Is the cruise industry ready to get back to business in the “new normal” of the late pandemic or will cruise ships remain the floating Petri dishes that typified some ships in the early part of the COVID-19 outbreak? Unfortunately, a recent 16-day voyage from Miami to Seattle via the Panama Canal on the 3,000-passenger Carnival Spirit does not provide an encouraging answer to the question.
While Carnival would not comment on the number of cases, passengers on the Carnival Spirit that docked Tuesday in Seattle say more than 100 people aboard the ship tested positive for COVID-19, despite testing and a vaccination rate above 95%. As alarming as the number of cases may be, passengers also recount that the ship was not prepared to manage the outbreak, that infected passengers were not properly isolated, and that the staff was overwhelmed.
“As soon as I got diagnosed with COVID, I did not feel safe,” Darren Sieferston, a passenger on the cruise from Miami to Seattle told KING 5.
Sieferston is in quarantine at a hotel after testing positive for COVID while on the ship. He lives in Nevada. He said he’s been on seven cruises since August and said every trip had COVID-19 positive passengers. He feels the response from the crew on this recent Carnival Cruise was chaotic.
“They didn’t have enough staff to handle the emergency that was happening, period,” said Sieferston. “They were overwhelmed, and they didn’t have a backup course in how to handle about 200 people affected with COVID. We all suffered.”
Another passenger, Walter Babij of Texas, agreed the crew was unprepared to handle the number of passengers who caught COVID on the ship.
“I think that they were unprepared. I think they were understaffed. I think that they were overwhelmed,” Babij said. “I don’t think they had clear guidance as to how to handle this.”
Passengers tell KING 5 they waited hours for meals, weren’t properly isolated and couldn’t get ahold of medical staff.
“We couldn’t call anybody. Basically, we sat in the room, you call and it would ring, ring, ring and ring all day long” said Sieferston.
Sieferston shared a photo with KING 5, which he says was hung outside the elevator of his floor, showing the name and room numbers of people who tested positive. He called it an invasion of privacy.
“It’s just unacceptable. This ship is so poorly managed. I’m fearful for the people that are going up to Alaska,” said Sieferston.
A Carnival spokesperson said in an email Wednesday only that the vessel’s crew “managed a number of COVID cases” during the journey from Miami via the Panama Canal. “There were no serious health issues, and while some guests showed minor symptoms, most were asymptomatic,” spokesperson Matt Lupoli said.
The ship de-boarded Tuesday and is already on its next voyage to Alaska. Carnival wouldn’t comment if additional protection would be taken for that trip.
Of the 92 cruise ships operating in U.S. waters, 76 have reported at least one COVID case among passengers or crew members, according to the CDC’s cruises dashboard. Carnival has 22 cruises operating; all but four have positive cases.
Carnival Cruise passengers say ship was overwhelmed with COVID-19 positive patients