When the an­nounce­ment came two weeks ago that pop­u­lar cruise line Roy­al Caribbean in­tend­ed to rein­tro­duce T&T as one of the ports of calls on its 2021/2022 sched­ule, re­spons­es were mixed. Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell em­braced the move stat­ing that we would have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case our cul­ture as a unique one, but oth­ers, like Pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Cham­ber of Com­merce Mar­tin George, were scep­ti­cal in this tense sea­son of COVID-19 and its vari­ants.

The US$150 bil­lion-dol­lar cruise ship in­dus­try ran aground as COVID-19 raged aboard ves­sels from March in 2020. Hun­dreds of ships from cruise line gi­ants like the Car­ni­val Cor­po­ra­tion, Roy­al Caribbean Group and Nor­we­gian Cruise Line Hold­ings lan­guished in for­eign wa­ters while tens of thou­sands of pas­sen­gers and crew re­mained stuck on board amidst mount­ing in­fec­tions rates...and deaths.

On No­vem­ber 22, the US Cen­tres for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion warned that "all" peo­ple should avoid trav­el on cruise ships world­wide be­cause the risk of COVID-19 on cruise ships was "very high". Two months lat­er, some cruise lin­ers have re­sumed sail­ings at dras­ti­cal­ly re­duced ca­pac­i­ty from Eu­rope and South­east Asia, but lit­tle else has changed; ex­cept per­haps for health and trav­el guide­lines that shift as rapid­ly as sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­er­ies about the virus.

To have ships presents a dead­ly threat. To not have ships means eco­nom­ic loss­es, es­pe­cial­ly for Caribbean coun­tries who look for­ward to rev­enue from tours, guest hous­es and du­ty-free shops, and cruise ship work­ers who de­pend on it for their liveli­hood. Ex­perts main­tain that tourism goals must be bal­anced with health con­cerns for pub­lic and crew.

Asked via email whether there were height­ened mea­sures in light of COVID-19 by Roy­al Caribbean to en­sure the safe­ty of pas­sen­gers, crew and the wider pub­lic, CEO of the com­pa­ny's lo­cal agent, Car­val­ho's Agen­cies, Charles Car­val­ho, said that Roy­al Caribbean was do­ing its ut­most to guar­an­tee the well-be­ing of all stake­hold­ers and point­ed to Roy­al Caribbean's "Healthy Sail Pan­el" on­line doc­u­ment de­vel­oped with lead­ing ex­perts to dis­cuss and im­ple­ment new health and safe­ty pro­to­cols.

The plan con­tains 74 best prac­tice ap­proach­es and stress­es five key ar­eas of con­cern: name­ly test­ing and screen­ing; san­i­ta­tion and ven­ti­la­tion; con­tin­gency plan­ning and ex­e­cu­tion; des­ti­na­tion and ex­cur­sion plan­ning; and mit­i­gat­ing risks for crew mem­bers.

Car­val­ho said that in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, cruise lines had start­ed sell­ing pack­ages for 2021/2022 as part of their nor­mal long-term plan­ning process and this would al­low them to be ready for the re­open­ing of bor­ders.

Ac­cord­ing to the Roy­al Caribbean web­site last up­dat­ed Jan 21, 2021, the cruise line hoped to re­sume sail­ings in May 2021 and was "com­mit­ted to tak­ing the time to do things right." It said the com­pa­ny would up­grade staff train­ing and con­duct tri­al sail­ings to test new pro­to­cols.

Con­tact­ed for an up­date on the safe­ty of cruise ships at present and for guide­lines for cruise ships at ports of call in the Caribbean, CARPHA redi­rect­ed to their in­ter­im guide­lines, "Con­veyances Trav­el­ling to Caribbean Coun­tries dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic", which rec­om­mend­ed staff train­ing, use of PPE and tem­per­a­ture screen­ing of all at ini­tial em­barka­tion point be­fore board­ing, among oth­er mea­sures. Mean­while, the world con­tin­ues to be vig­i­lant...

Cruise ship COVID sur­vivor warns: Take the virus se­ri­ous­ly

"'Granny, when can I come to see you? Granny, if we dri­ve down to the hos­pi­tal is there a win­dow you can look out to see me?'"

Re­tired pub­lic ser­vant Au­drey Hold­er som­bre­ly re­called her nine-year-old grand­daugh­ter's ques­tions. At the time, she had been a COVID-19 pa­tient at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal, with the anx­ious lit­tle girl call­ing her cell phone up to three times a day.

Hold­er ran the gamut of emo­tions as she re­vis­it­ed her "very scary and stress­ful" ex­pe­ri­ence as one of 68 peo­ple brought home last year from a strand­ed cruise ship and among the first in T&T to con­tract the dead­ly coro­n­avirus.

"Some peo­ple say Je­sus does not an­swer prayer. I know a lot of my friends and fam­i­ly were pray­ing. A cer­tain co-work­er, from the time she heard I was in­volved, she had the whole church, peo­ple I don't even know, pray­ing for me. All that prayer went out for me and for the oth­ers, and He an­swered," she told Sun­day Guardian.

"Epic" is how one cruise line had ad­ver­tised one of its trips and epic is how the cruis­es of Hold­er and the tens of thou­sands of pas­sen­gers and crew who found them­selves strand­ed in for­eign wa­ters the world over amidst the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic last year, turned out. But not in the sense the cruise lines in­tend­ed. Every­thing about her trip that she was ex­cit­ed to share, all the me­men­toes and pho­tos she was ea­ger to bring home, were al­most lost for­ev­er.

"It's not a nice thing be­cause the peo­ple who died...if they died to­day, they got rid of their bod­ies to­day. The clothes and things they had, they (the hos­pi­tal au­thor­i­ties) burn it. The fam­i­lies didn't get to see them or any of it."

Al­most one year af­ter her or­deal, Hold­er who is over the age of 60 and who spent 47 days at the COVID-19-des­ig­nat­ed fa­cil­i­ty in Cou­va and at the San­gre Grande step-down fa­cil­i­ty, said she was dis­ap­point­ed in the peo­ple of this coun­try for not want­i­ng her group to re­turn and for say­ing the spread of the virus start­ed with them. She is al­so con­cerned that some are still not tak­ing the pan­dem­ic se­ri­ous­ly.

Re­count­ing her ad­ven­ture, Hold­er said as a mem­ber of the Works Cred­it Union group for se­niors, she met month­ly with group mem­bers and they had gone on lo­cal out­ings.

"It was my first time go­ing on a cruise which is some­thing I don't re­al­ly fan­cy, but my daugh­ter per­suad­ed me. Be­ing that it was just in the Caribbean and at that time Coro­na (COVID-19) hadn't hit there as yet, I went."

She had al­so en­joyed trav­el­ling be­fore, hav­ing vis­it­ed her sons Car­los and Dale in Eng­land and Cana­da, and rel­a­tives in the US, and so, went along for the eight-day cruise.

Their group of 70, con­sist­ed of peo­ple in their 20s to over 60; the old­est be­ing 83. They left on March 6 and flew to Mar­tinique aboard a char­tered Air Caraïbes flight where they board­ed the Ital­ian cruise ship, Cos­ta Favolosa owned by the Car­ni­val cruise line, and head­ed to Guade­loupe.

"Be­fore I left here, I was not aware that it was an Ital­ian ship. At that point in time, we al­ready knew the Coro­na had been in Italy," she said.

Ac­cord­ing to its web­site, the ship has a ca­pac­i­ty of 3,780 pas­sen­gers, about 1,110 crew mem­bers and boasts 13 decks, a 4D-cin­e­ma and a large open-air aqua park. Once aboard, Hold­er was im­pressed with the ves­sel which was like a five-star ho­tel, she said. She ob­served that there were pas­sen­gers from Italy and the US, as well as, oth­er coun­tries.

"We were hav­ing a ball," she re­called.

In Guade­loupe, pas­sen­gers dis­em­barked with a ship tour guide and they drove around the is­land in bus­es and peo­ple pur­chased sou­venirs. Hold­er even learnt a lit­tle about the cul­ture, mar­vel­ling at how the na­tives built their ceme­tery tombs like apart­ments and used live flow­ers in their homes while keep­ing ar­ti­fi­cial ones for gravesites.

While sail­ing to­wards Do­mini­ca the fol­low­ing day, pas­sen­gers were told that the virus was spread­ing in a cer­tain part of the coun­try that they should avoid when they dis­em­barked. She said she did not ven­ture off the ves­sel.

Mean­while, Hold­er shared a cab­in and a large bed with an 83-year-old la­dy and de­vel­oped a friend­ship.

Tor­to­la, BVI and St Maarten were al­so on their itin­er­ary, but on day sev­en they nev­er made it to St Maarten. There was an an­nounce­ment on the ship that it would not be al­lowed in­to the coun­try be­cause of COVID.

"That is when my an­ten­na went up and I start­ed to won­der if there were peo­ple on the ship with the virus."

When it was an­nounced that a he­li­copter would be land­ing on the ship to pick up two peo­ple; one who had suf­fered a heart at­tack, the oth­er for whom no rea­son was giv­en, Hold­er be­came more vig­i­lant and in­ter­act­ed less with oth­ers.

From St Maarten, they were to tour Mar­tinique on day eight and catch a night flight via Air Caraïbes back to Trinidad. When they were al­so de­nied en­try in­to Mar­tinique peo­ple start­ed to be­come anx­ious. They head­ed back to Guade­loupe to try dis­em­bark­ing from there, but with T&T bor­ders al­ready closed, Hold­er and oth­er T&T pas­sen­gers were stuck.

"When we reached Guade­loupe and didn't get off, I be­lieve the re­al pan­ic start­ed to take place. I just want­ed to get off."

The moth­er of three and grand­moth­er of five said she was not sure whether peo­ple were de­vel­op­ing phys­i­cal symp­toms due to COVID or out of sheer wor­ry and fear.

"My room-mate start­ed to cough. She vom­it­ed. A few oth­er peo­ple were feel­ing sick, some were vom­it­ing. Some were say­ing they had bel­ly pains and di­ar­rhoea."

See­ing oth­er pas­sen­gers leav­ing for their home coun­tries made the sit­u­a­tion worse. Hold­er kept in con­tact with her daugh­ter, Car­li­na, and sons. Back in Trinidad, Car­li­na joined oth­er rel­a­tives of the group in plead­ing for as­sis­tance via ra­dio and news­pa­pers from the Gov­ern­ment to bring them home.

Fi­nal­ly be­ing per­mit­ted to land at the old air­port in Pi­ar­co on a post­poned Air Caraïbes re­turn flight af­ter be­ing stuck for about four days in Guade­loupe wa­ters, the group did not pass through cus­toms and had no con­tact with the wider pub­lic, Hold­er in­sist­ed.

"We did not have the chance to con­t­a­m­i­nate T&T be­cause as we came off the plane, there were these mil­i­tary bus­es wait­ing for us. So to say that these peo­ple who went on the cruise are who came back and spread the virus, that is a lie. We had al­so al­ready paid for the flight back, so the Gov­ern­ment didn't pay to bring us."

The group, now 68 as two had not left Guade­loupe for un­clear rea­sons, was tak­en to Ba­lan­dra where they were test­ed for COVID the next day. When the re­sults came back, Hold­er learnt that she had test­ed pos­i­tive.

"Af­ter hear­ing how this virus was killing peo­ple in Chi­na and all over the world, I just talk to my Je­sus and I said: Lord if is Your will, Thy will be done."

Those who had test­ed pos­i­tive were tak­en to the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal.

"From there, peo­ple start­ed to get re­al­ly sick. They start­ed to go on ven­ti­la­tors in ICU and HDU (High De­pen­den­cy Unit). I praise and thank God that my symp­toms were just a high fever and I did not have any ap­petite. I could not eat and they put me on drips."

Hold­er said she did not eat for an en­tire week and was very scared. Mean­while, oth­ers were hav­ing short­ness of breath, pains and more se­ri­ous symp­toms.

"A la­dy who died (iden­ti­fi­ca­tion giv­en), we sat down while we out there, won­der­ing how we get­ting off the ship. We sat around a ta­ble to­geth­er and talked. Ap­par­ent­ly, while I was on drips, she passed away. She was six­ty-some­thing.

A man al­so died, she said.

The day af­ter East­er Mon­day she was tak­en to a step-down fa­cil­i­ty at San­gre Grande where she spent one week be­fore her sec­ond test came back neg­a­tive. She cried tears of joy.

"When I see these peo­ple talk­ing rub­bish about there is no COVID in this coun­try and all these non­sense it does hurt my heart be­cause I watch peo­ple I was in­ter­act­ing with and then I saw them on oxy­gen…there was a la­dy in a cab­in on the ship next to me, we used to go out to­geth­er. When they took the drips off me and I went to see how she was, she didn't even know I was stand­ing next to her while she was on that bed. I just said: Lord have mer­cy."

The la­dy was even­tu­al­ly dis­charged but lat­er died, Hold­er said. Some who were fol­low­ing de­vel­op­ments with the ship while they had been in the hos­pi­tal had told her that crew mem­bers, most of whom were from the Philip­pines, passed away and the cap­tain con­tract­ed the virus as well. The ship was even­tu­al­ly al­lowed to dock in Mi­a­mi.

Hold­er said she was treat­ed well at the fa­cil­i­ties and al­so while stuck on the cruise ship. On be­ing dis­charged, she had to self iso­late for a fur­ther two weeks.

Car­li­na, who is in her 30s, was es­pe­cial­ly over­joyed, but had to abide by the re­stric­tions, her moth­er said.

"She was say­ing every day: Mum­my, I want to hug you...like a lit­tle child watch­ing the can­dy and want(ing) to eat it."

Her son Dale, who had flown in while she was in the hos­pi­tal, was on­ly per­mit­ted to re­turn to his home in Cana­da two months ago.

To­day the once ded­i­cat­ed mem­ber of a Ro­man Catholic church group in her parish has not been back since but fol­lows mass­es on Trin­i­ty TV. She on­ly ven­tures out if her daugh­ter dri­ves her around.

And the mil­lion-dol­lar ques­tion as to whether Hold­er would ever ven­ture back on a cruise ship?

"Not at all, al­though my daugh­ter who nev­er went on one, say yes, she would go," Hold­er said.

NEIL DE ROCHE

Q&A with a for­mer cruise ship work­er

Neil De Roche start­ed his cruise ship work ex­pe­ri­ence as a clean­er and worked his way up to First Cook. He served for al­most 12 years, hav­ing start­ed on small­er ves­sels like Zenith, Cen­tu­ry and Galaxy then moved to new­er ships like Mil­len­ni­um, In­fin­i­ty and Hori­zons.

Tell me a lit­tle about life on a cruise ship?

Life on the cruise ship was ex­cel­lent for me. I en­joyed it a lot. If I had the op­por­tu­ni­ty I would go back if there wasn't COVID be­cause the life is dif­fer­ent. It's a more unit­ed, unique en­vi­ron­ment with dif­fer­ent na­tion­al­i­ties on board. Re­al­ly awe­some, but it's not for some­body who is in a re­la­tion­ship. It's for some­body on their own look­ing to make some­thing out of them­selves. I had a blast. I have no re­grets.

How do you think you would have act­ed be­ing out there know­ing that oth­ers on board were ill with COVID?

I would try to adapt to the sur­round­ings and take the best pre­cau­tions to be safe, but on the ship, you can't re­al­ly get away from things like COVID be­cause it's more of an en­closed en­vi­ron­ment un­less you iso­late your­self in your own cab­in. Usu­al­ly, a cab­in is for two staff mem­bers un­less you're at the top (jobs) where you have a cab­in for your­self. It would be dif­fi­cult to iso­late on a ship.

If you had the op­por­tu­ni­ty, would you go back now know­ing what you know about COVID and that some crew were strand­ed with oth­ers who had the virus?

No, I would not be­cause this COVID is se­ri­ous and be­cause on the cruise ship is all dif­fer­ent na­tion­al­i­ties from all over the world, you don't know who com­ing with it. I would not have been head­ing out un­til this whole thing clear up be­cause I have to take pre­cau­tions for my life, plus crew mem­bers.

What safe­ty drills were there on the ves­sels?

They had a lot; every two days. Some­times they had in­di­vid­ual safe­ty drills af­ter work, dur­ing work. Some­times you rest­ing, you have to get up, know what to do in case of emer­gency, where to go, your muster sta­tion. It could be ver­bal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly; how to launch the lifeboat, what to have in sight, pro­tec­tive cloth­ing in case you get strand­ed, how much food is in the life raft. From cap­tain straight down to the crew, you have to learn this.

What did you do as a cook and what safe­ty pre­cau­tions did you have to take with the food? Talk about the food pre­sen­ta­tion, room ser­vice and your prox­im­i­ty to the pas­sen­gers.

I was in charge of break­fast op­er­a­tions where I pre­pared break­fast for the whole staff and guests on board every morn­ing. I en­joyed it a lot, at times te­dious. You start every­thing from scratch ear­ly in the morn­ing. You have a team of six or sev­en.

The li­do (out­door swim­ming pool area) break­fast is buf­fet style, you (guest) pick up what you need and you go. You al­ways had to be at your best when you in­ter­act­ed with guests. The food prepa­ra­tion, every­thing had to be at the right tem­per­a­ture. You check with your ther­mome­ter.

For room ser­vice, the at­ten­dants come to the gal­ley, pick up the break­fast and de­liv­er to the cab­ins.

Any se­ri­ous emer­gency where you or crew mem­bers were afraid?

I my­self nev­er had a se­ri­ous sit­u­a­tion, but if some­body goes over­board, they don't dis­close that to the crew mem­bers. On­ly the guys up­stairs will know what tran­spired. If some­thing hap­pens to a crew mem­ber, they will just say the crew mem­ber is miss­ing, but they won't tell you how, who, when, why.