Which Carnival Ship Just Completed the Panama Canal and dropped Covid Pos Passengers in Seattle

[klfrodo]

News reports of a Carnival ship ending the Panama Canal voyage in Seattle with 100 to 200 Covid positive passengers. The news report says that Carnival is "assisting" some passengers with quarantine hotel costs. Also says that Carnival won't release the actual Covid numbers.

 

Now, of course, this whole thing could be a family of 5 who caught Covid, ran to the media, and the media is just running with a wildfire story. This news organization was just purchased by one of "those" national media outlets.

Carnival cruise 'overwhelmed' with COVID cases, passenger says | king5.com

 

[Matco]

That would be Carnival Spirit 

[1kaper]

Someone else posted on John Heald's page about it.  She was upset they wouldn't retest her husband after her was positive and had no symptoms.  She said they told her they wouldn't because there were too many positive cases. 

[MeHeartCruising]

Anyone who goes on a cruise and doesn't think that things such as this can (and will happen) is only fooling themselves.  People need to be mentally prepared for things like this to happen and deal with it if it does.  I didn't hear anything in the passenger's video that surprises me as to what COULD happen in our current situation.  You took the risk of cruising and it didn't work out for you.   Such is life at this point in time.  Move on.

[pirokp]

Article about it in Seattle Times newspaper was written by someone from ASsociated Press

[lazydayz]

8 minutes ago, MeHeartCruising said:

Anyone who goes on a cruise and doesn't think that things such as this can (and will happen) is only fooling themselves.  People need to be mentally prepared for things like this to happen and deal with it if it does.  I didn't hear anything in the passenger's video that surprises me as to what COULD happen in our current situation.  You took the risk of cruising and it didn't work out for you.   Such is life at this point in time.  Move on.

 

Totally disagree.  While COVID can happen anywhere, if it happens on a ship, the cruise line needs to make sure the ill are attended to.  From the sound of it, Carnival did not take very good care of the sick people on this ship.  Can you imagine being quarantined and not being able to get in touch with anyone?  Unacceptable for Carnival not to have someone answer the phone. By Carnival's own admission, half way through the cruise there were 19 confirmed cases, though the word on the ship was it closer to 40.  They were likely many more by the time they reached Seattle. So please don't blame the victims. And Carnival and the other cruise lines need to do away with the exemptions.  Everyone should be vaccinated and tested.  We are all in this together, and especially so on a cruise ship. 

[sunonfire]

If they had that many cases onboard, the next sailing at the least would have been delayed. The Spirit does have the orange designation.  If they had as many as quoted they would have been designated as red. Time will tell.

[neongoddess]

19 minutes ago, sunonfire said:

If they had that many cases onboard, the next sailing at the least would have been delayed. The Spirit does have the orange designation.  If they had as many as quoted they would have been designated as red. Time will tell.

So far, no ships on any line have been designanted as red...not even the Princess ships that have had 175+ cases on them. CDC does not define the red category with any specific number of cases.

[rj59]

It's the Spirit, which I'll be on in 3 weeks to Alaska, drawn by a $90 solo fare for a local. Lessons to learn:

--Bring home tests. A ship isn't going to have enough to go around, particularly on a long cruise. 

--If you're concerned about being infected, don't go on a long cruise when a very transmissible Omicron variant is increasing. Anyone who goes on a Panama Canal, Hawaii, or TA cruise now should not be surprised at outbreaks. If you do cruise, buy insurance. 

--Until there is no Covid, if you want to avoid infection risk, change your on-ship behavior--avoid bars, casinos, crowded shows, and peak dining times. Wear a KN95 mask properly if you're at all concerned or at risk, or if you get infected. 

--Don't go whining here or to the media if you get infected and have to quarantine, or if you get infected and don't get quarantined. Carnival is a company that lost billions during over a year of shutdown and then reduced capacity, so they're trying to become profitable again and allow people to live with Covid as endemic, including not mandating masks. Your safety is up to you now, so everyone needs to do their own risk/benefit/cost assessment and act accordingly, just as they have to do now on planes or in public. The medical center is there for severe illness now. 

[klfrodo]

29 minutes ago, rj59 said:

It's the Spirit, which I'll be on in 3 weeks to Alaska, drawn by a $90 solo fare for a local. Lessons to learn:

--Bring home tests. A ship isn't going to have enough to go around, particularly on a long cruise. 

--If you're concerned about being infected, don't go on a long cruise when a very transmissible Omicron variant is increasing. Anyone who goes on a Panama Canal, Hawaii, or TA cruise now should not be surprised at outbreaks. If you do cruise, buy insurance. 

--Until there is no Covid, if you want to avoid infection risk, change your on-ship behavior--avoid bars, casinos, crowded shows, and peak dining times. Wear a KN95 mask properly if you're at all concerned or at risk, or if you get infected. 

--Don't go whining here or to the media if you get infected and have to quarantine, or if you get infected and don't get quarantined. Carnival is a company that lost billions during over a year of shutdown and then reduced capacity, so they're trying to become profitable again and allow people to live with Covid as endemic, including not mandating masks. Your safety is up to you now, so everyone needs to do their own risk/benefit/cost assessment and act accordingly, just as they have to do now on planes or in public. The medical center is there for severe illness now. 

I'm not going to disagree with you for the most part.

 

Myself? I'll be taking home tests with me. If I start feeling sick, I'm testing myself before I turn myself over to the infirmary. They're going to assume the worst first and then work backwards.

 

However, that's not to say that the cruise line doesn't have room for improvement. If you confine someone to their cabin, it should be expected that there will be open lines of communication. Not necessarily immediate, but definitely not hours.

[kdr69]

1 hour ago, lazydayz said:

And Carnival and the other cruise lines need to do away with the exemptions.  Everyone should be vaccinated and tested.  We are all in this together, and especially so on a cruise ship. 

Your kidding yourself if you think the exemptions are the problem as those are mostly kids and i would hazard a guess there werent alot on this cruise given the length of the cruise. I think its more than likely its all the vaccinated and tested people who feel impervious to getting it again especially given that most didnt even have covid symptoms. 

[crewsweeper]

In one of the reviews, a passenger on the ship, who broke her ankle and had to miss the Canal crossing and West Coast swing, speculated that the cases arose after the ship left Cartagena .  So it could well be that more than one passenger got infected while on land excursions and as this spreads rapidly, easily transmitted it to others.

Vaccinated, boosted, masked, prior COVID, tested negative all do not prevent a person from catching another variant. 

Reports aren't saying how ill any of these passengers were, or if one had symptoms and traveling companions didn't but tested positive anyway.  Let's just use this as a precautionary tale to not take COVID lightly.

[ScottsSweetie]

3 hours ago, lazydayz said:

 

. . .  Everyone should be vaccinated and tested.  We are all in this together, and especially so on a cruise ship. 

Sure. Because if only everyone were vaccinated and tested before boarding the ship then no one would get covid. 😏

[lazydayz]

2 minutes ago, ScottsSweetie said:

Sure. Because if only everyone were vaccinated and tested before boarding the ship then no one would get covid. 😏

 

I know there are no silver bullets.  Covid is a fact of life.  But when it happens and sick cruisers are isolated, the cruise line should take good care of them.  

[ScottsSweetie]

Just now, lazydayz said:

 

I know there are no silver bullets.  Covid is a fact of life.  But when it happens and sick cruisers are isolated, the cruise line should take good care of them.  

On that we can agree.

[kleibo]

1 hour ago, crewsweeper said:

Vaccinated, boosted, masked, prior COVID, tested negative all do not prevent a person from catching another variant. 

 

Bingo!!

[Drazil65]

I know there are no silver bullets.  Covid is a fact of life.  But when it happens and sick cruisers are isolated, the cruise line should take good care of them.  

 

Curious, have you had covid (assuming you are vax) and called your doctor to ask what you should do?  In case you have not, your doctor will more than likely tell you to quarantine yourself for 5 days then wear a mask for 5 more days (and take another test after 1st 5 days).  This is what DH and I were told a few months ago when we both had positive tests (DH had very mild symptoms and I had sniffles for 1 day). 

 

The doctors dont have any silver bullets and dont really (cant) do anything either, the vax was not made to stop the virus only to reduce the severity.  Not sure what CCL can do except tell the people that have symptoms to quarantine (same as doctors).  The only exceptions on a ship should be very young children and not quite sure why someone would risk a young child not vaxed on a ship knowing they could easily pick up the virus.  

 

[mamaboss]

Just curious, does anyone know if the medical center on ships have the covid treatments for the seriously ill?

[klfrodo]

1 hour ago, mamaboss said:

Just curious, does anyone know if the medical center on ships have the covid treatments for the seriously ill?

No they don't. If you get that ill, they will move you off the ship to a medical facility that is better equipped to handle such a crisis.

[cruizergal70]

10 hours ago, pirokp said:

Article about it in Seattle Times newspaper was written by someone from ASsociated Press

So? They are a credible news organization.

[Michelle_P]

I was one of the over 160 passengers in isolation on this cruise.  The crew and hotel staff were doing their best, but preparations were clearly assuming a much smaller number of cases.  Carnival corporate didn’t exactly provide them with clear and coherent guidance, as we could tell from the wildly varying information on how our isolation would be handled from day to day.

 

We were offered compensation, to be honest.  A non-refundable, non-transferable, limited time cruise credit was extended to us for the time we spent in isolation, good for our next cruise with Carnival.  This post will cause the offer to be rescinded, not a big deal as I intend to avoid ever cruising with Carnival again.

 

From massive IT issues and poor corporate communications before the cruise that made meeting pre-boarding  requirements very difficult to meet, to woefully inadequate resources for dealing with over 160 people (by personal count, likely low) in COVID-19 isolation, the last third of the trip was pretty raw.  (No food one day, an overloaded PBX that hung up calls after an hour on hold for Guest Services or Room Service, minimal communications until 11:25 PM the night before disembarking in Seattle, no medical followup after a COVID-19 diagnosis, and so on.)  Even the disembarkation process was a mess, with a coordinator  dispatching quarantined passengers onto busses with the obvious goal of getting the bodies out of the terminal before the afternoon passengers for the departing Alaska cruise arrived.  Friends who were supposed to be on a bus to the hotel where they could finish their isolation period were instead dumped at SEATAC airport (where NO quarantined folks should have been) and told to get to their hotels by public transportation or hotel shuttles.

[crewsweeper]

What a disaster for you and the other 160 passengers.  I hope you have recovered.  Do you know if any of the quarantined people were admitted to a hospital on arrival in Seattle? Prayers for them if so.

 

Don't blame you at all for not wanting to cruise with Carnival anyone.  I think the Captain, the Hotel Director and the Guest Services Director heads should roll for this.  Not that it will help any of the 160, but it could send a message to other Carnival crews to be more diligent.

[EngIceDave]

I am pro-vax, pro-mask, pro everything....but now we have reached a tipping point, in my opinion.

 

The vax is available to pretty much anyone who wants to get it. Anyone immunocompromised to this is also likely at immunocompromised risk for many things and care is always a concern.

 

But we and the media needs to stop caring about and reporting positive test results for vaccinated people. No one ever said the vax stopped infections, only it would stop severe illness and death. People are going test positive for this for years, but illness and deaths will eventually drop.

 

I am not advocating an end of testing, for now, but media needs to stop worrying about and reporting on positive vax cases. If some politician or celebrity who is vaxxed tests positive, who cares, let's more on, not like they're gonna die or even get sick...because they're vaccinated

 

It's unnecessary hype.

 

If everyone on board is tested negative at boarding, then it is no big deal if a pax picks up the bug in say Panama, carries it onboard and spreads among the pax, because we know everyone is vaxxed. It reduces everyone's concerns and liabilities.

 

If you are vaxxed and you test positive, no big deal, it's why you got vaxxed

[EngIceDave]

21 minutes ago, crewsweeper said:

What a disaster for you and the other 160 passengers.  I hope you have recovered.  Do you know if any of the quarantined people were admitted to a hospital on arrival in Seattle? Prayers for them if so.

 

Don't blame you at all for not wanting to cruise with Carnival anyone.  I think the Captain, the Hotel Director and the Guest Services Director heads should roll for this.  Not that it will help any of the 160, but it could send a message to other Carnival crews to be more diligent.

News said no one was sick, all a-symptomatic 

[geneparmesan]

5 hours ago, Michelle_P said:

I was one of the over 160 passengers in isolation on this cruise.  The crew and hotel staff were doing their best, but preparations were clearly assuming a much smaller number of cases.  Carnival corporate didn’t exactly provide them with clear and coherent guidance, as we could tell from the wildly varying information on how our isolation would be handled from day to day.

 

We were offered compensation, to be honest.  A non-refundable, non-transferable, limited time cruise credit was extended to us for the time we spent in isolation, good for our next cruise with Carnival.  This post will cause the offer to be rescinded, not a big deal as I intend to avoid ever cruising with Carnival again.

 

From massive IT issues and poor corporate communications before the cruise that made meeting pre-boarding  requirements very difficult to meet, to woefully inadequate resources for dealing with over 160 people (by personal count, likely low) in COVID-19 isolation, the last third of the trip was pretty raw.  (No food one day, an overloaded PBX that hung up calls after an hour on hold for Guest Services or Room Service, minimal communications until 11:25 PM the night before disembarking in Seattle, no medical followup after a COVID-19 diagnosis, and so on.)  Even the disembarkation process was a mess, with a coordinator  dispatching quarantined passengers onto busses with the obvious goal of getting the bodies out of the terminal before the afternoon passengers for the departing Alaska cruise arrived.  Friends who were supposed to be on a bus to the hotel where they could finish their isolation period were instead dumped at SEATAC airport (where NO quarantined folks should have been) and told to get to their hotels by public transportation or hotel shuttles.

Yikes, that sounds like a mess. I can see how they would be overwhelmed, but not giving any food for a day and not communicating/organizing debarkation should have been handled much better. I hope you and your family are doing alright.

 

Can you expand on the pre-boarding requirements issues?

Edited May 5, 2022 by geneparmesan