Carnival cruise ship has been denied to call at St. Lucia in the eastern Caribbean and is currently off the coast of Bridgetown, Barbados. One crew member is being tested for possible coronavirus as a precaution and the ship is likely to be cleared.
Carnival Fascination Coronavirus Fears
The Carnival Fascination cruise ship which is operated by Carnival Cruise Line has not been allowed to make its scheduled port of call in St. Lucia today (February 27) due to flu-like symptoms onboard.
The island was unable to conduct any tests onboard the ship to confirm coronavirus which is also known as COVID-19. As a result, the ship was not allowed to make her port of call at Castries, St. Lucia.
Carnival Cruise Line provided Cruise Hive with the following statement:
Carnival Fascination cancelled its call to St. Lucia today because of a medical situation with a crew member that St. Lucia medical authorities were not prepared to deal with. Consequently, the ship is docking in Barbados, its next scheduled port of call.In an abundance of caution, Barbados officials are going to test the crew member for COVID-19. The individual is not a suspected COVID-19 case based on the criteria set by world health experts including CDC and World Health Organization criteria.
Upon the ship’s arrival at the pier, medical staff from Barbados will board and conduct a test of the crew member. Once the results are returned, we expect to be able to debark the ship so guests can spend the remainder of the day and evening in Barbados.
We are working closely with the Prime Minister of Barbados, who held a local press conference earlier today, with the common goal of ensuring the health and safety of all involved.Government officials have been extremely cooperative and we have worked closely with them to address their concerns and facilitate this change in the itinerary. We also thank our guests for their patience and understanding.
Carnival Fascination is on a seven-day cruise that departed San Juan on Feb. 23 and we expect the ship to arrive as planned back in San Juan on Sunday, March 1 for the next sailing.
Carnival Fascination ended up sailing to the next scheduled port of call of Barbados and the ship currently remains just off the coast of Bridgetown, the island’s capital. Carnival has started a 48-year-old crew member will be tested for COVID-19 by health officials as a precaution, they will board once the vessel docks according to Carnival.
Two passengers have already been confirmed to have Influenza. Passengers will not be able to go ashore in Barbados until the test results of the crew member have returned.
Also Read: Cruise Ship With Sick Passengers Denied to Dock in the British Virgin Islands
The Fantasy-class cruise ship is currently sailing a 7-day southern Caribbean cruise which departed San Juan, Puerto Rico on February 23. The vessel has already visited St. Thomas, St. Maarten and St. Kitts before being denied to call at St. Lucia today. The ship is scheduled to arrive back in San Juan on March 1.
Carnival Fascination is 70,367 gross tons and has a passenger capacity of 2,056 at double occupancy along with 920 crew members. The ship entered service in 1994 and it was recently announced by Carnival that she would be based out of Mobile, Alabama in 2022.
This is developing news and as new updates come through we’ll make updates to our post accordingly. This follows the MSC Meraviglia being denied at two Caribbean cruise ports on her current sailing and also a Costa ship was not allowed to dock in Tortola.
The coronavirus which is officially named COVID-19 first stared from the Chinese city of Wuhan in Hubei province in December 2019. Since then, the deadly virus has spread across the globe infecting more than 82,000 people. The death toll currently stands at more than 2,800 with the majority in mainland, China. Italy which is a popular country for cruises is also suffering from sharp increases of cases especially in the Lombardy region in the north.
