Australian judge rules against Carnival in 2020 Ruby Princess covid case

[Torquer]

Very interesting reading:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-67215595

 

Although it is not clear, it would seem to apply only to Australian citizens who were onboard the Ruby Princess.  But the article states that it could open the door to more lawsuits against cruise lines on how they handled events at the beginning of covid.

[OHCruiser]

In March of 2020, Covid was barely on the radar.  We flew to TX mid-month & decided to wear masks.  I was filmed & laughed at while boarding our plane having done so.  Almost NO ONE was doing anything about it, including world governments.

There were no vaccines & no treatments.

The idea that ANY cruise line should have/could have done anything to deal with it is so absurd.

In some ways, had it not been for the artificial environments of the cruise ships, the incredible contagious transmission & severity of infection may have taken much longer to understand.

After these ships were turned away from ports, or made to become quarantine site, how was Carnival responsible for care?

Does this judge think that on board sick bays were going to diagnose & treat an unknown illness?

Or, perhaps, they should have figured out how to develop a vaccine?

Ridiculous.

[Blackduck59]

I think perhaps this is another case of hindsight being 20/20. I think it also doesn't address the situation created by officials in NSW after Ruby Princess docked in Sydney. I think that rather than speculate about this like a bunch of armchair quarterbacks we could maybe ask @BRANDEE her thoughts she was there and lived through it.

[CruiserBruce]

18 minutes ago, Blackduck59 said:

I think perhaps this is another case of hindsight being 20/20. 

Absolutely the root of many lawsuits.

[Heidi13]

1 hour ago, OHCruiser said:

In March of 2020, Covid was barely on the radar.  We flew to TX mid-month & decided to wear masks.  I was filmed & laughed at while boarding our plane having done so.  Almost NO ONE was doing anything about it, including world governments.

There were no vaccines & no treatments.

The idea that ANY cruise line should have/could have done anything to deal with it is so absurd.

In some ways, had it not been for the artificial environments of the cruise ships, the incredible contagious transmission & severity of infection may have taken much longer to understand.

After these ships were turned away from ports, or made to become quarantine site, how was Carnival responsible for care?

Does this judge think that on board sick bays were going to diagnose & treat an unknown illness?

Or, perhaps, they should have figured out how to develop a vaccine?

Ridiculous.

 

We were sailing on a World Cruise at that time and COVID was most definitely on the radar. Prior to departing Sydney in early February 2020, our itinerary was changed extensively due to ports already not accepting cruise ships and countries with high COVID rates. Therefore, COVID was known about in Sydney a full month before the Ruby Princess sailed.

 

In early March, we were banned from 2 ports, finally getting into Bali after 2 days of negotiations with the local authorities. The same day the Ruby Princess departed Sydney, Viking Cruises made a number of bold decisions to ensure the safety of existing pax and crew. About 400 pax were due to board the ship at the beginning of a segment, many of whom were already in Bali or enroute. Viking decided that no pax were permitted to board the vessel and crew were kept in quarantine for at least 10 days. All pax received more than adequate compensation from Viking. During the Suez Canal transit, when a pilot was mandatory, only 1/2 the Bridge team worked the transit. Once the pilot departed, the Bridge was cleaned and the working members were quarantined, while the other 1/2 of the bridge team stood watches.

 

No other ports after Bali would let us ashore, except pax heading directly to the airport and flying home from Dubai. The next port that accepted pax was Gibraltar. The US may not have been aware of COVID in March 2000, but the rest of the World most certainly was, at least in our experience of sailing from L/A to Gibraltar.

 

The information on COVID was readily available on our Viking ship, so I highly doubt Princess didn't have similar information available, but they continued to sail. Sorry, but they deserve any lawsuits that pax initiate. I have no doubt that the pax lawyers will look at how other cruise lines responded.

[Heidi13]

1 hour ago, Blackduck59 said:

I think perhaps this is another case of hindsight being 20/20. I think it also doesn't address the situation created by officials in NSW after Ruby Princess docked in Sydney. I think that rather than speculate about this like a bunch of armchair quarterbacks we could maybe ask @BRANDEE her thoughts she was there and lived through it.

 

Lyle - We also experienced it, fortunately with Viking and not a Carnival Brand. I already posted a few relevant points, but can fill you in with more details when we head over to Victoria.

[d9704011]

There is a little extra detail in the AP story explaining how the judge came to find Carnival (Princess) negligent.  Don't know why the BBC didn't include it.

 

https://apnews.com/article/covid-cruise-negligent-carnival-ruby-princess-a396439081417fe7863e5f506e62e6ad

[Blackduck59]

52 minutes ago, Heidi13 said:

 

Lyle - We also experienced it, fortunately with Viking and not a Carnival Brand. I already posted a few relevant points, but can fill you in with more details when we head over to Victoria.

Roger that

[REOVA]

1 hour ago, Heidi13 said:

 

We were sailing on a World Cruise at that time and COVID was most definitely on the radar. Prior to departing Sydney in early February 2020, our itinerary was changed extensively due to ports already not accepting cruise ships and countries with high COVID rates. Therefore, COVID was known about in Sydney a full month before the Ruby Princess sailed.

 

In early March, we were banned from 2 ports, finally getting into Bali after 2 days of negotiations with the local authorities. The same day the Ruby Princess departed Sydney, Viking Cruises made a number of bold decisions to ensure the safety of existing pax and crew. About 400 pax were due to board the ship at the beginning of a segment, many of whom were already in Bali or enroute. Viking decided that no pax were permitted to board the vessel and crew were kept in quarantine for at least 10 days. All pax received more than adequate compensation from Viking. During the Suez Canal transit, when a pilot was mandatory, only 1/2 the Bridge team worked the transit. Once the pilot departed, the Bridge was cleaned and the working members were quarantined, while the other 1/2 of the bridge team stood watches.

 

No other ports after Bali would let us ashore, except pax heading directly to the airport and flying home from Dubai. The next port that accepted pax was Gibraltar. The US may not have been aware of COVID in March 2000, but the rest of the World most certainly was, at least in our experience of sailing from L/A to Gibraltar.

 

The information on COVID was readily available on our Viking ship, so I highly doubt Princess didn't have similar information available, but they continued to sail. Sorry, but they deserve any lawsuits that pax initiate. I have no doubt that the pax lawyers will look at how other cruise lines responded.

Yes HAL had notice of closed ports and multiple changes but we didnt have any "reported" cases on the Amsterdam. But Princess Diamond previously had over 600 cases in February 2020 in Japan. So they knew there were problems.