Crew are stuck on Miami cruise ships with COVID-19 spreading. Some aren’t being paid.
As the cruise industry races to get passengers around the globe caught on coronavirus-infected ships home safe, the crew is increasingly trapped on board — some with COVID-19, and some without pay.
After cruise companies canceled all new cruises on March 13, most passengers got to go home, but many crew members, hoping to do the same, are still not allowed to get off the ships, even for breaks on land. At times more than 15 cruise ships a day are rotating between PortMiami and the invisible line three miles off Miami Beach where they are allowed to dump waste, as the industry waits for the COVID-19 pandemic to pass.
Every day more crew around the world are catching the new coronavirus. Some, like the 14 who tested positive on board Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas Saturday, have access to tests. Most with symptoms, ranging from loss of smell to fever, will never know if they have the virus.
And some whose contracts have expired as they wait to go home aren’t being paid. One cruise line, Royal Caribbean, said it is paying crew for 30 days past the end of their contracts.
Cruise companies say they are working to return all crew members home who are not part of the skeleton staff needed to operate the ships, but travel restrictions and canceled flights are causing delays. Crew members say they are trapped away from their families, unable to comply with scientists’ warnings to avoid cruise ships.
More crew test positive
Since the Norwegian Encore offloaded its last passengers at PortMiami on March 15, the captain has been reassuring crew that there are no COVID-19 cases on board.
Several crew members who spoke to the Miami Herald on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation were stuck on board for nine days. They say dozens who remain on the ship are sick. At least one has tested positive since leaving.
Norwegian Cruise Line managers encouraged crew to refrain from negative social media posts about the situation on board, the crew members said.
“Please know we are in a very safe and controlled environment on board, and we have had no confirmed cases on board,” the captain said on March 15, the first of his daily announcements. “Our company is strong and has been around for more than 50 years, and we will eventually come out stronger than ever before.”
Over the course of the week, the crew members say dining carts lined passageways with more and more trays each day, delivering food to people in isolation, a sign of increased illness on board.
Meanwhile, the company encouraged crew to take advantage of the recreational activities normally off limits to workers — laser tag, go-karts, water slides, passenger dining areas. The company threw parties for crew. They socialized.
“They kept saying no one had symptoms, everyone is fine, you’re in the best place you can be,” said one crew member. “We knew that wasn’t true because we saw all the carts.”
‘No longer be paid’
On March 18, a mandatory safety exercise forced people on board to stand close together throughout the ship, a violation of the “social distancing” strategy enforced on land in Miami, just on the other side of the ship’s hull from where the crew mustered. Another drill was held on the pool deck on March 25.
One crew member reached by phone said they developed an upset stomach and a cough by March 22. That same day, another said they started feeling hot and fatigued. The company began to isolate sick crew in passenger cabins on Deck 11 throughout the week, and put their roommates in cabins on Deck 10. The workers in charge of delivering food to the sick were wearing masks and gloves.
All continued to ask to be let off the ship.
“The feeling of being on board in a global crisis and being trapped is really hard,” one said.
No one was tested for COVID-19 via nasal swab, the crew members said. Some say they received a blood test that the medical staff said came back negative for COVID-19 in a matter of minutes. The company did not respond to a request for comment about the on-board testing.
In a letter handed out to employees on the ship Wednesday, provided to the Herald by a crew member, Norwegian Cruise Line human resources executive Lynn White said that crew who remain on board past the date of their employment contract will not be required to work but will not be compensated, even though they are unable to leave.
“Our ships will truly be a ‘home-away-from-home’ for any and all crew members who are unable to reach their home countries due to flight or border restrictions,” the letter said, explaining crew have access to Wi-Fi, food, beds, medical service and laundry. “It is important to note that crew members who have already reached their ‘end of contract date’ will no longer be paid during their extended period on board.”
No screening at PortMiami
The crew members who spoke to the Herald finally got permission to leave the ship on March 23 and were shocked when no one at PortMiami asked them how they were feeling or took their temperature on the way out, given that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned repeatedly of the increased risk of coronavirus infection on cruise ships and told recent cruisers to self-isolate for 14 days.
One crew member has since tested positive for COVID-19. Others still have symptoms.
The crew members estimate there are more than 1,000 people left on the ship, and fear those still on board will never know whether they have the virus or not. Crew on other ships report similar numbers of people still on board.
“I’m worried about the people still on board,” one said. “I’m worried we’ve been lied to this whole time by management. It is reckless behavior on their part, in my opinion, and endangering. I could have endangered my family.”
Norwegian Cruise Line spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment about why the company didn’t screen the departing crew, whether it plans to test people on board, or how many people who remain on board have expired contracts and are not being paid. The company did not say whether it had alerted passengers from the March 8-15 cruise about their possible exposure.
The CDC did not respond to requests for comment about the lack of screening and conditions for crew on Miami ships.
After this story was initially published Sunday evening, a spokesperson for the Miami-Dade County seaport, Andria Muniz-Amador, said via email that cruise companies are in charge of medically screening people getting off the ships, and the county is not involved in coordinating testing aboard the ships.
Lost at sea
Three miles from Miami Beach’s shore, Filipino and Mauritian crew members have been stuck on MSC Cruises ships since mid-March. Some days they hear no updates about when they’ll be going home. Other days they pack all of their things, only to be told hours later that their flights have been canceled.
“We feel sad because we are unable to help our family...we are a poor family from Mauritius,” one said of the island nation in the Indian Ocean. “Everybody wants to go home. But it’s impossible for Mauritian people.”
A spokesperson for the company said getting a diverse, international crew home is difficult.
“With airports shutting down and many countries closing their borders, even to their own citizens, this is proving very challenging. Despite our biggest efforts, often at the highest possible level within the relevant governments, we still have found no solution for a certain number of nationalities to travel back to their home countries,” the spokesperson said via email.
Crew who make it home are on a “contract freeze,” which means they will be re-employed under the same conditions once the company is operational again.
The spokesperson did not confirm that the company is not paying crew members whose contracts have expired, but said the company is providing those people, “full board and lodging free of charge, assigning each of them a guest stateroom for individual use.”
The skeleton staff staying on board — as few as 100 for some ships — will continue to be paid.
“This is a strictly temporary solution conceived to ensure our crew members’ health, safety and well being while we continue to work to make sure our crew members can safely head home, so they can take care of their families and themselves during these difficult times,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement.
No access to passports
A similar lockdown is taking place aboard the Carnival Freedom, which has been docked in Gulfport, Mississippi, since March 17.
A crew member aboard the ship, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of losing their job, said the passports of all non-U.S. crew members are locked in a crew office, a practice crew members on other ships confirmed is common.
Crew members were told in a staff meeting that while U.S. workers can legally leave the ship because they have their passports in hand, if they do they won’t have a job when they come back.
The crew member said one of the only people to leave the ship since it docked in Gulfport was a sick crew member, who was hospitalized on Monday and tested positive for COVID-19.
Chris Chiames, a spokesperson for Carnival Cruise Line, said the company is working to try to get crew home while navigating closed borders.
“We have been moving crew off as fast as we can once they complete a contract,” he said via email. “We are managing against travel restrictions, as well as certain localities not allowing crew to disembark.”
Carnival Cruise Line workers who don’t make it home in time before their contracts expire will not be paid past the end date, Chaimes said. “They are not allowed to work but are being provided lodging, food and medical care plus free WiFi to stay in touch with their family,” he said.
In contrast, Royal Caribbean is paying crew for 30 days past their last day of contract, said spokesperson Jonathon Fishman.
Any crew member who can’t or doesn’t want to return home past that date can stay aboard the ship with free room, board and medical care, but without pay.
“We are doing our best to do right by our colleagues during this difficult time and look forward to returning to service as soon as we can,” Fishman said.
Crew on board the Costa Favolosa and Costa Magica ships, moored off Miami after evacuating 13 sick crew members Thursday, have been tested via blood sample for COVID-19. A crew member on the Favolosa said the company plans to fly workers who test negative home starting Monday.
Miami Herald reporter Alex Harris contributed to this report.
This story was originally published March 29, 2020 at 7:15 PM.
