TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Ship in Port/Health Concerns?

DAILY HERALD ARTICLE

Supposedly the ship was denied docking at two other ports.

AIDAPERLA

Seems kind of reckless.

Honestly, IF the statements made by the PM are correct, the decision to allow the ship to dock was fine with me. And I assume her statements are true. There are supposedly NO cases of the corona virus on the ship, just a couple cases of what sounds like ordinary flu and two cases of an undetermined illness, not Corona. Those passengers have been quarantined and have not been allowed off the ship. In my opinion, ordinary flu is a lot more dangerous to tourists in this hemisphere. There are apparently numerous cases of some type of gastro disturbances going on at Maho, AGAIN this year. It seems this time of year that there are always reports of such illnesses in SXM, probably carried there from US and Canadian tourists. One would love to see the furor if SXM would refuse to allow a plane from NYC to land because there is wide spread flu there..

If ports begin prohibiting cruise ships to dock every time they have sick passengers on board there won't be any ships allowed in ports any more. Not sure what's behind the hype and hysteria with the coronavirus, but I can't help but think that this presents a huge opportunity for drug makers and the media to truly blow this out of proportion and seize the opportunity to obtain funding for a vaccine. Not trying to be cynical at all, but for almost all of us the threats posed from influenza or contaminated romaine lettuce surely outweigh the risk of contacting the coronavirus.

Besides, AIDA is a cruise line out of Germany and I don't believe that country is the centerpiece for this virus. China is, with 4,500 cases reported there. So, why block a German cruise ship from making port in St. Lucia unless it was coming directly from China? And, of those 4,500 cases in China the present fatality rate from this virus is only 2.35%, with the majority of those cases involving people already suffering form different types of upper respiratory illnesses. For all of us the same protocols to protect us from the flu should be followed here: was your hands with soap and hit water frequently, cough or sneeze into your elbows, and try to reduce the number of times you touch your face (average person touches their face about 2,000 times every day!).

Sammy--well said! We were posting at about the same time.

Thanks, Carol. I don't mean to make 'light' out of this, because any virus can be potentially serious. But, when overreactions like this arise I can't help but shake my head and think "something else for people to fret over." Over the weekend I discussed this virus with my oldest son (who is a chemist with Boehringer-Ingelheim) and his reaction was much like mine ... keep tabs on it but don't let this change your plans or alter your lifestyle. Thank goodness they let the ship make port in St. Maarten, and now the visitors from the ship will hopefully spend their vacation dollars here rather than in St. Lucia or Dominica.

Agreed, it is a serious matter, but some of the hysteria is overdone.

Sounds like the cruise we were on when three quarters of passengers had diarrhea vomiting and cruise line said it was Noro Virus and ship was quaranteed then washed down completely. My opinion was food poisoning not the virus. This because only those who ate mussels were ill. Toilets overflowed etc. I think they were correct to stop that ship. Of course we were angry at the time but not so much so after cruise offers us $400 cash (not credit towards another cruise.)

$400 is only a token of what they should have given back for what passengers had to go through and initially paid for the cruise.

Probably, the case for Aida but our cruise was $699. so $400 back was great!