in the ships' child care centre with many of the children later identified on television as having contracted the virus.

"We've been watching the TV coverage and each time an infected kid comes on from the cruise, he tells me he remembered playing with them," she said.

Sammy and his father visited the ship's doctor on the second last day of the cruise after feeling sick, with the doctor confirming the father had the Norovirus bug. The boy was tested for Influenza A (H1N1), but was given the all clear and told to take Panadol to ease his fever. The family visited the ship's doctor again the following morning via the staff quarters and was given the all clear, despite the son displaying flu symptoms.

"Instead of disembarking via the main gangway we were taken out through the staff area. It was like they were trying to sneak us out," she said.

The family said they were also told by a P&O staff member there was no need to declare their flu symptoms on their health declaration form ‘‘because they’d been given the all-clear by the doctor’’.

A P&O spokesperson denied the cruise ship was trying to hide the family, instead saying that the staff exit area which the family disembarked from was closer to the doctor’s office on the ship than the main exit.

“It’s unusual to have people disembark from this exit, but this could have been merely to make the exit process quicker for the family,” the spokesman told The Gazette.

The family said they went straight home from the cruise, thinking nothing more of their potential to infect anyone more around them.

“My suspicions were aroused later in the day when we got a phone call from a friend who was also on the cruise, who’d been contacted by the NSW Health Department and told to get tested for swine flu because two people on board had been confirmed as having it,” the mother said.

“When we contacted the NSW Health Department, they told us to go to hospital and get tested.”

The four family members were tested at Hawkesbury on Monday night, with a paediatrician confirming that the young child had all the symptoms of swine flu.

The parents were told to continue medicating him with Panadol to reduce the fever and await the results, which subsequently came through as positive five days later.

They couple say they’ve had little direction from NSW Health other than to stay inside.

“We’re not sure how long we’ll have to stay inside,” the mother said.

“We were told we had to stay here until all the symptoms were gone, but then the (NSW Health) told us they’d email through a clean bill of health certificate, without even testing us.

“It’s very frustrating.”