Bad story. The cases of contagion on cruise ships return, due to the variants, in a very delicate moment in which the white ship industry is trying to continue in the resumption of the commissioning of its units, after the stop imposed by the pandemic. A low blow to this sector, which has invested millions in safety protocols and which calls for vaccination and tests before and during boarding.
The alarm went off on two Royal Caribbean flagships, Symphony of the Seas and Odyssey of the Seas, among the largest cruise ships in the world. The Symphony of the Seas, with 6,091 passengers and crew members, set sail on December 11 from Miami for an itinerary in the Caribbean. On board, however, 48 passengers tested positive and the ship returned to Miami. The Odyssey of the Seas, on the other hand, left Port Everglades last Saturday for an eight-day cruise in the Caribbean, but was forced to return to Fort Lauderdale, after the decision of the company and the authorities of Curacao and Aruba to cancel the stopovers: there would be 55 positives on board, partly symptomatic and partly asymptomatic. Royal Caribbean, agencies inform, has suspended reservations until January 10.
Carnival Freedom, a unit of the Carnival Cruise Line, was also forced to return to port in Miami after some passengers tested positive. The ship left its homeport in Florida on December 18, the calls in Bonaire and Aruba were canceled, while the one in the Dominican Republic on December 24 was maintained. The company, through its captain, has written to its guests, offering them a compensation of $ 100 per cabin for the canceled stages of the itinerary, but someone disputed the figure, considering it too low. compared to the incidence of missed stops on an eight-day cruise. The controversy has ended on social media.
Another report arrives via Infobae and concerns the Viking Jupiter, a unit of the Viking Ocean Cruise, which docked in the port of Buenos Aires in Argentina, coming from Chile, with three test positive passengers. Previously, in early December, Infobae had always reported a positive person on the Ms Hamburg, a Conti group ship, which sailed from Cape Verde and landed in Buens Aires. A case had arisen because the authorities would have classified the archipelago in Asia rather than in Africa, with consequent disparity of controls. .
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