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Ten passengers on the Norwegian Breakaway cruise ship recently tested positive for Covid-19 on the sailing that departed November 28, 2021. The ship had 3200 people on board. Before arriving back in New Orleans, the CDC and local government required that all passengers be tested for Covid. The additional testing revealed seven more Covid cases, bringing the total number of infected passengers to 17. At least one case is the Omicron variant. According to this article on CNN, infected passengers were asymptomatic.
Passengers who tested positive were required to go home immediately (if local) or quarantine in a local hotel. All disembarking passengers were given at-home test kits to self-administer in the next few days.
NCL Protocols
Norwegian Cruise Line requires all passengers and crew members to be vaccinated. The on-board protocols are a bit more relaxed than other cruise lines. NCL does not require masks, physical distancing or capacity limits on board.
However, before letting the waiting group of passengers board for the next cruise, NCL changed the protocols for this ship. Masks are now required indoors and in crowded outdoor areas. Passengers had to sign an additional waiver before boarding. NCL has not announced if these revised protocols will be extended to more ships.
PR Nightmare
While NCL and the CDC (presumably) met about these changes, passengers were left standing in lines at the port for hours. Photos of the long lines circulated on social media. Hungry and tired, the passengers were finally allowed to board. The ship departed around 11:30 p.m. last night.
To compensate for the inconvenience, NCL gave passengers a $200 on-board credit and a discount to use toward a future cruise. The itinerary was revised to skip Cozumel and shorten the port time at Roatan.
Certainly, these are not the first Covid cases on board cruise ships since cruising resumed. Earlier this month, the CDC provided numbers of positive cases on board since the summer. As a percentage, the number is quite low.
So why is this small outbreak causing such a stir? Is it because Omicron is such a trending news story, or is it because the city of New Orleans is more cautious about returning cruise ships than other port cities? I’m not sure.
Reactions from Cruisers
Current and future cruisers are responding to this news in various ways. Some are cancelling upcoming cruises out of caution. Others are cancelling future cruises because they dislike the tighter on-board restrictions that are the result of these cases.
It’s likely we will never really know how many people on board this sailing of the Norwegian Breakaway caught Covid. People are not required to do the at-home test kit or report their results.
My family has a cruise on Royal Caribbean scheduled for spring break. Our final payment date was moved to 30 days prior to sailing. We are holding off on the final payment to see how things play out in the next few months.
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Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
I have a many-times-rescheduled cruise planned for January 2023. There’s an Amex Offer for some significant cash back that ends in a few weeks, and I’ve been on the fence about whether to tie up money now with the cruise line for a chance a a lower rate. I’d be able to cancel to get it back, but there’s opportunity cost. This story helps me lean very heavily toward not bothering with the deal, not giving the cruise line more of my money quite yet, and waiting a few more years before I cruise.
The hysteria continues…
I loved this part: “Passengers had to sign an additional waiver before boarding.” And if a passenger refused to sign an additional waiver of claims? Presumably they had to eat the cost of their transportation to the port city plus lodging or expensive last-minute return transportation. I wonder whether they would get a full refund even on the cruise part. Forcing customers/clients to sign a last minute waiver or be denied boarding seems like a really awful thing to do to one’s customers/clients. I don’t want to go through that. I may pull the plug on my cruise while I still can get a refund.
Ahaha, ‘vaccines work’ – and people still getting sick.
Singapore, Gibraltor (100%! vax rate) Sky high cases.
When will you people stop reading corporate media and do some research yourselves?
Good grief
@Don The vaccines lessen the severity of the illness while often preventing an infection entirely. With a vaccinated population, case counts are much less important.
So a .53 % positivity rate and people are freaking out? New Hampshire is over 13% – Nothing to talk about here…
Do people think Covid is going to go away? Asymptomatic infections…the vaccine is working. Let’s move on…
Yes, the vaccine is working. If only more people would do their part, they would lift the testing requirement upon return.
When the testing/quarantine protocol is lifted for returning to the US, I will gladly resume international travel.
A cruise ship where everyone has been vaccinated? Thats great, but nobody should be surprised that the risk is still there.
To me, the bigger risk is returning to port and potentially ending vacation on a 10-day quarantine in a hotel room.
Yes, the quarantine would be a problem for my family over spring break. Ugh.