Umm...this article that came out this morning about cruising is horrifying

[DisneyWishes14]

I think some of this may also be in response to a few of the cruise lines not being entirely honest about the sick passengers they are carrying onboard so they can get clearance to dock and disembark. It was reported in San Diego that, when they allowed the Celebrity Eclipse passengers to disembark this past Monday, there was one ill woman who had been sick for at least 5 days prior to disembarking with "possible bronchitis" who had to be transported to the hospital from the ship who later tested positive for COVID-19. Officials had previously said everyone on board was healthy and showing no symptoms which was not correct. https://www.kusi.com/family-confirm...ked-in-san-diego-tests-positive-for-covid-19/

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

This shouldn't come as a surprise nor is it a horror show IMO.

On March 8th a travel advisory was put out.

U.S. citizens were given a choice, they were told via the travel advisory "U.S. citizens, particularly travelers with underlying health conditions, should not travel by cruise ship. CDC notes increased risk of infection of COVID-19 in a cruise ship environment. In order to curb the spread of COVID-19, many countries have implemented strict screening procedures that have denied port entry rights to ships and prevented passengers from disembarking. In some cases, local authorities have permitted disembarkation but subjected passengers to local quarantine procedures. While the U.S. government has evacuated some cruise ship passengers in recent weeks, repatriation flights should not be relied upon as an option for U.S. citizens under the potential risk of quarantine by local authorities"

If you were on a cruise ship prior to the travel advisory that's your caveat although cruise ship travel had been a risk prior to that once it was known multiple cruise ships were having cases and spread.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

On one hand, I agree with this....but on the other hand, for those really long cruises that began in the weeks before this really ramped up, it doesn't seem fair. No good outcome here.

Once the travel advisory was put out on March 8th, it became up to the U.S. citizen's risk to travel on a cruise ship with the understanding the U.S. government may not be there to step in to help you. That was over 3 weeks ago. I don't know how many cruise ships have been out at sea for 3 weeks but probably not too many.

 

[BartmanLA]

I do wonder though what the end port was for these two ships? I understand cancelling ports along the way, but is there legal ramifications to not allowing a ship to stop at the final port? I guess it depends on how the contracts are written up too.

Also I believe these cruises started before most cruise lines called off their cruises. That said I know Holland was one of the last to stop sailing.

The Zaandam originated in Buenos Aries, with the end port after a 30 day cruise which started in early March (a while before they started shutting down cruise lines) of Fort Lauderdale, so the ships are ostensibly heading for Port Everglades, but with the new Coast Guard order they're not going to apparently be able to discharge passengers, at least from the ship directly, there's 300 Americans on board so they're going to have to figure out a way to re-patriot them. If the ship is forced to return to it's flagged country to discharge the sick and dead that would be The Netherlands. I can't imagine what would happen to that ship if they're forced to sail across the Atlantic for that long. Compassion should be a factor into this unbelievable situation. That's for sure.

 

[Rob1872]

In one sense this has been decades in the making. Countries like the Bahamas, Panama, etc. have let cruise ships register with their countries as flags of convenience. The corporations got to have the benefits of less stringent rules, and the countries got the income from the ship registrations. Now that there are serious global issues, we are going to see the impacts from open registries and flags of convenience. If a cruise line wants to be able to expect the United States to not turn them away in a pandemic then they need to register as US ships (and follow US regulations and US pay scales). If they don't want to observe US rules, then they need to ensure that their host country actually has the resources to support their ships.

 

[Rob1872]

I read an article about ship crews not being able to go back home because their home countries aren't letting them back in.

No different from a lot of country restrictions right now. Many countries don't want anyone who has been exposed to arrive, regardless of how they got infected (or potentially infected). Not unique to cruise ship employees.

 

[elaine amj]

So horrifying for those cruise ship passengers AND their crew I have done my share of shaking my head at those who still chose to cruise during this crazy time. But man oh man, my heart goes out to them.

 

[Lisa F]

The Zaandam originated in Buenos Aries, with the end port after a 30 day cruise which started in early March (a while before they started shutting down cruise lines) of Fort Lauderdale, so the ships are ostensibly heading for Port Everglades, but with the new Coast Guard order they're not going to apparently be able to discharge passengers, at least from the ship directly, there's 300 Americans on board so they're going to have to figure out a way to re-patriot them. If the ship is forced to return to it's flagged country to discharge the sick and dead that would be The Netherlands. I can't imagine what would happen to that ship if they're forced to sail across the Atlantic for that long. Compassion should be a factor into this unbelievable situation. That's for sure.

Florida Governor has agreed to take the Florida residents and I can't imagine they won't figure something out for the rest of the US residents. If most of the rest of the guests are European it might not be the worst thing in the world to send them over there on a transatlantic crossing.

For a little perspective they have more ventilators on those two cruise ships for 3k or so people than we have on the entire Martha's Vineyard for 15k people plus all of the summer people who have decided to come here to weather this thing, and we have been told by Boston General NOT to expect to be able to transfer anyone, but especially COVID19 patients - they will take other transfers for as long as they can.

It might not actually be the worst situation in the world for even the sick to ride it out on the cruise ship. It seems like splitting the people onto two cruise ships helped control the outbreak. I think they have 8 regular and 2 portable ventilators for about 3000-4000 people including crew on two ships? That is a way higher proportion than in many land hospitals.

but after hearing that the Zaandam has as many ventilators there as we do here I am wondering why cruise ships are not being deployed to these tiny coastal towns who are having their populations explode by people hoping to escape the virus from the cities, sounds like a cruise ship onboard medical facility could double (at least) the capacity of these tiny hospitals not built for emergency responses.

 

[hrhdhd]

The Governor who btw got DC to send them 100% of their requested medical supplies from the Fed Gov't stockpile this week and is getting another 100% next week as well while other states got much much less (Colorado received 1 DAYS worth of supplies) claims that their medical resources are stretched too thin to accommodate the sick people on board cruise ships, and that they're going to have to "loiter" off shore beyond the territorial limits while they evaluate and treat the sick on board.

Florida has almost 7,000 cases as of March 30, while Colorado has almost 3,000 as of March 30, so that might explain some of the discrepancy in supplies.

Also, the worst outbreaks in FL are in Broward (1,219 cases) and Miami-Dade (2,123 cases) counties, the homes of Port Everglades and PortMiami, so unloading more sick people or more healthy people who may then get sick from exposure is a bad idea in those particular locations, which already have their resources stretched. (Note that those two counties have more cases than CO in total.)

Florida has other ports, and those should be considered as alternatives.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

I don't know how many cruise ships have been out at sea for 3 weeks but probably not too many.

There's about 6000 passengers still afloat.

MS Rotterdam (only because it's helping Zaandam)
MS Zaandam - March 7 cruise
MS Amsterdam - started January 4 on 100-day voyage
Coral Princess - started March 5
Pacific Princess - left January 5 on 112-day voyage
MS Arcadia (P&O) - left January 2 on 100-day voyage
Queen Mary 2 - put to sea January 2 on a 113-day voyage
MSC Magnifica - put to sea January 4 on a 116-day voyage
Columbus - left January 6 on 88-day voyage

All of these ships were already at sea when the U.S. cruise lines decided to temporarily halt sailings due to the spread of the coronavirus. The only ones particularly close on sail dates were Coral Princess and Zandam. The others have been trying to get to home ports or put off passengers as possible, and all left in January.

There are a couple ships down to crew only.

 

[DisneyPups]

It is crazy. And I can't imagine what the people on the cruises are going through. Just to give another perspective, my parents just returned from what should have been a 21-day South American cruise on Monday 3/30 (I think it turned into 25 or 26 days). The cruise left on 3/2 (before the 3/8 that was mentioned) out of Buenos Aires. About 15 days in, and after going around the southern tip, all the ports on the left coast of SA closed, and they could not debark in Chile. They hovered at sea for almost a week trying to figure out where they could go next, how they could refuel and stock up on food/supplies. Two crew members contracted a fever (turns out it was nothing, they were fine in a few days) and everyone on board had to have their temp taken. Then ended up having to wait a few extra days for an opening in the Panama Canal schedule, and then headed back to Miami. While my parents were able to make it home (to Virginia), the ship docked, everyone went through Customs, and then got back on board for the night. The cruiseline took people directly to the airport. Which was fine for the US passengers. My stepdad said in the days leading up to the dock, the international passengers were finding it difficult to arrange getting home. No one was flying to certain locations. I never did follow up with him to find out if he heard more about those passengers. But I imagine it's similar for the crew members. There are probably a LOT of people stuck in limbo who aren't sure what to do, as the "poop hit the fan" as they say, while they were out at sea. They were fortunate to not have had to deal with COVID-19 on board, and they STILL struggled to find a port that would take them. Is there a good solution to the boats that actually have sick passengers on board? Not really. But man on man, I'm not sure I would recover from the trauma of being on board with passengers/crew who were dying of it while I was stuck on board. I hope when it clears they all can find some good, affordable therapy.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

There's about 6000 passengers still afloat.

MS Rotterdam (only because it's helping Zaandam)
MS Zaandam - March 7 cruise
MS Amsterdam - started January 4 on 100-day voyage
Coral Princess - started March 5
Pacific Princess - left January 5 on 112-day voyage
MS Arcadia (P&O) - left January 2 on 100-day voyage
Queen Mary 2 - put to sea January 2 on a 113-day voyage
MSC Magnifica - put to sea January 4 on a 116-day voyage
Columbus - left January 6 on 88-day voyage

All of these ships were already at sea when the U.S. cruise lines decided to temporarily halt sailings due to the spread of the coronavirus. The only ones particularly close on sail dates were Coral Princess and Zandam. The others have been trying to get to home ports or put off passengers as possible, and all left in January.

There are a couple ships down to crew only.

So not many. That's what I was thinking.

My point in mentioning the travel advisory was once the U.S. put out the travel advisory any U.S. citizen who cruised after that took a risk, an informed decision was made on their part.

However, the MS Zaandam and Coral Princess were probably ships that should not have gone out at all. The risk was known then they probably just hoped it wouldn't impact their ships too much.

In reading multiple of these cruises you listed were still trying to have excursions and stopping at ports as part of the itinerary rather than stopping for refueling and supplies well after it was clear cruises were not the place to be. Maybe they hoped that the long voyages would allow the situation to calm down but the reality was there are many countries throught the world that are just as concerned about getting the virus and know how easy it is for those cruise ships to contain passengers who could have it. Around the world cruise voyages were like the last thing that should have continued to go on as spreading is very large concern. Some waited too late to stop the voyages and were met with countries being concerned about spread.

Continuing to sail when the cruise ships with even thinking about stopping at ports for the purpose of excursions (rather than refueling and getting more supplies) were one of the first (aside from international travel) places to be shown to be such an issue was playing russian roulette with the world as ships were getting denied port access. And now their passengers and crew pay the price as other countries and the U.S. grapple with trying anything they can to mitigate spread. I give props to the cruise ships that early on were really trying to get their passengers off anywhere they could but not all were like that.

 

[BartmanLA]

From what I understand the Zaandam may have started their 30 Itinerary from Buenos Aries on March 7th, but it was a continuation of a much longer cruise that originated from Ft Lauderdale, a number of people on board the ship remained on board when they ported in BA and continued on the voyage from there. Over all the cruise industry didn't call for a universal shut down until after the ship left BA, so they wouldn't have had any idea of the spread of this (other than what was on the news) at the time. The encountered refusals to port were as each country made the decision to shut down port operations and refuse porting to not just the Zaandam but other ships as well. They were basically left out at sea without any place to go. The decision by HAL to return to Ft Lauderdale (it's home port) to discharge passengers was a proper one to attempt to help the passengers remaining on board to get home.

 

[Heather07438]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Zaandam#Coronavirus_pandemic
This is a quick rundown of the Zanndam situation.

Honestly, leaving March 7 on a 14 day cruise? I'm sure everybody thought about the potential risk because by that point we were already dealing with the Princess fiascos in Feb where those people were stuck on ships with the sick and unable to dock.
Still my heart goes out to all of those affected. Hang in there

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

From what I understand the Zaandam may have started their 30 Itinerary from Buenos Aries on March 7th, but it was a continuation of a much longer cruise that originated from Ft Lauderdale, a number of people on board the ship remained on board when they ported in BA and continued on the voyage from there. Over all the cruise industry didn't call for a universal shut down until after the ship left BA, so they wouldn't have had any idea of the spread of this (other than what was on the news) at the time. The encountered refusals to port were as each country made the decision to shut down port operations and refuse porting to not just the Zaandam but other ships as well. They were basically left out at sea without any place to go. The decision by HAL to return to Ft Lauderdale (it's home port) to discharge passengers was a proper one to attempt to help the passengers remaining on board to get home.

If that's the case that it was a continuation it comes off to me even more of an issue. The proper thing to have done was to have not started an additional journey especially with a cruise that would be going around the world during a time where it was a fast spreading virus that was quickly making its way through the world.

There were many cruises that came back after relatively short durations with little to no issues but it seems like even back then it was a poor decision to have long cruises (and decent length ones) and most especially ones going around the world in an uncertain cruising environment. A 3-day cruise where you're stopping in your own Castaway Cay style place probably presented less risk in terms of being barred, a longer cruise with multiple stopping points with multiple countries ups the risks. Individual ships and companies always had the opportunity to make decisions themselves it doesn't mean the entire cruise industry has to be the ones to call it.

As far as Zaandam and Rotterdam they are being allowed to dock in Fort Lauderdale but disembarking is still up in the air.

*ETA: I should note I'm not trying to argue your point away because it has validity for sure. I do think they were hoping to be on the winning side of this and ended up not being.

 

[Joe Brig]

With the amount of money that Florida makes on tourism, they should find a way to help the people on the ships, especially American citizens.

 

[smacmillan83]

In Australia, there are numerous cruise ships in our waters that the Australian Govt. dont want passengers or crew to disembark. In some cases they have ordered them out of Australian waters raising a humanitarian issue. At one point last week, 10% of all cases (400 people) in Oz were from the Ruby Princess - a cruise ship that our local authority let dock in mid March with no measures to check for anyone who may have been infected.

 

[MomOTwins]

Honestly, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about letting sick passengers disembark. The cat is out the bag now--there are close to 8,000 confirmed cases in Florida, and given limited testing, probably 10 times that amount in actual cases. A few dozen extra from a cruise ship is drop in the bucket. Maybe this would have made a difference weeks ago before the virus had spread, but now I don't really seem the point in stranding these people when they could just quarantine on land like everyone else.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Honestly, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about letting sick passengers disembark. The cat is out the bag now--there are close to 8,000 confirmed cases in Florida, and given limited testing, probably 10 times that amount in actual cases. A few dozen extra from a cruise ship is drop in the bucket. Maybe this would have made a difference weeks ago before the virus had spread, but now I don't really seem the point in stranding these people when they could just quarantine on land like everyone else.

From what I'm reading it's a combination of hospital concerns, exposure related to transport of passengers to the airport, there's no actual control going on for the quarantine meaning they aren't putting them in a facility probably in respects to resources, probably in respects to citizens from other countries, so you gotta hope that the ones disembarking actually truly quarantine meaning no leaving their homes for any reason, etc.

The fact that people aboard have died and there are people currently positive makes everyone on edge. Can't say I blame them there. It's so contagious if just one person goes out they can infect several people, those people can infect several people. It's actually IMO even more imperitive to protect others, we're at the point of trying to slow down the spread not introduce more people into the pool of those who can spread it. But we have our own citizens aboard, we have citizens of varying nations, no one wants to actually be the 'bad guy' but there are legitimate concerns here too so it's a hard place to be in.

 

[BartmanLA]

Are we DONE with the "Quarterbacking"?????? The ships Docked and passengers are on their way home or to a facility that will treat them if they're critically ill enough, HAL has arranged for all of this at their expense satisfying the County Command Center, lets CLOSE this thread and just wish everyone involved well and hope they recover and don't suffer unnecessarily.