Zaandam cruise ship with COVID-19 on board docks in Florida after 12 days at sea

After nearly two weeks at sea, Holland America cruise ships Zaandam and Rotterdam finally arrived at Port Everglades late Thursday afternoon.

The physical greeting party was sparse — media and a fleet of ambulances to whisk away the dead and critically ill on board after the coronavirus spread among passengers and crew. Virtually, passengers and their loved ones celebrated the long-awaited return to land with Facebook watch parties and cheerful gifs.

Hazmat-suited responders manning private ambulances spent the rest of the evening ferrying the 14 sick people on board to Broward Health Medical Center and Larkin Community Hospital in Miami. Flights home for more than 1,100 passengers are slated to begin Friday, but on Thursday evening passengers could be seen exiting the Rotterdam, towing a single piece of luggage each.

At least nine passengers are positive for COVID-19, among 11 tested as of Tuesday. Four died at sea.

The ships’ arrival marked the next stage in a seemingly endless journey. Though both ships began the day within sight of the Miami skyline, moorings originally slated for midday were delayed as final details were “ironed out” throughout the day, according to a port spokesman.

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The plan for how Holland America’s parent, Miami-based Carnival Corporation, would safely transfer passengers from the ship to private planes, buses, cars or hospitals — or if the ships would dock at all — was up in the air until nearly the moment the ships docked. Elected officials from Broward County, the governor and the president spent the week openly debating whether to accept the ships.

According to a copy of the lengthy agreement with Carnival Corp. provided to the Miami Herald, the company is responsible for coordinating and providing travel to and from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport for the 1,211 passengers who are fit to travel to other places in the U.S. and abroad. Passengers will all be screened before travel by the ship’s medical personnel.

Healthy passengers won’t enter the airport’s terminals, but instead they’ll be escorted directly from the tarmac onto one of five chartered flights, with destinations in Toronto, Atlanta, San Francisco, and Frankfurt on Friday and London on Saturday. There are around 200 passengers planned for each flight.

Passengers flying out on charter flights will remain onboard until being transferred directly to the tarmac for their flights. Their checked luggage will come off the ship and be placed in the terminal to be cleared by Customs.

Passengers leaving by vehicle, like those who live in Florida, will collect their checked luggage in the terminal then will be escorted to a private car contracted by Carnival Corp.

In a statement, Carnival Corp. said it expects to finish disembarking all critically ill and healthy passengers by Friday evening. Since passengers have been exposed to the virus on the ship, all passengers who leave to go home must quarantine at home for 14 days.

According to the plan, 13 total passengers hospitalized onboard need shore-side medical attention; a total of 26 have symptoms. Of the crew, 50 members have symptoms; one will need shore-side medical attention.

The ill passengers who are not in critical condition will remain on the ships until Saturday. If their symptoms are gone by then, they will get off the ships.

Other than those gravely sick, crew members will not leave either ship. How they get home will be addressed in a separate plan. Crew members who are too sick to travel but not in critical condition will also stay onboard until they recover.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office and medical examiner will investigate deaths on board the ships, and Carnival Corp. may use no more than 15 of the county’s on-shore hospital beds for sick passengers or crew.

According to the agreement, Carnival Corp. must pay Broward County $1 million in escrow until the contract’s obligations are met.

Broward County Mayor Dale Holness said at a press conference Thursday that he understands the concerns of residents who sent him letters in favor of and opposing the ships’ docking.

“That’s why we took the extra measure to put a plan in place that protects Broward County residents from further spread of this disease,” he said.

Holness said the prospect of docking the ships at a military base was never presented to the county and no county or federal workers will be boarding the ships.

“We had to be deliberate in our actions,” he said. “We couldn’t just do this without considering the consequences.”

At a press conference Thursday evening, Governor Ron DeSantis called the plan “real thoughtful” and said that was important to make sure Floridians and U.S. citizens are accommodated.

He said there are likely 25 other cruise ships at sea that have majority foreign passengers, which “may be difficult for us to accommodate.” He has said before that he didn’t want people who aren’t Floridians to use healthcare resources in South Florida, a hotspot of coronavirus cases.

“These two have U.S. citizens on board ... we have an interest in making sure those folks come safely,” he said.

Harrowing ordeal

For the 1,250 passengers and 1,186 crew aboard the two ships, Thursday’s arrival marked weeks of uncertainty as governments from Chile north along Central America denied their requests to land or transport sick patients. That included the state of Florida, where DeSantis for several days argued against allowing the ships to dock. After an hours-long meeting on Tuesday, Broward commissioners were still not ready to give their approval pending a more detailed plan from the company for evacuating passengers.

A decision did not come until Thursday morning, when Gov. Ron DeSantis told Fox News that government and the cruise company had come to an agreement that Floridians onboard the two ships will be able to return home with help of the Florida National Guard.

“It’s all going to be done in a way as to not expose the people of Florida to the illnesses ... you got to be safe when doing this stuff,” DeSantis said. “They can’t just release them into the general public.”

Passengers first boarded the ship in Buenos Aires, Argentina on March 7, one day before the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and State Department warned all Americans to avoid cruise ships, citing the increased risk of COVID-19 spread on board. The cruise’s original destination, Chile, turned the ship away on March 21.

Carnival Corp.’s chief maritime officer Bill Burke told Broward County commissioners Tuesday that the company had tried to evacuate critically ill passengers in nearly every country from Chile to the U.S., most recently in Mexico on Tuesday. No country would take them.

“We are coming to the place of last resort,” he said about Port Everglades.

Holland America transferred more than 800 passengers from the Zaandam to the Rotterdam on March 27 and 28 after tests confirmed the new coronavirus was on board. The ships crossed through the Panama Canal on Saturday evening. It took four days for them to arrive in Florida.

On Thursday morning, as the ships floated along the South Florida coast, the company had still not been cleared to dock by “Unified Command,” a cohort that consists of leadership from Broward County’s Port Everglades, the U.S. Coast Guard, Broward Sheriff’s Office, Customs and Border Protection and the Florida Department of Health.

The projected arrival time of 1 p.m. was then pushed back.

The port, which has been packed with laid-up cruise ships since companies canceled new cruises on March 13, cleared out completely Wednesday evening.

Up until Wednesday, Governor Ron DeSantis had vowed to keep the ship away from Florida. He changed his tune after learning there are U.S. citizens on board the ships, he said. Among the passengers are 311 U.S. citizens, 52 of them Florida residents.

As the President, DeSantis and Broward County Commissioners publicly mulled what to do with the Zaandam and Rotterdam, passengers on board were upset by the comments online from people who did not want the ships to dock.

“As an American, seeing idiotic comments about people who don’t want to allow Americans to disembark is pathetic,” said Rick de Pinho, a 53-year-old patent attorney from Warren Township, N.J. “We have to remember we are all human and not forget to have compassion for mankind....Governments need to help people disembark and get home to their families.”

Miami Herald reporter Michelle Kaufman contributed to this story.

Timeline

March 7: Holland America Line ship Zaandam leaves Buenos Aires on 14-day itinerary

March 21: Zaandam turned away from original end-destination in Chile, where it was set to begin a 20-day cruise ending in Fort Lauderdale

March 22: Passengers are isolated in their cabins

March 27: Zaandam reaches Panama Canal, shifts more than 800 passengers to sister ship Rotterdam

March 28: Ships get approval to pass through the canal. They plan to dock in Port Everglades but have no docking approval

March 30: Gov. Ron DeSantis said he did not want to see the ships dock in Port Everglades

March 31: Broward County Commission debates allowing the ships to dock but makes no decision

April 1: Gov. Ron DeSantis said he is willing to accept any Floridians onboard the ships

April 2

• 10:30 a.m.: Gov. Ron DeSantis announces to Fox News that the state and company have agreed on a plan

• 11 a.m.: Both ships are scheduled to dock at Port Everglades at 1 p.m. and 1:30 p.m.

• 1:30 p.m.: Port Everglades schedule shifts docking time to 4 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.

• 4:45 p.m.: Zaandam docks in Port Everglades

• 5:15 p.m.: Rotterdam docks in Port Everglades