At least eight Carnival Cruise Line guests have tested positive during the first two weeks on the Carnival Mardi Gras‘ sailings. Of course, Carnival Cruise Line has not disclosed all of these cases or other COVID-19 cases on the ship. The only question is how many other passengers and crew members tested positive during these two cruises.

Last week, Florida Today published an article by Dave Berman titled As Cruise Ship Passengers and Crew Contract COVID-19, Cruise Lines Upgrade Their Protocols. The article states that “three passengers tested positive for COVID-19 at the end of the recent inaugural seven-night sailing from Port Canaveral of Carnival Cruise Line’s newest and largest ship, the Mardi Gras.” It is less than clear whether Carnival or the home port (Port Canaveral) disclosed the positive cases.

Port officials at Port Canaveral explained to the newspaper that “two of the passengers were children who did not have the COVID-19 vaccine, and the third was a vaccinated parent of one of the children . . . ”

There were at least that many COVID infected passengers on the next cruise on this Carnival ship, which left Port Canaveral on August 7th and returned August 14th. This is the particular voyage during which cruise vlogger Dee of the vlogging partners Dee and Jay (who operate the popular “ParoDeeJay” YouTube page) became infected with COVID.  A couple on the same cruise subsequently advised me that they and another couple all tested positive after leaving the Mardi Gras, and again re -tested positive on a repeat test (See, comment section of article). Their complaints appear to have been ignored when the couple contacted Carnival Cruise Line after the cruise:

• “We tried to contact Carnival on Saturday to no answer even on Emergency number and sent an email to their customer care. This morning we called reservations and reported it and they said they were sending it to the resolution department. We still have not heard from anyone at Carnival. How many more are there and shouldn’t Carnival be engaging?”

This past week, 26 crew members on the Carnival Vista tested positive for COVID-19, one guest died after a medical evacuation from the port in Belize to the U.S., and one became very ill and was in a hospital ashore in Belize. Other guests undoubtedly became infected but Carnival summarily dismissed the seriousness of the outbreak claiming that it was managing just a “small number” of infected people.

Last week, the Sun Sentinel newspaper in Fort Lauderdale inquired into the number of COVID-19 cases on Carnival’s cruise ships.  A Carnival representative responded by stating “. . . we are not reporting specific numbers.”

Over the last twenty years, Carnival Cruise Line and its parent Company, Carnival Corporation, have struggled with basic traits of honesty and transparency. The disclosure of the true number of guests and crew infected with COVID-19 would go a long way to begin in regaining the public’s trust. Of course, Carnival Corporation has been convicted of not only numerous environmental crimes in continuously polluting the air and water for the past decade but has repeatedly been convicted of lying to the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Department of Justice. Unfortunately, this cruise line is a recidivist corporate felon which lies when it would do better to simply tell the truth.

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Image credit: Mardi Gras – kees torn – CC BY-SA 2.0, commons / wikimedia.