CRUISE …ANYONE ?
From Jeff Childers
The Epoch Times ran a story yesterday headlined, “CDC Investigating ‘Highly Vaccinated’ Carnival Cruise Ship.” After the CDC finally dropped jab mandates for cruise ships, it replaced that system with a successful new system that labels and color-codes cruise ships BY NAME based on their vaxx requirements. “Unvaxxed” ships let anyone on board, including, trigger warning, anti-vaxxers. But well-behaved “Highly Vaccinated” ships only let compliant, fully-boosted people travel.
Nobody wants to be labeled “Unvaxxed,” so the big cruise lines voluntarily kept their mandates. The CDC’s web page this morning reports that “91 ships opted in” to the color-coding system, and ZERO ships “opted out.” All 91 ships are rated “highly vaccinated” by the CDC.
The Times reported that the Carnival Spirit left Miami on April 17th before arriving in Seattle last week, and now has so many positive covid cases that the CDC has “started an investigation.”
When I glanced at the CDC’s cruise ship dashboard this morning, MOST SHIPS are now in the “orange,” which explains “CDC has started an investigation and ship remains under investigation.” In fact, the CDC admitted to CNN that 62 of the 91 ships are in the “orange” status. That’s seven out of ten cruise ships are in the orange. They’re floating germ factories.
So by focusing just on the Spirit, the Epoch Times kind of missed the bigger story, but I still like the article anyway. The Times’ reporter collected comments from some of the passengers to see what kinds of delightful services and features you can expect when cruising on an “orange” ship.
“I literally stayed in this room for six days, with no telephone service, they wouldn’t answer the phone,” said Darren Siefertson, who was quarantined after testing positive on board. “This ship was so unprepared and so mismanaged that many of us suffered greatly,” he added.
Siefertson also complained that a few days after testing positive, his cabin and two other cabins near him began to reek of sewage. “You couldn’t even call to ask someone to fix the problem because no one would pick up the phone and we couldn’t leave our room, so I had to stay in this room that smelled like a toilet. It was terrible,” Siefertson said. “Carnival said they managed the situation, but that is so not true. They were so overwhelmed.”
Another passenger who’d tested positive after boarding, Walter Babij, complained that “there were times we ordered our food at 1 p.m. and it didn’t show up until 7 p.m. There were also a few times we didn’t get our complete orders. We would have to call several times to track down our food. We were completely dependent on them.”
According to a CBS story about the Spirit’s outbreak, Carnival won’t say how many of the ship’s 2,100 passengers were infected, except to note that ALL travelers were vaccinated and tested before boarding. So they were all vaxxed and negative when they got on board. The jabbed passengers must have caught it ON THE SHIP. Thanks Carnival!
Here’s my takeaway: the cruise lines better drop all this covid theater before they completely destroy their own industry. IT’S A VOLUNTARY OPT-IN SYSTEM. They could stop anytime. Please. Just. Stop.
If one of these cruise lines were smart they would aggressively advertise for passengers for an UNVACINATED ONLY cruise. They would sell out immediately. I have never been on a cruise but I would only go on one if everyone were not vaccinated.
Someone will eventually —- the problem is what destination will allow them to land? It might end up being a water cruise only but at least not locked in your stinking room!!