Cabin fever: on board the Ruby Princess
On day three, a passenger had a sore throat. Things spiralled from there.
On the vast and varied spectrum of cruisers – first-timers and full-timers, veterans, loners, foodies, partygoers – Tony Londero ranks as a happy enthusiast. Having spent most of his holidays over 62 years either by the beach or visiting family in Italy, for the past four years he has opted to cruise, enticed by the mix of good food, a relaxed pace and the vast variety of activities. Trivia, dancing, karaoke and choir, Londero is up for them all, and when he and his wife Kerry and two of their best friends embarked on their fourth voyage in March, he was keen to capitalise on the all-inclusive fare.
“It’s a very easy holiday, especially for the wife,” says Londero, an explosives specialist, from his home near Tamworth, NSW. “We like to go out for the fine dining and enjoy going to new places, and the activities. We have a lot of fun.” And so began their round-trip to New Zealand that left Sydney on Sunday, March 8 for a planned 13 nights.
At 288m long and 19 decks high, the Ruby Princess is strikingly similar to the dozens of other superliners that were cruising the world’s oceans that week, an enormous bubble-wrapped, all-you-can-eat, no-worries package holiday afloat. “A luminous jewel on the seas and a romantic destination in itself,” according to its operator, Princess Cruises. With its 1542 cabins, 20-plus bars and restaurants, casino, cigar lounge, fitness centre, shops and medical centre, the 12-year-old ship is a self-contained floating city.
“Cruise ships are beautiful,” says retiree Linda Cheyne, who with her husband Paul was travelling with the Londeros. “You don’t have any cleaning, and you don’t have any cooking. You’re treated like royalty.” There were other attractions for the two couples: the fact that it did not involve flying was a bonus, and there was that pervasive holiday air that cruise staff work so hard to create, rendering “happy people all around”, as Cheyne puts it. “They do make you feel good,” she says of the industrious, ever-smiling crew. “I think they’re there to make sure people have a good time, regardless of what’s happening.”
On the Sunday of their departure, silently and with great stealth, the world was changing in a way and at a pace not witnessed in living memory. Both couples were keenly aware, as they lined up for boarding at Circular Quay cheek-by-jowl with more than 2600 other passengers, that a lethal new virus was rapidly spreading outwards from China. But like so many on this voyage, they had also been assured that here at the bottom of the world, on a superliner moving to and fro between Australia and New Zealand, they were safe.
In less than a fortnight they would learn that the bubble into which they’d stepped was no shield from a virus resistant to borders. And even though the two countries bookending their trip were still mostly open and active as they departed, their voyage, and its timing, would have countless devastating consequences.
So many people were looking forward to this journey: nuclear families and multiple generations, couples and singles, beloved friends and old workmates. For some, it was the culmination of months of saving. Many more were thrilled to be realising a dream to visit New Zealand. From Australia and multiple countries, 2647 passengers were booked to take the return voyage from Sydney. Assisted by a crew of 1148, their itinerary spanned a multitude of Kiwi splendours: a day cruising Milford Sound, successive days in Dunedin, Akaroa, Wellington, Tauranga and Auckland, and a final stop in the Bay of Islands before returning to Sydney on Saturday, March 21.
As she headed towards the harbour from her home in Sydney’s north, Janet Dixon-Hughes was looking forward to her first holiday in years. Accompanied by her elderly mother and one of her three adult daughters, it would be a celebration of her 60th birthday and an opportunity to commemorate her late father, who died last year after 72 years of marriage. “I said, ‘Mum we should go on an adventure’,” she recalls. With scant research, Dixon-Hughes had picked this particular voyage “because it was after the beginning of the school year and we would be away on the date of Dad’s anniversary”. She reserved a mini-suite that could accommodate three adults, with enough room for her mother’s walker, and in December she paid the balance of the $8000 tariff.
Around that time a seismic shift occurred in another part of the world. A new virus that caused respiratory problems was reported in Wuhan, China. While details were unclear initially, by mid-January Covid-19 had been detected in Thailand – the first confirmed case outside China. By the end of that month more than 9000 cases had been reported, 213 people were dead and the World Health Organisation had declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. As February began, the first coronavirus case was confirmed in Spain and the US declared a public health emergency.
In the southern hemisphere, with a frantic summer of bushfires coming to an end, the Federal Government had been issuing a series of heightened warnings to Australians, advising on January 23 to reconsider travel to Wuhan, and by February 1 warning against travel to China. Towards the end of February, those warnings had been extended to South Korea and Iran. They would soon become bans. By early March, 33 people had been confirmed to have coronavirus in Australia and there had been one death. Travel specialist James Kwan, 78, had contracted the virus while quarantined on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship off Japan in a seriously mismanaged outbreak that had resulted in 712 cases of coronavirus and 13 deaths.
With the virus dominating news, Janet Dixon-Hughes became increasingly concerned at the prospect of taking her 95-year-old mother overseas, if only to New Zealand, which had recorded just one positive case by late February. “When things started to hot up and you started hearing about deaths in China, talk about a pandemic, I rang the travel agent and the insurance company. And both of them said, ‘Oh no, you’ll be fine,’” she recalls. “I even rang Mum’s doctor and said, ‘What do you think? Do you think it’s going to be safe?’ And he said, ‘Just go, it’ll be fine. It’s only New Zealand and there’s no virus in New Zealand.’ ”
On the other side of Sydney, Bill Beerens was alert to the virus but slightly less worried about its potential reach. “We’ve been married for 54 years and we’ve travelled all over Australia in a caravan and this time I wanted Mary to have a good holiday where she could sit back and enjoy the whole thing,” says Beerens, 77, a country music fan who hosted a national radio show for years. He and his wife had paid $6000 for a window cabin on this, their first cruise. “We didn’t really have any concerns,” Beerens says of the lead-up. “I know at one stage I asked someone, ‘How much is this going to cost us if we pull out? And they said, ‘Oh, it will cost you a fortune.’ So we just went ahead.”
In the weeks before the cruise, as coronavirus cases were appearing in more and more countries with increasing fatalities, “a couple of people had said, ‘Gee, I wouldn’t be going on a ship at the moment’,” says Beerens. “So I asked [the cruise line], ‘Where did the boat just come from?’ And they said, ‘It’s just come back from New Zealand.’ It made me relax. Because New Zealand and Australia, we’re the same, we’re all in the same boat.”
March is always a time of transition. The officialchange of seasons is also the unofficial end of a season of frivolity. Summer is over and the nation seems to put its head down. But early March 2020, in Australia as elsewhere, was a time of pronounced flux. Covid-19’s reach had expanded dramatically and already tens of thousands of people were infected in dozens of countries. At the start of March, the Department of Foreign Affairs issued its first warning about travelling to a small area of Italy, which had been quarantined from the rest of the country because of a serious outbreak. That same week, Princess Cruises announced that because of the virus it was temporarily modifying its cancellation policies for cruises departing up to May 31. For voyages leaving up to April 3, passengers could receive a future credit for 100 per cent of cancellation fees – if they cancelled at least 72 hours before sailing.
The announcement was made in California and dated March 5, but because of the time difference it was the evening of March 6 by the time Janet Dixon-Hughes received the notification via email in Sydney. Her cruise was less than 72 hours away. “I was really in two minds. If we had cancelled we would have lost $8000, but they didn’t give us the opportunity of rebooking.” Still, she was not entirely unnerved. “The cruise line had been saying if you present with symptoms [of coronavirus] you won’t be able to go on.”
So she packed her bags, even as more deadly milestones were marked: 100,000 cases reported around the world by March 6, and a federal health department advisory issued that same day: “If you develop symptoms such as a fever or cough… call a doctor, isolate yourself, cover your cough or sneeze, wash your hands regularly.”
By March 7, the virus had been detected in 100 countries. The following day, Sunday March 8, as a record 86,174 people crowded into the Melbourne Cricket Ground for the final of the Women’s T20 cricket World Cup, the federal health department issued another alert. “If you have recently travelled to a high-risk country and are feeling unwell, it’s important that you seek medical help as soon as possible.” The message was intended as a warning to travellers mostly far from home. For those preparing to leave low-risk Australia for low-risk New Zealand, it was also an unintended reassurance.
It was now departure day, and 2647 holidaymakers were preparing to board the Ruby Princess directly opposite Sydney Opera House. As part of the usually speedy turnaround between voyages, passengers had been given staggered boarding times. But as they made their way to the Overseas Passenger Terminal around lunchtime, many started receiving texts from the cruise line that their departure had been delayed by NSW Health.
“That wasn’t a big concern. We just thought, well, NSW Health really want to make sure everything is right,” says Tony Londero. “I just assumed that they were being extra careful and making sure that the ship was extra clean.”
Like other passengers, he did not know that on the previous cruise, which had disembarked in Sydney only hours earlier, 158 people had been sick (nine were subsequently tested for Covid-19, all returning a negative result). While the ship was deemed at medium risk of an outbreak of illness, NSW Health would later declare there was no evidence of coronavirus on board when the Ruby Princess finally sailed for New Zealand, hours late, at the close of Sunday March 8.
It was a beautiful night, and the delayed departure did not dampen the enthusiasm of those who gathered on the upper decks for the traditional sail-away party. “Sydney being a spectacular water city, the lights, the Opera House, a number of us were out on deck as we departed Circular Quay,” says army veteran Nick Nicolai, who was excited to attend his ninth reunion of the New Zealand and Australian air dispatch associations. Thirty seven people were on board for the biennial reunion and “everybody was upbeat. And for the whole cruise there was no issue.”
As March 8 ended and the Ruby Princess sailed away from Australia, 79 cases of coronavirus were confirmed around the country, and two more people were dead, both of them residents of the same aged-care facility in Sydney.
The trip across the Tasman Sea was characteristically rough. On Monday March 9, their first full day on board, many passengers were finding their sea legs, although Bill Beerens was pleased to see his wife enjoying the trip. “Everything was spot on: the food, the beds, everything was done for you,” he says. “It was just beautiful.”
With land a few days away, the couple established a routine that involved lots of eating and walking. “There was so much variety. We went to a show every night. How would I rate it? Eight out of 10,” says Beerens, who marvelled at the hundreds of people who would clamour in the shopping area as bargains were being spruiked. “There was nothing you can knock about the ship. There were so many people looking after you all the time. If you sat in the cafe, within a matter of minutes someone was there, ‘Can I help you?’ ”
Although the televisions in their cabins carried regular news bulletins, holiday mode meant that not everyone tuned in to the latest updates about the virus. Some parts of Australia appeared to be operating as usual: the Formula One Grand Prix was only a few days away in Melbourne and Prime Minister Scott Morrison was looking forward to watching his beloved Cronulla Sharks play in Sydney at the end of the week. But in other ways life was rapidly changing; after the ship’s first day at sea, the Federal Government issued one more travel advisory: “Australians, particularly those with underlying health concerns, should reconsider taking an overseas cruise at this time.”
Monday and Tuesday were spent at sea, and Tony Londero was making the most of the on-board activities. Each night at 7.30pm he, Kerry and Linda and Paul Cheyne would gather in the ship’s huge theatre for the first of two scheduled shows, with a bill that included a Rod Stewart impersonator and the in-house dance troupe. By day Londero was even busier, joining the passenger choir, teaming up with a US army retiree for trivia, and partnering an 80-year-old at dance classes.
Like almost everyone on board, Londero was aware of the global spread of coronavirus. “We’d discussed it and we thought, ‘We’re going to New Zealand’. The ship just goes back and forth [there], and we assumed the risk was very low.” So when he developed a mild sore throat as the Ruby Princess approached Milford Sound early on Wednesday March 11, he was barely concerned. Mostly he was thrilled by the spectacular scenery on this cold and unusually clear morning. “It was,” he says, “a perfect day to get in there.”
The following morning the ship docked at Port Chalmers and 2600-odd passengers were back on land. The Londeros and the Cheynes took the free shuttle bus into Dunedin and spent a few hours wandering around. Londero, wary of passing on his sore throat to his good friend Paul Cheyne, who has heart disease, kept his distance.
Concerned about her husband’s health, Linda Cheyne had also contacted the cruise line in the weeks before departure. “I rang and asked about it [Covid-19] and they said they did everything they possibly can to make sure that nothing is there and it would be fine,” she says. “They said, ‘Be assured that every precaution is taken to make sure there’s nothing funny around.’ That made me feel better.”
But Londero’s sore throat, though mild, meant their combined holiday began to change in Dunedin. “Because of Paul, Tony said, ‘I don’t want to have a lot to do with you guys because I would hate that you get something.’” So the couples started eating apart and their regular rendezvous in the theatre ended.
That night, the Ruby Princess headed north. The same day, the World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a pandemic.
Every day the ship arrived in a new port. And every day the restrictions being imposed as a result of Covid-19 were being tightened. On Friday March 13, visiting the charming town of Akaroa, Londero noticed his muscles were aching. “But I didn’t feel sick.” The same day, the Department of Foreign Affairs advised all Australians to reconsider their need for overseas travel.
Saturday March 14: Wellington. Robin Russ, a 62-year-old full-time carer who had saved for a year to take the cruise with her partner, Greg Butler, remembers spending the day on a bus tour of the Kiwi capital, admiring its spectacular waterfront. “I’ve been on two cruises before and absolutely loved it because the staff look after you and treat you like kings and queens, the food is fabulous and you can just relax,” she says.
Tony Londero remembers his visit to Wellington as the day he came down with a bad headache that wouldn’t budge. “And I heard on the news that 250 people had died in Italy that night. I’m Italian and that was a real shock. So we got together [with the Cheynes] and had a talk and I said, ‘I’m starting to get very concerned about this and I don’t actually feel very well. I think we should really rethink our situation.’ From then on Kerry and I never went to the restaurant. We stayed in the room. If we went out it was to somewhere that was very quiet.”
That afternoon New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced that anyone arriving in New Zealand, except those from Pacific Islands, would now have to isolate for 14 days, and no more cruise ships could dock until June 30. While the Ruby Princess, already in New Zealand, was able to continue its journey, those on board had no idea that five of their fellow passengers with flu-like symptoms were tested for coronavirus that day in Wellington. The NZ ministry of health later said all the tests came back negative.
Napier was the next port, and it was memorable for several reasons. For Linda Cheyne, it was the most anticipated destination because of its streets full of art deco buildings. For New Zealanders, this Sunday marked one year since 51 people had been shot dead in a terrorist attack in Christchurch. And it would be remembered by Ruby Princess passengers as their last port of call.
In Australia, Scott Morrison – who did not end up in the crowd watching the Cronulla Sharks play – announced that all international cruise ships were banned from sailing into or out of Australia for 30 days and that anyone travelling to Australia from overseas would need to self-isolate for 14 days. That night, when they should have been heading to Tauranga, where many had booked to visit the Lord of the Rings movie set, an announcement was made over the Ruby Princess’s PA system: halfway through the planned itinerary, the ship was heading back to Sydney.
Despite the pandemic’s mounting toll, and Princess’s offer of a partial refund, the news still shocked many passengers. Bill Beerens was “sad, disappointed, because we spent all this money. Mary was quite happy being on the water. Everything was going well.” And he was bewildered. Why was Australia closing its borders?
Although it was not always obvious, coronavirus had already had a massive impact on the cruise and its passengers. At almost every stage of their journey, restrictions had been tightened in Australia and New Zealand as a result of its spread. Yet the thought that the virus might have actually reached the ship was not immediately apparent to many. Tasmanian Maureen Dawes, 77, who was on the trip with her partner Len Fisher, remembers spotting a woman at dinner that night wearing a mask. “I thought she was sick. And I said to Len, ‘She should be in isolation and she should take meals to her room’.” It did not occur to Dawes that the woman might have donned the mask to protect herself from others.
The cruise of New Zealand was effectively over. Still, the atmosphere on the Ruby Princess was remarkably light. As far as Bill Beerens could tell, “everybody was happy, everybody was healthy”.
“The crew felt sorry for us that we had our cruise cut short and they were doing their best to keep us jolly,” says Janet Dixon-Hughes, who, apart from the odd movie on deck or in the theatre, had mostly stayed with her mother and daughter in their cabin or on their balcony for much of the voyage. “We had a wonderful time. Luckily we’re fairly anti-social.”
Because of her mother’s age, the trio had mostly avoided group shore excursions, finding it easier to hire a car and drive themselves around. Wary of coronavirus, they had also brought on board disinfectant spray, gloves, masks and hand sanitiser. “I went over that place like a fine-tooth comb when we got there, not that it wasn’t clean and comfortable,” says Dixon-Hughes. And with copious amounts of hand sanitiser being proffered on board, “it all seemed clean and above board”.
But as they turned back to Sydney, many passengers began to notice that this cruise was different. That night, “the captain announced that if anyone was feeling unwell or had flu-like symptoms to go to the medical centre”, says Robin Russ, who was travelling with her partner and four friends. “And we all looked at each other then. We didn’t know that there were people with coronavirus on the boat… we thought, ‘Obviously there’s a few people that must be crook’.”
Passengers also received an undated letter from Australian Border Force. It said that as a result of changes announced on March 15, travellers now needed to self-isolate for 14 days. Australian citizens or permanent residents returning from cruise ships with domestic connections could still travel to the airport after their cruise. Others should self-isolate at their accommodation until they needed to be at the airport. “You must then self-isolate at home or your final destination for the remainder of the 14-day period.”
When Tony Londero read the letter, still a few days out from home, he went straight down to the medical centre. “There were a couple of people in there but there was nobody admitted at that stage to the hospital on the ship.” Londero had a fever by then and that lingering terrible headache, and when medical staff checked his vital signs they thought he was having a heart attack because of signs of stress on his heart. “The doctor and the nurses were excellent,” he says. “They were very thorough.” Kind and reassuring, they admitted him to the medical centre where he remained for the rest of the journey. “My lungs were clear at that stage. I never sneezed. And the doctor said, ‘We’ll do some tests, there’s something going on. Perhaps it’s some sort of flu.’ She didn’t think I had coronavirus, and I didn’t either.” But limited facilities meant he could not be tested for Covid-19 on the ship. Instead, he had a swab taken that was kept for testing when the ship docked in Sydney.
“We didn’t know what to think,” says Linda Cheyne, when asked if then she suspected her friend had Covid-19. “They were saying he had a fever. Right up until he got off the ship they said to his wife it wasn’t coronavirus, it was just a virus.”
Wednesday, March 18 was to have been the most important day of the trip for Janet Dixon-Hughes and her family. The anniversary of her father’s death was to have been marked with a cruise through the Bay of Islands and a visit to a glow worm cave. Instead, it was their last day at sea. But the atmosphere was still far from sombre, and as per tradition the waiters in the ship’s lavish a la carte restaurant farewelled diners that night with a song-and-dance routine. Says Dixon-Hughes: “They had a Bombe Alaska conga line essentially through the restaurant goers.”
It would be a fortuitous final night. With the ship only hours away from Sydney, the Federal Government issued yet another warning. “Our advice to all Australians – regardless of your destination, age or health – is do not travel overseas at this time.”
There was no welcome ceremony when the ship finally docked in Sydney – not at sunrise, when most cruise liners enter the harbour, but at 2.30am on Thursday, March 19. Having been given staggered times to disembark after breakfast, many passengers were asleep as they docked – but not all. “Someone was taken off the boat and the sun wasn’t even up,” remembers Robin Russ. “My girlfriend said she had seen them guerneying someone off into the ambulance.”
Tony Londero was taken off the ship around 3.30am and sent to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, the significance of his illness still not obvious to him. “I was worried that they were going to put me in a ward with people with coronavirus. That scared me because I didn’t believe I had it.” He tried to reassure staff that he was fine. “But then I had a seizure.” He tested positive to Covid-19 and was hospitalised for a week. His wife Kerry later tested positive, too.
Back on the ship, as the sun rose, the crew lined up to farewell the thousands of passengers who were ending their holiday with a mix of joy, regret and even naivety. “There were so many people there,” Bill Beerens remembers of the packed disembarkation. “We were all in one snake line right alongside each other. When I got to the end of this particular line there was a security guy there and he said, ‘Move back a bit please because I don’t know if you’ve got it [the virus].’ And I though it was a bit rude that he asked me to move back. Have you ever heard someone asking you to move away from them? That’s not Australia.”
With swabs of ill passengers still being tested, there were no health checks as the remaining travellers left for their homes. Instead, Maureen Dawes remembers the beautiful farewell as she and her partner Len Fisher disembarked. “As we came off the boat all the crew was waving and clapping.” They took a private transfer to the airport with friends and flew back to Hobart later that day.
But even for novice cruisers, what characterised this disembarkation was its speed. “This was the fastest I have ever been passed through an international gateway in any of my travels,” says army veteran Nick Nicolai. From the time he left the ship until he had cleared customs and immigration, collected his bags and hailed a cab to take him home, it took “probably all of 10 minutes”.
Janet Dixon-Hughes had arranged for a crew member to take her mother off the ship in a wheelchair. It was such a hasty exit, she says, “I had to run to keep up”. Still, she was not worried that any harm could have come from their trip. On the contrary. “I had gone on being prepared. By the end of the cruise I had become quite complacent. I was so relaxed by that stage I was more concerned about stepping off the boat and going into a Sydney riddled with coronavirus.”
Compared with many others parts of Australia, Sydney would soon be peppered with Covid-19 and one of the most significant sources would be this Ruby Princess cruise. Passengers disembarked to an ever-changing world, mindful of instructions to head home and into 14 days of isolation. That night, all non-residents were banned from entering Australia; New Zealand also closed its borders to everyone except citizens and residents.
Only then did the ramifications of their holiday start to emerge. Bill Beerens began coughing on the bus that took him and his wife home to western Sydney, where their son Danny, who had been house-minding, greeted them. With his health deteriorating, that night Beerens went to hospital and tested positive for Covid-19, as did his wife. Their son later tested positive, too. “He got sick after we came home,” says Beerens. “I felt pretty bloody slack. You don’t want anybody to go through what you’re going through. It’s nasty.”
The following day, March 20, Princess Cruises announced that three guests and one crew member had tested positive for Covid-19. By then, back in Hobart, Maureen Dawes and Len Fisher had started feeling unwell. When Dawes became ill on Saturday March 21, she was tested but was negative. Fisher, although coughing and feeling lethargic, did not get tested that day. “He wouldn’t speak up,” Dawes says now when asked why he waited until the Sunday to be checked. He was then admitted to hospital and found to be infected. He died in late March, aged 81.
After the cruise, Robin Russ and her party of six headed back to Tamworth. They caught the light rail to Central station and then a train to Tuggerah on NSW’s central coast, where they collected their cars and, as they had been instructed, went home to self-isolate for 14 days.
But the next day, her partner Greg Butler had “a funny cough”. He tested positive on the Saturday and, after one initially negative result, so did Russ two days later. Their subsequent isolation in Butler’s small apartment was harrowing, “being that sick that you don’t know whether you’re going to wake up the next day. I had so much anxiety of a night, thinking, ‘Am I going to get the respiratory thing next?’” Russ recalls. At one point Butler collapsed and she thought he was dead. They have both since recovered. While the health costs were significant, so was the emotional toll of their trip. “We’ve had some terrible things said about us,” says Russ, whose daughter was trolled online because of her mother’s decision to take the cruise. “We come from a country town and everyone knows each other. Greg even got death threats, like, ‘I hope you die’ and ‘If you kill my son’ . . . [they were] blaming us for bringing the virus in to Tamworth.”
Janet Dixon-Hughes, whose family has property in NSW’s Hunter Valley, has been the subject of similar resentment. “We’ve been told, ‘You can’t come up here because neighbours will complain because you’ve been on the ship. You’ve been interviewed, everyone knows who you are. If anyone sees you they’ll call the police.’” Although Dixon-Hughes, her elderly mother and daughter have all tested negative, the stigma endures. “My mother is really upset because she feels like she’s been made into a criminal for going on a cruise.”
In the weeks since its return to Sydney, the Ruby Princess has become Australia’s biggest source of Covid-19 infections. A month after its return, 19 passengers were dead in Australia, two deaths were reported from the US and more than 600 had tested positive. With around 200 of the 1100-odd crew struck down with the virus, the ship spent weeks moored at Port Kembla.
“It simply wasn’t safe for Ruby Princess to sail away from Australia and away from health-care services that might become urgently needed,” Sture Myrmell, president of Carnival Australia (which represents Princess Cruises in Australia and New Zealand), said in a video statement, adding that the ship had carried out all government requirements “to the letter”. That didn’t stop accusations being hurled almost immediately between NSW Health, Australian Border Force and the cruise line over the circumstances that allowed so many people to disembark unchecked. So much illness and so many deaths emanated from the cruise that NSW Police has launched a criminal investigation and the state government has established a special commission of inquiry.
Among the infected passengers were several of the 37 members attending the air dispatch associations’ reunion with Nick Nicolai. One of them was grandmother Janet Lieben, 67, from Blayney near Orange. She had boarded the cruise with her husband Jerry, a retired army man. She died from the virus on April 1.
For those who took this journey, it has become tragically unforgettable. “We were told we would be OK,” says Dixon-Hughes. “We were only going to New Zealand. The doctor said we would be OK, the travel agent said we would be OK and the cruise company said we were going to be OK.”
But adversity does not necessarily mean adieu. Some have been put off cruising again, but certainly not all. “Yes, I probably would,” says Robin Russ, who has since recovered, when asked if she would take another cruise. “The crew are absolutely beautiful. You can’t fault it. And it’s not them that started it. God, it started in China, and this is all the roll-on from that bloody thing.”
Nick Nicolai, who has been calling his travelling group’s members daily to check on their welfare following Janet Lieben’s death, says he would sail with the company again without hesitation. “The cruise was fantastic. The aftermath is where the problems lie.”
Linda Cheyne, who avoided contracting the virus that struck down Tony and Kerry Londero (they have since recovered), remains in awe at the cheery composure of the crew. “I take my hat off to them because they obviously knew what was happening and they just tried to make everyone feel at ease,” she says. “We did still have a beautiful time regardless.” She has not, however, been in a hurry to tell anyone about her holiday afloat. “It’s a bit scary to tell people you’ve been on it because they look at you funny,” she says. “None of us expected it to be like this.”
Certainly not Tony Londero, who is left with a mixture of anger and guilt. “I caught it from someone unknown to me,” he says, and then remembers all those wonderful passengers with whom he danced and sang. “And maybe,” he says sadly, although there is no way he can ever know for sure, “I unknowingly passed it on to others.”