Ruby Princess sick confined as healthy clean and cook

Some of the 1000 crew members who remain aboard the ill-fated Ruby Princess cruise ship are quarantining in luxury staterooms.

An empty pool area aboard the Ruby Princess off NSW.

Some of the more than 1000 crew members who remain aboard the ill-fated Ruby Princess cruise ship are quarantining in luxury staterooms usually reserved for high-paying holiday-makers as the stalemate surrounding their ­future enters a third week.

The 18-deck liner moored in Port Kembla, about 100km south of Wollongong, on Monday morning, where it was scheduled to remain for the next week while it is resupplied and refuelled — though the fate of the 1040 crew on-board remained unclear.

Plans to repatriate the staff, from more than 50 different countries, were still to be finalised, and about a fifth of the crew have ­developed flu-like symptoms.

NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller has maintained the crew will only be permitted to disembark if they require hospital treatment, otherwise the nation’s borders remain closed to them.

One crew member, a Filipino national who has been working as a chef on board the Carnival-owned cruise liner for several years, said about a quarter of the staff were working to keep the massive liner clean, while everyone else was quarantined inside guest cabins, fed with three full meals a day.

“We don’t leave our room … they provide us with vitamins and all to keep us healthy. Food and water and sanitising solutions and linens and all other stuff that we need are being delivered to us,” he told The Australian on Monday.

“Some of our colleagues are still working for the technical, food production, deliveries, and sanitation and disinfection of the whole ship.”

Employees still working on-board the luxury liner include some of the entertainment staff, with the chef saying that daily exercise classes and shows were broadcast from the ship’s piazza to the television sets in each stateroom alongside the regular ranging of programs and films.

He said there was a growing sense of discontent among the crew, who have been isolated on the ship since its 2700 passengers were allowed to disembark at Sydney’s Circular Quay on March 19. “We are being accused to be the reason why there is a virus in Australia. That is why we can’t go home,” he said. “They still won’t allow us to disembark in Australia because there is now an investigation going on … I want to go home soon to be with my family back in The Philippines.”

One entertainer on the vessel said he had expected the ship to go into lockdown after it docked in Sydney Harbour almost three weeks ago, and that he had seen “uncertainties in the eyes of most of my fellow co-workers”.

“Fear of not being able to go back home (because of countries closing their borders, because of flights being cancelled all around the world), fear regarding wellbeing/health, fear regarding work and salaries,” he said on social media at the time. “We are goin’ through something quite extraordinary. But that’s my point: we are goin’ through this. It will take some time. It won’t be easy. But we will get out of this.”