Outbreaks of Covid-19 recorded on MS Roald Amundsen in Norway and the Paul Gauguin in Tahiti
Covid-19 has been detected on at least two cruise ships – one in the Arctic and one in the Pacific – just weeks after cruising holidays restarted.
At least 40 passengers and crew from the MS Roald Amundsen have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, and authorities are trying to contact trace hundreds of passengers from two recent Arctic voyages the ship took.
Continue reading...On 1 March, photographer Jon Tonks left New Zealand on a Pacific cruise. Twenty eight days later, the boat docked in San Diego, amid a pandemic. What happened in between?
The cruise ship MS Maasdam left New Zealand on the evening of 1 March, steaming out of Auckland’s Waitemata harbour into the Hauraki Gulf, where it headed north. The route was to San Diego via Fiji, the Cook Islands, French Polynesia and Hawaii. On board the Holland America Line ship were around 1,200 passengers, including Americans, Britons, Canadians, Australians and French holidaymakers. The 542 crew included Dutch, Americans, Germans, Venezuelans and Filipinos. There were also a handful of entertainers and guest lecturers along for the ride, including Jon Tonks, a portrait photographer from Bath, who ended up with a portrait of a cruise that didn’t go to plan.
Covid-19 was certainly a thing at the beginning of March, but it was still considered mainly a China thing. The Maasdam wouldn’t be going anywhere near China. Questionnaires were handed to passengers, about symptoms and where they’d been before, but then they were good to go. Still, Tonks says that friends had joked before he left: “Good luck on your corona cruise.”
Continue reading...David Connell and his wife Margaret were separated for weeks in Italy after catching coronavirus on the Costa Luminosa. For days, David didn’t know if his wife had survived
‘I didn’t know if she was alive’: Australian couple separated overseas when Covid-19 hit cruise ship
‘I didn’t know if she was alive’: the Australian couple split apart as Covid-19 tore through their cruise ship
David Connell had to pack his wife Margaret’s luggage quickly. She was sick, lying on the cabin’s bed, conscious but barely.
Her knitting and a book were already in her bag, he threw in some essentials and put both their phones in his pocket for safekeeping. They were headed from their cruise ship to a hospital in Italy, which on 22 March was one of the countries most heavily infected by Covid-19.
Continue reading...World’s largest cruise company declines to give details for extent of redundancies
Cruise ship company Carnival has announced a wide-ranging programme of job losses and pay cuts as it desperately seeks to cut costs in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
The world’s largest cruise company said it would save “hundreds of millions of dollars” over the course of a year after making the cuts but declined to give details of the extent of redundancies and furloughs.
Continue reading...Death toll of crew stranded by coronavirus continues to rise as industry blames ‘impractical’ safety requirements for blocking disembarkation
Some cruise companies have refused to agree to rules that would allow tens of thousands of stranded crew back to land, citing concerns about cost and potential legal consequences, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The largest trade association for the cruise industry has called the CDC’s requirements for disembarkation “impractical”.
The standoff comes amid a deteriorating situation on many ships around the world and a rising death toll of crew members.
Continue reading...Eight cruise ships to resume operations from 1 August, sailing from Texas and Florida
Carnival Cruise Line has announced plans to resume operations at the beginning of August despite dozens of deaths on cruise ships during the Covid-19 pandemic and investigations into the industry’s possible role in spreading the disease around the planet.
In a statement on Monday, the operator said eight cruise ships would resume operations from 1 August, sailing from Galveston, Texas, and Miami and Port Canaveral in Florida, once a no-sail order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had expired.
Continue reading...Premier Daniel Andrews says state of emergency will be extended for a further four weeks as Australians trapped on Antarctic cruise ship arrive in Melbourne. Follow updates live
McGowan says he took his kids camping ... in his backyard ... over Easter because obviously other locations were unavailable.
And that’s the end of the press conference.
“We’ve successfully flattened the curve, but now we’ve got to figure out how to keep it there but also find out a long-term solution to the problem we face,” McGowan says.
He says he is working on getting commercial tenancy legislation in parliament this week. He’s not sure whether residential tenancy legislation will be ready this week but it will be brought in when it is.
The former will be brought into WA parliament for debate on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Passengers on cruise liner where four died and its sister ship hope to be flying home soon
Hundreds of passengers, many of them British, on a coronavirus-stricken cruise trip where four people have died are confined to their cabins awaiting the go-ahead to pass through the Panama Canal.
Dozens have fallen ill on the Zaandam cruise ship, which was stranded off the Pacific coast of Panama after several Latin American countries refused to let it into port. Some passengers were transferred to a second ship – the Rotterdam – on Saturday night.
Continue reading...Holding a sign that reads ‘help us’, a Canadian couple are stranded on the Holland America cruise ship Zaandam off the coast of Panama as sickness spreads aboard. Chris and Anna Joiner are among more than 130 passengers stuck onboard the vessel, which has been stranded for days after Chile refused to allow the ship to dock.
Authorities fear that passengers from Ruby Princess might be unaware Covid-19 cases were onboard and be ‘wandering around’ city
About 2,700 passengers who disembarked a cruise ship in Sydney have been told to self-isolate after three people who were onboard tested positive for Covid-19.
Confirming the news on Friday, the NSW health minister, Brad Hazzard, said the doctor onboard had conducted 13 tests on the Ruby Princess, which had completed a relatively short cruise around the Pacific to New Zealand.
Continue reading...Thousands in limbo around the world as vessels seek a port at which to dock
As countries scramble to close their borders in response to the global Covid-19 pandemic, thousands of cruise ship passengers are stranded on the high seas while their vessels seek a port at which to dock.
The Norwegian Jewel, sailing under the flag of the Bahamas, has been refused permission to dock in French Polynesia, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia, and is piloting to American Samoa to refuel.
Continue reading...Canada-based One Ocean Expeditions cancelled recent trip to Antarctica after it was unable to purchase sufficient fuel
An adventure travel company that charges upwards of US$20,000 for a single trip to polar regions has failed to pay many of its contractors in nearly a year, leaving some unable to cover living expenses, according to current and former crew.
Related: Polar cruise boom harming the Arctic, explorer warns
Continue reading... Over-50s holiday company apologises for brochure after Twitter backlash
Saga, the insurance and travel company aimed at the over-50s, has apologised after customers were sent a brochure advertising a cruise “exclusively for Brits”, prompting a furious backlash.
Twitter user Anthony Bale, who is a university professor, said his mother was “outraged” after being sent the magazine, the front page of which outlined the characteristics of the cruise.
Continue reading...German adventurer Arved Fuchs says he has seen Inuit villages flooded with gawping tourists – ‘Party ships have no place here’
One of the world’s leading polar explorers has warned against the explosive growth in cruise ship tourism in the Arctic, calling it damaging to both the local environment and its inhabitants.
Arved Fuchs, a German adventurer and the first person to reach both the north and south poles on foot in a year, said: “The number of cruise ships is rising, that’s the crux. And the bigger the ship, the more problematic this is. Party ships have no place in the Arctic,” he told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung in an interview.
Continue reading...Italian minister proposes plan for diverting a third of big ships to other ports by next year
Italy’s transport minister has proposed a plan for diverting massive cruise ships from Venice’s historic centre, with a view to rerouting a third of the vessels by next year.
Danilo Toninelli told a parliamentary hearing on Wednesday that the ships could gradually be shifted away from the Marittima terminal and instead dock at Fusina, a small port on mainland Venice, or Lombardia, a privately owned terminal. The minister suggested that the rerouting process could begin in September.
Continue reading...Italian city’s port authority asks eight other port cities to ‘join forces’ to combat problem
Venice’s port authority has called on Europe’s most popular cruise ship destinations to close ranks in tackling the dangers posed by massive vessels.
The appeal to the ports of Barcelona, Amsterdam, Marseille, Dubrovnik, Zeebrugge, Hamburg, Palma and Málaga comes as Venice leaders clash with government officials over finding a solution to a problem that has long rankled Venetians.
Continue reading...Family’s lawyer claims window was left open in children’s play area on 11th storey of Freedom of the Seas in Puerto Rico
An 18-month-old Indiana girl who fell to her death from the 11th storey of a cruise ship in Puerto Rico plunged from a window inexplicably left open in a children’s play area, the family’s attorney has claimed.
Police in Puerto Rico had said on Monday that Chloe Wiegand apparently slipped from her grandfather’s hands on Sunday while he was holding her out of an 11th-floor window on the Freedom of the Seas.
Continue reading...City tops list of 50 European ports for both sulphur oxide and nitrogen oxide emissions
The port of Barcelona, a city already overwhelmed by mass tourism, has topped a list of 50 European ports for the amount of air pollution produced there by cruise ships, according to a report.
In 2017 cruise ships emitted 32.8 tonnes of sulphur oxide (SOx) in Barcelona, according to the research. Palma de Mallorca was the second most polluted, with 28 tonnes, followed by Venice with 27.5. Southampton, with 19.7 tonnes, was fifth on the list.
Continue reading...