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A COVID-19 scare is the last thing the cruise industry needs as it returns to the Caribbean.
Yet on Wednesday, a SeaDream 1 SeaDream Yacht Club passenger received a positive preliminary test result for COVID-19, according to Gene Sloan, senior cruise and travel reporter at The Points Guy, who was aboard the ship.
CNN Travel contacted SeaDream on Wednesday afternoon for confirmation. The company said it would provide a statement but didn’t release it to CNN at 6:30 PM ET.
SeaDream 1 is the first cruise ship to resume navigation in the Caribbean since the start of the pandemic.
Intercom announcement of the positive test result
Sloan reported that the captain informed passengers of the positive preliminary test on the ship’s intercom system shortly before lunchtime on Wednesday.
Passengers were instructed to return to their cabins and remain isolated there, he said.
The ship was anchored off Union Island in the Grenadines at the time of the announcement, according to Sloan, and had immediately returned to Barbados.
The industry impact of the accident “will depend in part on how this situation evolves over the next few hours and days,” Sloan told CNN Travel via email from his cabin on board. “But it’s not a big development for the cruise industry. I think the hope was that the rigorous testing SeaDream was doing would keep Covid off its ship.”
Extensive, multi-layered testing for COVID-19 has been an integral part of SeaDream’s efforts to create a COVID-19 negative bubble aboard its ships.
Passengers were tested both before traveling to the ship and before boarding, Sloan said.
“And SeaDream was also testing passengers four days into the trip,” he said. “We had to be tested again today. This is a more rigorous test plan than most lines had discussed for their reboots.”
Travel from Barbados
The line was confident in its safety precautions when it announced its winter trips from Barbados, which began on November 7. Caribbean cruises followed a successful summer season for SeaDream in Norway, which the line said “produced zero positive cases during the entire Norwegian Summer Season”.
“As the first luxury line to start sailing again, we have learned many lessons and are confident that we can provide a safe environment without sacrificing luxury,” said SeaDream’s Andreas Brynestad in the September announcement outlining trips to Barbados.
In addition to Barbados, itineraries include stopovers in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada, all open to Americans.
Less than 250 guests
SeaDream’s ships, which the company calls “superyachts”, have 56 cabins, with a capacity of 112 guests and 95 crew members.
Carrying fewer than 250 guests outside of United States waters allows SeaDream to operate outside the orders of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention while cruising.
The CDC recently issued a “Framework for Conditional Sailing Order for Cruise Ships”.
The order, which applies to cruise ships in US territorial waters that have a capacity to carry at least 250 passengers, is considered an attempt to resume navigation.
The Cruise Lines International Association commercial group said it will work with the CDC to resume cruises in the United States as soon as possible, but that its members will continue a voluntary suspension of operations until the end of 2020.
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