Shirley and Lewis Buckler finally made it to a port Saturday after the ship they’re on, the Coral Princess, was not allowed to let passengers off several times over the past couple of weeks.
They worry their risk of exposure to the novel coronavirus grows the longer they stay on board.
“They won’t let us drive home,” said Shirley Buckler, 70, a retired potter. “It sounds like they want Scotty to beam us home or to go home in a bubble. And we can’t do either one of those.”
Princess Cruises said Sunday new guidance issued overnight by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended passengers not travel on commercial flights or share transportation with non-cruise guests, which, the company said, would require an adjustment to its plan to let people off the ship.
“This will unfortunately result in further delays in disembarkation and onward travel for many guests as we work through this complex, challenging and unfortunate situation,” Princess said in a statement. “We express continued gratitude to our guests for their patience and understanding as we work to adapt to these new requirements.”
The ship arrived in Miami on Saturday with 1,020 guests on board after receiving approval for a plan to transport the five sickest passengers to hospitals, keep 65 with symptoms on board to recover and get the rest home.
Some passengers were able to leave Saturday and Sunday, including those with charter flights to California, Australia and the United Kingdom. Late Monday afternoon, the cruise line said 545 guests left Sunday and another 139 disembarked Monday morning, leaving 274 on board. More domestic charter flights were scheduled to depart Tuesday, Princess said.
Two people died on the ship as it approached Florida and 12 tested positive for the virus. A third passenger, San Francisco resident Wilson Maa died Saturday night at a hospital after waiting for hours to be taken off the ship as his family pleaded with authorities to help him.
According to the cruise ship’s original plan, “a portion” of travelers declared fit to travel would take commercial flights, based on their final destination. All of those passengers were going to be taken to Miami International Airport by private bus. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said in a news conference a “minority” of the passengers on the ship would be flying commercial.
The CDC had allowed passengers from other ships with confirmed coronavirus cases to take commercial flights home. Last month, passengers from the Costa Luminosa — including some who got positive test results midflight — took a charter flight from Europe to Atlanta. Some passengers from that flight then took commercial flights to get the rest of the way home.
On Sunday, a passenger who had transferred from Holland America Line’s Zaandam ship to the Rotterdam, both of which arrived last week in Port Everglades, Fla., after coronavirus spread on the Zaandam, told Fox News he took a commercial flight to New York after his charter flight to Atlanta.
“We went from people surrounding us with hazmat suits to mixing with the general population,” the passenger, New Jersey resident Rick De Pinho, told Fox.
The new guidance from the CDC says travelers who are well should “only travel with other well travelers by chartered or private transportation. Do not board a commercial flight or other public transportation.”
As rules for allowing well passengers to leave the ship evolved, the situation on Coral Princess became more harrowing for sick passengers over the weekend. After family members of Maa, the passenger who died in a hospital, pleaded for his rescue from the ship, they had to turn their attention to his wife, Toyling Maa, who was taken to a hospital after waiting for six hours, her daughter said on Twitter.
On Sunday, local medical workers boarded the ship to help the medical staffers on board. That day, 12 more patients were taken off the ship to hospitals, according to the county mayor’s office. During the evacuation, workers discovered “the ship’s oxygen supply was critically low,” according to a statement from the county, and Miami-Dade Fire Rescue replaced empty oxygen cylinders with full ones.
The ship left for its South American voyage from San Antonio, Chile, on March 5; it had not been able to find a port to let all of its passengers off after suspending operations on March 12.
“Princess Cruises is working around the clock to arrange small group charters and individual car transport for its U.S. guests to comply with the updated CDC guidelines in order to disembark a wide number of guests from the ship,” Roger Frizzell, chief communications officer for parent company Carnival Corp., said in an email late Sunday.
Coral Princess passenger Katy O’Neill, 64, of Oak Island, N.C., said the experience of remaining on the ship has been “surreal.” She has watched emergency vehicles and the medical examiner pull up from her balcony, where she posted a sign asking to be tested and urging authorities to let her go.
Her husband, John Hutton, 71, is awaiting neurological surgery after they self-quarantine, and he has run out of blood-pressure medication.
Both retired teachers — she taught art, he taught history — the couple thought initially they might drive home. Then they talked to friends who are private pilots in North Carolina who were willing to come pick them up.
“I called downstairs and they said, ‘No, you can’t do that,'" she said.
O’Neill said she planned on Monday to break out her ukulele to sing happy birthday to her 16-year-old granddaughter and try to get through the song without crying. She said she hoped to go home soon for many reasons, one of which was that she had turned over her luggage, as requested, with only two days’ worth of clothes on hand.
“I hope I fly today, because this linen shirt can’t do another day,” she said.
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