Canadians among passengers stranded on cruise ship in quarantine
Credit to Author: Joanne Lee-Young| Date: Thu, 06 Feb 2020 05:51:56 +0000
Sanjay Goel, president of Vancouver-based Cruise Connections, is watching closely to see how things unfold for the 251 Canadians who are among 3,700 people stuck at sea at the end of their cruise.
Two Canadians have tested positive for the new coronoavirus aboard the ship that has been quarantined off the coast of Japan near Yokohama.
A statement from Princess Cruises Wednesday says that the results were among the second set of samples that had completed testing, which showed 10 additional people tested positive, including four Japanese, one from Taiwan, two Americans, two Canadians and one from New Zealand, bringing the total to 20.
It says local public health authorities will be immediately disembarking those guests for transport to local hospitals.
Meanwhile, those being held in quarantine will spend another 14 days on board the vessel. Their journey started in Vietnam and was just ending when they got turned away from docking in Yokohama after nine passengers and one crew member were confirmed positive for coronavirus in a first phase of testing.
Some trapped passengers have been going online to say they’re worried about getting infected or running out of prescription medicine, while others have mused about what they’re eating, drinking and doing to pass the time.
Goel of Cruise Connections, which bills itself Canada’s largest cruise retailer, is hearing from customers who are wondering if their upcoming bookings can be altered or if they should cancel.
“There’s all of that, but cruise lines and hotels are being very reasonable. (Last week), Air Canada said it was suspending some flights (to China) and then two days later, it was cancelling all of them. It’s a very fluid situation for travellers,” he said.
Goel was surprised to hear the number of Canadian travellers on the Diamond Princess since the route usually attracts a “disproportionate Japanese source market.”
He’s scheduled to lead what is called a President’s Cruise, basically a trip with extra attention to VIP clients. The plan was to depart Shanghai on March 28 and travel to Tianjin, north of Beijing, as well as several ports in Korea and Japan, before ending two weeks later in Tokyo. But, now, the route has been significantly changed with a start in Singapore and calls to ports in Vietnam and Taiwan, before going to Japan and Korea.
“Many (cruise) lines are making changes to their routes from now until the end of March, and some further out,” he said.
Holland America said instead of its Westerdam ship disembarking in Shanghai on Feb. 15 as planned, it will now go to Yokohama with the company picking up the cost of rebooking return flights to the U.S. and elsewhere. Its cruises after March 28 have now been planned and don’t include ports in China.
Many cruise lines are also not boarding passengers who have been to Mainland China within the last 15 days. Norwegian Cruise Lines is asking passengers to use a 30-day buffer between travel to Mainland China.
Separately, another cruise ship, Dream Cruises Management’s Celebrity Millennium, was also turned away this week from docking at Kaohsiung in Taiwan. It’s floating at sea in quarantine near Hong Kong after three passengers of an earlier trip on the ship tested positive for coronavirus.
In Vancouver, the cruise-ship season doesn’t start up again until early April. The last ship sailed out on a round-trip tour to Hawaii in early November last year.
“When the cruise season starts, we would take directions from Transport Canada and work closely with Health Canada, and have discussions with those groups,” Danielle Jang, a spokeswoman for the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, said.