Royal Caribbean ship docks at Miami port with 48 cases of covid, cruise line says

MIAMI — Forty-eight passengers and crew members tested positive for covid-19 on Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas ship, which docked Saturday at PortMiami, the cruise company said.

Miami-based Royal Caribbean said in a statement Sunday that each person who tested positive immediately went into quarantine. Six people who had tested positive disembarked the ship mid-voyage and were transported home.

The passengers who tested positive were either asymptomatic or had mild symptoms.

The voyage that resulted in 48 positive cases of covid-19 was a seven-night Caribbean itinerary leaving from Miami and visiting St. Maarten; St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands; and CocoCay, the cruise line’s private island in the Bahamas.

The new cases come as the omicron variant is quickly spreading across the United States, potentially throwing a wrench in holiday travel plans. Royal Caribbean said that Symphony of Sea’s future trips would not be affected. The ship has left Miami for a new trip to Mexico, according to vesselfinder.com.

The ship that pulled into Miami on Saturday left port Dec. 11 with 6,091 passengers and crew on board, 95% of whom were fully vaccinated. Of the 48 who tested positive for covid-19, 98% were fully vaccinated.

Royal Caribbean requires that all passengers on the Symphony of the Seas who are 12 or older be fully vaccinated. All passengers must take a covid test before boarding. Crew members are required to be fully vaccinated and are tested weekly.

The 48 confirmed cases may be a setback for the cruise industry, which has slowly restarted over the past six months.

Cruise industry leaders say that being on a cruise ship is the safest kind of vacation travelers can take at the moment because of the controlled environment where they can mandate vaccines. But breakthrough infections have the potential to put the industry in a bad spot again.

Cruises were covid-19 hot spots at the onset of the pandemic, causing the industry to completely shut down for over a year. Many cruise lines had to take on massive debts while they were unable to make any revenue for the better part of a year.