MSC Meraviglia being denied access in Jamaica

[slotmomma3]

8 minutes ago, Regta said:

Our Meraviglia sailing is on March 8th, this may get interesting.......

We also sail on the 8th.  I am watching this situation carefully.

[Regta]

4 minutes ago, slotmomma3 said:

We also sail on the 8th.  I am watching this situation carefully.

I'm not sure if it's true for sure, but I've read Mexico Health Officials have tested the sick crew member for Coronavirus and if it did possibly come back confirmed as positive, this could and probably should be a 14 day wait time and all those passengers and crew would be forced to stay onboard.

[EngIceDave]

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/tourism-cruises/article240688656.html

 

The Dominican Republic prohibited more than 1,000 cruise passengers on the Fred. Olsen Cruise Line Braemar ship from disembarkarking in La Romana Thursday, fearing several people aboard with flu-like symptons might be carrying coronavirus.

It was the fourth time this week that a Caribbean country has turned away a cruise ship as the number of coronavirus cases worldwide grows, now affecting 50 nations.

The ship, carrying 1,128 passengers and 384 crew, was scheduled to offload passengers in La Romana Thursday after a 14-day Caribbean cruise and pick up new ones. A spokesperson for Fred. Olsen Cruise Line said via email that there are a small number of cases of influenza-type symptoms on board. The director of the Dominican Republic port authority Víctor Gómez Casanova announced that the ship will not be allowed to disembark passengers in La Romana Thursday or visit Santo Domingo as planned on Friday.

[BermudaBound2014]

MSC just tweeted they are going to wait in cozumel for clearance from the Mexican authorities. The test could take between 2-12 hours. They plan to stay docked thru Friday night.

 

My two thoughts-

1) they must be very confident this isn’t NCoV - and they must not be considered about a false positive.

 

2) staying until Friday night means they will miss ocean cay Saturday. They must not like sea conditions at ocean cay to chance it.

 

[MrMike45]

1 minute ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

MSC just tweeted they are going to wait in cozumel for clearance from the Mexican authorities. The test could take between 2-12 hours. They plan to stay docked thru Friday night.

My two thoughts-
1) they must be very confident this isn’t NCoV - and they must not be considered about a false positive.

2) staying until Friday night means they will miss ocean cay Saturday. They must not like sea conditions at ocean cay to chance it.

 

I wonder if they are staying to also kind of build up some company PR, while giving a giant middle finger to ports who denied them and all the media outlets who ran with the story.  Like "see, we told you, it was the flu, not corona...we were honest and the paranoia needs to stop".  Of course, this could also bite them in the butt, if like you said, he does test positive or even a false positive, and now suddenly this ship is quarantined for 14 days 

[BermudaBound2014]

I think that’s a jump- I’m not sure the cruise Industry will attempt another quarantine- but this is all so unexplored territory.

I like your theory about cozumel but I am more inclined to think they know conditions at ocean cay. Can you imagine missing another port?


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[MrMike45]

21 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

I think that’s a jump- I’m not sure the cruise Industry will attempt another quarantine- but this is all so unexplored territory.

I like your theory about cozumel but I am more inclined to think they know conditions at ocean cay. Can you imagine missing another port?


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At this point, it's a free (albeit disappointing) cruise for the passengers.  MSC is eating a massive financial loss here.  Whether or not they eventually get off the ship in Mexico, wind up going to Ocean Cay, or just have a few more sea days.  So I have to think they are, at least in some regard, trying to "clear their name" for next week when the same ship is in the same ports.  But who knows, like you said, this is all a giant unknown to everyone at this point.  

[BermudaBound2014]

Oh- I absolutely agree with that part. Msc did the only thing they really could do from a PR stance, by offering 100% refund. That has been the industry standard for trip interruption due to CoV (diamond princess, anthem of the seas, Hal, etc....), so following suit avoids further criticism. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice gesture!! But MSc is in damage control mode (even if the damage wasn’t their fault).

[SunNFunCruzer]

46 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

MSC just tweeted they are going to wait in cozumel for clearance from the Mexican authorities. The test could take between 2-12 hours. They plan to stay docked thru Friday night.

 

My two thoughts-

1) they must be very confident this isn’t NCoV - and they must not be considered about a false positive.

 

2) staying until Friday night means they will miss ocean cay Saturday. They must not like sea conditions at ocean cay to chance it.

 

 

 

 

I am thinking something different.  I'd bet that there is no way for the ship to 100% confirm that this crew member doesn't have Corona and they (MSC) and the Mexican and probably US Government trust the onshore Mexican labs. 

 

Assuming this is NOT Corona, that clears the MSC ship to disembark in the US (assuming no other illnesses). 

 

If this is positive for Corona... I have no idea what could/should/would happen.  I'll also be watching closely.

 

 

[SunNFunCruzer]

8 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

 (even if the damage wasn’t their fault).

 

In this case ^^^ because the sick person is reportedly a crew member, an "agent" of MSC, I think it IS "technically" more MSCs fault than in some of the other cases when a pax was the suspected or actual sick person.

 

In any case, a 100% refund will be great for some, but for those with limited vacation time and/or limited life expectancy (for any number of reasons), there is no way to make up for missing ALL ports.   So sad and stressful for many.  Glad to read that some are still able to enjoy the cruise... making lemonade out of lemons.  

 

 

[EngIceDave]

If they can show the ill crew member doesn't have the plague, that's good for MSC, PR-wise.

 

It's a gamble

 

At the same time, if the crew member does, there would be a concern of contamination of the ship and it is possible that they could be held for 14 days...cruise to nowhere

[CruisinCrow]

1 hour ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

I think that’s a jump- I’m not sure the cruise Industry will attempt another quarantine- but this is all so unexplored territory.
 

 

Whose decision was it quarantine Diamond Princess?  I got the impression it was Japan and not the cruise line.  Regardless, I think everyone agrees that it was a horrible failure.

 

I'm so glad my cruise was last week and not this week!

[aprilF]

42 minutes ago, SunNFunCruzer said:

 

 

I am thinking something different.  I'd bet that there is no way for the ship to 100% confirm that this crew member doesn't have Corona and they (MSC) and the Mexican and probably US Government trust the onshore Mexican labs. 

 

Assuming this is NOT Corona, that clears the MSC ship to disembark in the US (assuming no other illnesses). 

 

If this is positive for Corona... I have no idea what could/should/would happen.  I'll also be watching closely.

 

 

Am I overly optimistic to hope that MSC/ US government is looking to get two negative tests 24 hours apart (the standard for clearing a known ill person) before disembarking passengers on US soil?

[DCGuy64]

35 minutes ago, CruisinCrow said:

 

Whose decision was it quarantine Diamond Princess?  I got the impression it was Japan and not the cruise line.  Regardless, I think everyone agrees that it was a horrible failure.

 

I'm so glad my cruise was last week and not this week!

The decision to quarantine was made by the Japanese Ministry of Health, and given that a quarantine is meant to prevent the spread of a disease by segregating those infected from the healthy, I'd say it was anything BUT a horrible failure. Imagine 5,000 potentially sick people disembarking and infecting the millions of people who live in Tokyo.

[CruisinCrow]

3 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

The decision to quarantine was made by the Japanese Ministry of Health, and given that a quarantine is meant to prevent the spread of a disease by segregating those infected from the healthy, I'd say it was anything BUT a horrible failure. Imagine 5,000 potentially sick people disembarking and infecting the millions of people who live in Tokyo.

 

I don't think quarantining the passengers was a failure but I do think that quarantining them on the ship was.  It's too bad they couldn't have been quarantined in a safer location but I can see why it would be very difficult to find a place that could even house that many people.

[DCGuy64]

Just now, CruisinCrow said:

 

I don't think quarantining the passengers was a failure but I do think that quarantining them on the ship was.  It's too bad they couldn't have been quarantined in a safer location but I can see why it would be very difficult to find a place that could even house that many people.

I think the last part of your 2nd sentence answers the question posed in your 1st. As un-ideal as keeping them on the ship was, there probably was no other place to keep them. Italy has seen 14 fatalities in just the past week and Diamond Princess's total was 4.

[EngIceDave]

Where you going to find an easily accessible place to comfortable house all those people, but have the built in infrastructure to feed all of them, along with cleaning services and more?

 

They were in the best place they could've been. Anything else would have been hell.

[mafig]

Percentage-wise isn't Diamond Princess worse?

[aprilF]

5 minutes ago, EngIceDave said:

Where you going to find an easily accessible place to comfortable house all those people, but have the built in infrastructure to feed all of them, along with cleaning services and more?

 

They were in the best place they could've been. Anything else would have been hell.

Perhaps but I'm hoping the extraction from various governments comes much faster if there is a next time. 

[BermudaBound2014]

The decision to quarantine was made by the Japanese Ministry of Health, and given that a quarantine is meant to prevent the spread of a disease by segregating those infected from the healthy, I'd say it was anything BUT a horrible failure. Imagine 5,000 potentially sick people disembarking and infecting the millions of people who live in Tokyo.

I don’t believe you are painting a full picture. The quarantine should have protected BOTH the Japanese on land and the guests in quarantine.

According to most experts, the quarantine was not handled properly, thus exposing many more people. Had the quarantine worked properly, it is likely diamond princess would not have had 600+ testing positive causing an challenge for countries repatriating- not to mention all those passengers still walking around Japan.

I wish I could find the clip from the university scientist who went on-board to oversee operations. He was very concerned that protocol for quarantine was not being followed. Needless to say, after walking around the quarantined ship for just one day, the breeches of quarantine he witnessed were bad brought that he put himself in a 14 days quarantine.

Here are just a few articles to help explain how the diamond princess quarantine went wrong-

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/how-diamond-princess-cruise-ship-coronavirus-quarantine-went-wrong-2020-2%3famp

https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/nih-official-diamond-princess-quarantine-failed

https://www.google.com/amp/s/abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/wireStory/quarantine-cruise-ship-japan-question-69042133

Don’t get me wrong- I think diamond princess did the best they could in these unchartered territories, but i would not call the quarantine a success either.

[BermudaBound2014]

I think that’s a jump- I’m not sure the cruise Industry will attempt another quarantine- but this is all so unexplored territory.
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I hate it when I write wrong. Of course, everyone knows Japan was in charge of the quarantine- by default they would not let guests debark.

What I should have typed was: “I’m not sure anyone will attempt another quarantine on a cruise ship”.

Sorry for the confusion :(

[BermudaBound2014]

Meanwhile- it’s been 10 hours and the Meraviglia remains moored in Cozumel, but still without permission to debark.

[travelberlin]

US Navy ships coming from areas with corona virus have been told to self quarantine at sea. Not unlikely that cruise ships will not be quarantined again.

[BermudaBound2014]

US Navy ships coming from areas with corona virus have been told to self quarantine at sea. Not unlikely that cruise ships will not be quarantined again.

I did not know that. Thank you for sharing :)


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[Beardface]

I hate to say it, but all the cruise lines are going to learn from the Meraviglia issue is to just lie and downplay all cases of the common flu on a ship to the point of not reporting them at all.  A full refund for the sailing plus 20% FCC plus $200 OBC adds up fast.  Now that they know one case of the sniffles might cause that at any time with any ship, they are going to be far less cooperative in being truthful to protect their bottom lines.

 

It's either that or shut the entire industry down immediately globally until this paranoia passes.  And if they did that, more than a couple cruise lines would immediately go out of business.