A local woman says she went on a cruise out of Port Canaveral and didn’t find out until days after it docked that a passenger on board had been diagnosed with COVID-19.
The woman said she got the letter Wednesday night from Norwegian Cruise Line letting her know that someone on the Norwegian Breakaway voyage that left Port Canaveral on March 7 and returned Saturday had the virus.
Now, she said, she and three of her family members who were on the ship with her are ill and being tested for COVID-19.
READ: Coronavirus: USNS Mercy, USNS Comfort deployed in COVID-19 response
“When we got on the ship, they took extra measures to make sure we had no fever,” the woman, who asked not to be identified, said. “But when we got off the ship, there was none of that.”
She said during the trip, her family saw someone on the ship with staff in hazmat suits, and when they asked what happened, they said they were told it was an arrest, not an illness.
Then she said the ship canceled events like the captain's dinner and the staff told them extra sanitation was happening as a precaution.
READ: Customers seek refunds from cruise companies after cancellations due to coronavirus
The woman said her sister called to say a different family claims that one of their loved ones was taken off the ship a few days into the cruise and now is in a South Florida hospital with COVID-19.
The woman and her family said they are all now self-quarantining while they await their test results, their heads full on unanswered questions.
When did the hospital know their patient was positive? And when was the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aware? And, more importantly, when did the cruise line find out?
Emails from Channel 9 reporter Shannon Butler to both the CDC and Norwegian Cruise Line have gone unanswered so far.
READ: Coronavirus concerns: Should you cancel that cruise?
Butler said she also reached out to the woman who claims her family member who was removed from the ship has COVID-19 and has not heard back.
© 2020 Cox Media Group
