Cruise ships returning to Hawaii after nearly 2 years

Despite a record number of COVID-19 infections in Hawaii last week and a stern warning by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention against cruise ship travel, the state will welcome back its first cruise ship in nearly two years with today’s arrival of the Grand Princess.

The Carnival Corp. vessel, sailing from Los Angeles with 2,138 passengers and crew members, is scheduled to arrive at 9:15 a.m. at Pier 2B and leave at 11 p.m., docking at Kauai’s Nawiliwili Harbor Monday and Hilo Harbor Tuesday.

The Grand Princess is one of 94 vessels under observation by the CDC after reports of coronavirus cases on board.

Under the federal agency’s color-coded system for cruise ships, the Grand Princess had “yellow” status as of Friday, meaning the reported cases of COVID-19 had met the threshold for CDC investigation based on surveillance data from the previous seven days.

The criteria for yellow status includes cases reported in 0.10% or more of passengers, or one or more cases among the crew.

According to the state Department of Transportation, the Grand Princess, which has a capacity of 3,006 passengers, is carrying 1,188 passengers, or close to 40% of capacity, and 950 crew members. Based on the CDC criteria for yellow status, that means at least one passenger might have been reported to have COVID-19, or perhaps at least one crew member was infected.

The CDC system does not say what the maximum number of cases is before a cruise ship is elevated to “red” status, which indicates “sustained transmission” of COVID-19 or the potential for cases to overwhelm onboard medical resources.

None of the 110 ships currently on the list had red status.

The agency also noted that the ships on the color-­­coded list “are operating under health and safety protocols that align with CDC’s standards for protecting passengers, crew, port personnel, and communities by mitigating the public health risks posed by COVID-19.”

Even still, the CDC on Dec. 30 raised its COVID-19 warning level for cruise ships to 4, the highest level, and urged the public to avoid ocean and river cruises, regardless of vaccination status.

Norwegian Cruise Line last week suspended voyages on eight cruise ships — including the Honolulu-­based Pride of America — after one of its ships on Wednesday returned early to Miami due to a COVID-19 outbreak among crew members, according to the Miami Herald.

The Pride of America was scheduled to resume interisland voyages Jan. 22 but all its embarkation dates through Feb. 26 have been canceled.

Royal Caribbean International on Friday announced it was suspending some of its upcoming cruises because of concerns over the fast-spreading omicron variant.

On Thursday, Hawaii hit a record high 4,789 new COVID-19 infections, according to the state Department of Health. Saturday’s case numbers dropped but remain elevated, with 4,204 new confirmed and probable infections statewide, DOH reported, bringing the total since the start of the pandemic to 138,646 cases.

The state Harbors Division announced Tuesday that Gov. David Ige had signed the first port agreements with Carnival and NCL to formalize health and safety protocols for their operations in the state.

Under the agreements, the ships’ agents must ensure that testing and Safe Travels Hawaii requirements are followed, said DOT spokeswoman Shelly Kuni­shige. Passengers and crew members must test negative for COVID-19 within 72 hours of their first Hawaii port of call or must have recovered from the virus within 90 days of reaching the state, per the state’s COVID-19 portal.

Although a 95% vaccination rate is required, NCL and Carnival agreed to vaccination rates of 99% to 100%.

If there are any presumptive positive coronavirus cases on board, the ship must notify the DOT and the affected persons must isolate.

“If they are not vaccinated, they would be tested before disembarking,” Kunishige said.

Before embarking on the ships, passengers must have a negative test within 48 hours of sailing. Anyone with symptoms, regardless of test results, must be moved to a designated area on the ship for screening.

Once docked at Hawaii ports, the ship’s passengers will disembark on a staggered schedule to limit crowds, Kunishige said.

The Grand Princess is the first cruise ship to disembark passengers in the islands since the CDC issued a no-sail order for all cruise ships in March 2020. Its visit will be quickly followed by other cruise ships, starting with Tuesday’s arrival from San Diego of The World, a sailing residence with a capacity of 594 passengers, according to hawaii.portcall.com.

Five other cruise ship arrivals from mainland ports are scheduled for January, with three in February.

A petition on change.org calls for Hawaii’s leaders “to do better and more to protect the people of Hawaii and our already strained and limited healthcare system from COVID-19 by creating a new set of Safe Travel regulations regarding cruise ships.”

So far it has garnered nearly 100 signatures.

The governor’s office, DOH and the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority did not return calls from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on whether there have been any discussions about amending the port agreements in light of the ongoing surge in COVID-19 cases and concerns about recent outbreaks on cruise ships.

The cruise industry is an important segment for Hawaii tourism. In 2019, 68 out-of-state cruise ships brought 142,836 visitors to the islands, according to HTA data. Total cruise visitors — arrivals by cruise ships and by air to board cruise ships — rose 8.2% from the previous year to 272,389 visitors.