Aruba and Curacao Tell The Odyssey of the Seas To Keep Going

Officials from both islands deny entry citing the number of positives cases onboard.

As positive tests for Covid as a result of testing continue to rise, it was inevitable that some islands and countries would shut their doors. Aruba and Curacao are among the first recently denying entry to the Odyssey of the Seas, who had reported that they were carrying 55 fully vaccinated guests and crew

The Curacao Chronicle has reported that Health officials in Curacao refused to allow the ship to dock because the percentage of infected people on board was too high.

There were 51 positive cases on board on Wednesday morning, according to Dr. Izzy Gerstenbluth, Curacao's national epidemiologist. "The day before yesterday, 18 crew members were positive, yesterday 36, and this morning there were 51. In addition, several crew members have not been quarantined, so there is a good chance that passengers have also been infected," said Gerstenbluth. "With these numbers of infections, that percentage has been exceeded, and we are therefore not eager to receive these people on the island, especially not with the current figures on the island," Gerstenbluth told the Chronicle.

According to Royal Caribbean, Odyssey of the Seas can accommodate up to 5,500 guests plus 1600 crew members. It wasn’t clear if the ship was fully occupied on this trip. The outbreak comes days after at least 48 people aboard Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas tested positive for Covid-19 when the cruise docked in Miami, the company said. The Symphony of the Seas — known to be the world’s biggest cruise ship — had more than 6,000 passengers and crew on a week-long journey around the Caribbean. The number of people who tested positive accounted for 0.78% of the on-board population.