Royal Caribbean has announced that it is banning passengers holding Chinese, Hong Kong and Macao passports from boarding its ships – “regardless of when they were there last”.
The announcement on Friday came after the Miami-based cruise company reported that four passengers on RCI’s Anthem of the Seas had been hospitalised in New Jersey after experiencing feverish symptoms. Royal Caribbean said the passengers had come from China for a cruise that departed the port of Bayonne, New Jersey, to the Bahamas.
“None of the four guests being tested [by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] showed any clinical signs or symptoms of coronavirus,” Royal Caribbean said in a statement.
The cruise line also said it had a duty to “maintain a safe and healthy environment” onboard its ships, adding, “In alignment with new stricter CDC protocols, we are tightening our measures to protect guests and crew. These steps are intentionally conservative, and we apologize that they will inconvenience some of our guests,” the cruise line said in a statement.”
