After days of drifting at sea, Royal Caribbean cruise ship arrives in Jamaica with workers
Hundreds of stranded Jamaican cruise ship workers finally arrived back home Tuesday after a tense high seas standoff between Jamaica and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. over how to repatriate them, and months of being trapped on board.
Jamaica Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced late Monday that his government and the cruise company had finally reached an agreement over the reentry of “the largest number of Jamaicans at any one time” since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The plan, he said, involves a phased disembarkation over several days of the 1,044 crew members on board Royal Caribbean’s Adventure of the Seas ship to give the government time to test everyone and place people in government-mandated quarantine.
“The Ministry of Health and Wellness will recreate a sterile zone around the port to conduct testing,” Holness said. “The cruise ship workers will be disembarked in groups of 200, every 48 to 72 hours and after testing, will be taken to the Grand Bahia Principe [hotel] where they will be accommodated.”
Holness said the 48 to 72 hours is to allow for COVID-19 testing results to be available. Persons who test positive for the disease caused by the novel coronavirus will be moved into a state quarantine facility until they recover. All others will be allowed to go home to self quarantine for 14 days. Those at home will have to agree to cellphone tracking to ensure that they are in self isolation. They will also be required to check in via video multiple times a day while in quarantine.
The Adventure of the Seas ship was based in Fort Lauderdale’s Port Everglades before the cruise industry shut down amid the COVID-19 pandemic on March 13. Cruise companies docked their ships as quickly as possible and worked to get all passengers home. Two months later, more than 100,000 crew ship workers remain stuck at sea. The Adventure of the Seas dropped off crew members in the Dominican Republic and Haiti last week, and remained off the island’s coast before moving to Jamaica Tuesday morning.
The return of the crew members has been controversial in Jamaica, where critics have said the government is not moving fast enough. In early April, the government denied entry to dozens of crew members from another cruise ship that was in Jamaican waters because of concerns about the risk of COVID-19 spread.
Holness said the government has been in talks with Royal Caribbean since April 21 on the repatriation of Jamaican ship workers. Health Minister Christopher Tufton told the Miami Herald that he has been working with Royal Caribbean to develop a safe way to manage the return of the more than 1,000 Jamaicans at once without overwhelming the health system.
“What we’ve been discussing is not that we do not want to, or would not take any Jamaicans, as we believe they have a right to their country,” Tufton said. “It really has been a discussion around on the approach and protocols that would have to apply: the quarantine arrangements, testing, collecting samples. When you have large numbers it’s that much more difficult.”
On Sunday, after hearing that the Adventure of the Seas was headed toward Jamaica, Tufton issued a statement saying no formal approval had been granted for the disembarking of any individuals at any Jamaican port and the negotiations were still ongoing with the cruise line. The disembarkation of the crew, he said, had to be done with “due consideration for the required testing, the quarantine of individuals.”
Jamaica currently has 520 confirmed infections of COVID-19 and nine deaths, and for the second day Tuesday, recorded no new cases while also registering its largest number of recoveries, 14, since it first confirmed the virus on March 10. The country’s approach to the reentry of cruise workers has been no different than that of the 200 or so nationals who have started to return by air, Tufton said.
“There are thousands of Jamaicans in North America and in Europe and elsewhere, including those on these vessels, who would like to come to Jamaica and they have had to wait based on the approach and management of the COVID response here,” he said. “All of these reentries to date have been managed to mitigate against the spread, particularly if these incoming passengers are coming from countries where the virus has been fairly significant.“
The risk that cruise ships themselves present for COVID-19 spread isn’t lost on him.
“The reality is the cruises do have a reputation for not being as infection free. So the vessel itself is also a concern,” said Tufton.
Cruise ships continue to experience COVID-19 outbreaks. At least 12 crew members tested positive for COVID-19 on MSC Cruises’ Preziosa ship in the Caribbean last week, and at least two tested positive on the Disney Wonder earlier this month.
Jamaica’s concerns over cruise ship workers spreading the novel coronavirus is shared by other governments in the region, each of which has negotiated its own set of protocols with the cruise companies. Grenada, for example, requires that all of its returning crew be tested. It has also asked the cruise companies to underwrite the cost of quarantine, though the government acknowledged that after saying they would, the companies have reneged on doing so.
In St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves and Carnival Cruise Line temporarily disagreed over the terms of repatriating 92 Vincentians on the Carnival Glory earlier this month, Gonsalves told local media. He said he requested that the cruise line issue every person a rapid test as part of the government’s eight-point “Protocol for the Repatriation of Vincentian Crew Persons.” After a brief delay, the ship agreed to the terms and disembarked the crew.
Days later, when the Carnival Glory dropped crew members off in Grenada, the company complied with the testing protocol there.
In both countries, all tested negative, said Carnival spokesperson Chris Chiames.
“We have always complied with any local requirements or protocols related to the debark of our crew,” he said.
Royal Caribbean did not respond to a request for comment about whether it will be helping to fund the quarantine for returning Jamaican crew members.
In Royal Caribbean’s correspondence with Haitian authorities to get authorization to return 85 Haitian citizens last week, the company presented no evidence that workers had been tested for COVID-19. The company said that workers were healthy, had received daily temperature checks and had been quarantined for a minimum of 14 days on the ship.
While Haiti took the company’s word and let the crew return home without its mandated quarantine or evidence of a COVID-19 test, Tufton said Jamaica wouldn’t be taking any chances.
“We have to ensure that our procedures are applied; we’re not prepared to take the word of the cruise lines, or anybody else for that matter,” he said.
Jamaica, Tufton said, was told that the 46 crew members from TUI Cruises’ Marella Discovery 2 cruise ship who arrived in the country last week from Europe had all tested negative for COVID-19. Six, however, later turned up positive after Jamaica tested them and placed them in quarantine. TUI Cruises, a 50 percent Royal Caribbean joint venture, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Our public health system is very cautious and indeed unwilling to accept the word and even the documentation around testing of our persons being quarantined on the vessel as a basis to allow untested entry,” he said.
In the meantime, Royal Caribbean, he said, has agreed to dock the vessel for a period of time to allow the crew to disembark every couple of days. The government has acquired 400 additional rooms to isolate them at the Bahia Principe hotel in Runaway Bay.
Holness said he is not insensitive to the plight and frustrations of the cruise ship workers. In addition to those being disembarked, there are 900 other Jamaicans still stuck at sea.
“It is a situation that I deeply empathize with. I get the voice notes as well,” he said.
This story was originally published May 19, 2020 at 6:58 PM.
