Holland America-MS Zaandam cruise still in progress

2Gma

Mouseketeer
Joined
Apr 10, 2015
https://www.usatoday.com/story/trav...sick-holland-america-cruise-limbo/2927031001/

This is just awful. I couldn't find information on when this cruise started. Why didn't the company just cancel so people wouldn't feel compelled to go because of losing money and now are sick. We've known for over a month what happened on the Diamond Princess could repeat itself. I just don't understand the decision process of those "in charge."
 
First, they started before everyone shut down. I believe it was at least a 14 if not 30 day.

Second, no other cruise line had cancelled from their area when they had sailed. Third, if you were genuinely concerned about your safety then you would have canceled regardless of losing money. If you decided to go on only because you didn't want to lose money then you've already told the world that you weren't actually that concerned.
 
It was a long cruise, well under way before it hit the fan. ETA: it departed March 7 and was to be a 30 day cruise. Yes the Diamond Princess has happened at that point but dozens of cruises were still happening at that point that were not having problems. Hindsight is always 20/20. To put it in perspective, when we left on our Panama Canal cruise at the start of March, there were 8 cases in our area, all travel related. The messaging at the time was still keep calm and wash your hands. The situation changed very very quickly.

What I do not understand is why there has not been more emphasis on the need to get people off of cruise ships. It is doing no one any good to still have these vessels at sea right now.
 
From The National Post (Canada)

“The Zaandam was cruising around the tip of South America, from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to San Antonio, Chile, when the COVID-19 global pandemic was announced.

It left Buenos Aires on March 7 and was scheduled to make port in San Antonio on March 21.”
 


I got a cousin on a 30 day cruise now.left from Chile March 6 April 6 will be in Port Lauderdale April 6. They get a free cruise to use within 2 years. Princess Cruise line. Having a Great time missing ports I imagine having talked to her my mom has but they are not confined to cabins or anything.
 
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It was a long cruise, well under way before it hit the fan. ETA: it departed March 7 and was to be a 30 day cruise. Yes the Diamond Princess has happened at that point but dozens of cruises were still happening at that point that were not having problems. Hindsight is always 20/20. To put it in perspective, when we left on our Panama Canal cruise at the start of March, there were 8 cases in our area, all travel related. The messaging at the time was still keep calm and wash your hands. The situation changed very very quickly.

What I do not understand is why there has not been more emphasis on the need to get people off of cruise ships. It is doing no one any good to still have these vessels at sea right now.

It sounds as if no country wants to have to deal with sick passengers and the possible spread of the virus. Many of these countries probably can't even deal adequately with the virus infecting their own citizens.

I feel so badly for these passengers and crew stuck on these ships - it must be terrifying.

Interesting article on CNN outlining the situations of all the cruise ships still at sea. https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/cruise-ships-still-sailing/index.html One cruise line actually transferred passengers between ships and then sailed one ship with UK passengers toward the UK and the other ship with Australian and New Zealand passengers to Australia.
 


It seems like a lot of the ships looking for refuge started in early March in South America. I would have been concerned here. Late February, my husband was supposed to take a business trip to S Korea. We weren't concerned about him getting sick, but we were concerned that he would get quarantined somewhere besides home. However, South America wasn't and still hasn't gotten the brunt of it, so I think they don't fully understand the potential risks. I also don't understand why these ships are looking to head to the US, when they started in South America and are supposed to end in South America. Go back to S America :rotfl2: I have nothing against S Americans. My father-in-law is Chilean, and we were just in Chile and Argentina over xmas break. I was surprised about the canal thing, but apparently, an employee from the canal has to guide them through, and they don't want to get on board and shouldn't have to.
 
It seems like a lot of the ships looking for refuge started in early March in South America. I would have been concerned here. Late February, my husband was supposed to take a business trip to S Korea. We weren't concerned about him getting sick, but we were concerned that he would get quarantined somewhere besides home. However, South America wasn't and still hasn't gotten the brunt of it, so I think they don't fully understand the potential risks. I also don't understand why these ships are looking to head to the US, when they started in South America and are supposed to end in South America. Go back to S America :rotfl2: I have nothing against S Americans. My father-in-law is Chilean, and we were just in Chile and Argentina over xmas break. I was surprised about the canal thing, but apparently, an employee from the canal has to guide them through, and they don't want to get on board and shouldn't have to.
South America at the moment is MUCH safer than the US as far as COVID-19 is concerned.

I believe this cruise was scheduled to end on March 21 in Santiago (Chile). Either the Chilean authorities denied permission or the captain mistakenly thought it would be better to head to the US instead. Even though they have transferred healthy guests over to the other HAL ship, there still isn't any indication that the other ship will be allowed docking before everyone has been pre-screened.
 
South America at the moment is MUCH safer than the US as far as COVID-19 is concerned.

I believe this cruise was scheduled to end on March 21 in Santiago (Chile). Either the Chilean authorities denied permission or the captain mistakenly thought it would be better to head to the US instead. Even though they have transferred healthy guests over to the other HAL ship, there still isn't any indication that the other ship will be allowed docking before everyone has been pre-screened.
also there is no reason to believe the "healthy" guests are negative and won't start showing symptoms themselves at some point.

I think that splitting guests by nationality and letting their own countries handle it as mentioned above is probably going to be the only way to deal with it - no country is going to take another country's covid19 patients.
 
South America at the moment is MUCH safer than the US as far as COVID-19 is concerned.

I believe this cruise was scheduled to end on March 21 in Santiago (Chile). Either the Chilean authorities denied permission or the captain mistakenly thought it would be better to head to the US instead. Even though they have transferred healthy guests over to the other HAL ship, there still isn't any indication that the other ship will be allowed docking before everyone has been pre-screened.

Chile did deny entry. They have denied it to several ships that were supposed to disembark or dock there. I just wonder why they don't go back to Buenos Aires, unless Argentina is denying them. However, I have not read of any other countries in South America denying ships, except Chile. That doesn't mean they are the only ones doing it though.
 
It has just come out that 401 passengers who do not show symptoms will be transferred to the sister ship the Rotterdam. It doesn't say where either ship is going next
 
As COVID-19 arrived in South America at the end of February, I'm not sure that's entirely true.

There's a chart from wikipedia that shows the effects there:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_South_America
At the moment is the key phrase. The chart shows 4,500 cases in all of South America - a population of 425 million. Compare to the 120,000 US cases in a population of 350 million.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
See the map in this link. If your cruise drops you off in either region today, where are you more likely to catch the virus?
 
See the map in this link. If your cruise drops you off in either region today, where are you more likely to catch the virus?

The better question is maybe "Where are you more likely to survive catching the virus?"
 
I don't believe any of the data at this point -- the information is so incomplete we have no idea what the actual numbers are.
That's a pretty trite strawman.

There's plenty of data. JHU has done an excellent job of cataloguing it. And it makes total sense. This virus has no treatment at the moment, so your only chance of surviving - other than from your own immune system - is having access to a nurse, bed, and ventilator. Good luck finding them in the overrun venues.
 
That's a pretty trite strawman.

There's plenty of data. JHU has done an excellent job of cataloguing it. And it makes total sense. This virus has no treatment at the moment, so your only chance of surviving - other than from your own immune system - is having access to a nurse, bed, and ventilator. Good luck finding them in the overrun venues.

It's not the amount of data, it's the quality of data. Do you really think South American towns and cities are aggressively testing their citizens? Despite this, I don't know many people that would rather be hospitalized in a foreign country.
 

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