A crew member on Royal Caribbean's Celebrity Infinity cruise ship has died, while two others on the Oasis of the Seas were evacuated for medical reasons, the company said Friday.
The Miami-based cruise line didn't give any other info on the crew members.
As of Friday, the Infinity was waiting off Florida’s west coast, and the Oasis of the Seas was positioned off Broward County’s shores.
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The news comes as two Holland America ships, the Zaandam and Rotterdam, arrived at Port Everglades and began to let passengers off Friday. Officials said 14 critically ill people were taken off the ships and brought to local hospitals for treatment.
Meanwhile, the Coral Princess, which had been expected to arrive at the Port Everglades terminal on Saturday with more than 1,000 passengers who have been isolating in their cabins, including 12 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on board, was now not expected to dock there after being denied entry by the Coast Guard, port officials said.
Princess Cruises, a line owned by the larger corporation, had already announced a “higher-than-normal” number of people with flu-like symptoms aboard the Coral Princess.
The U.S. Coast Guard has directed that hundreds of crew members should remain on the dozens of cruise ships that are either docked or waiting just off Florida's shores, and that cruise lines should be prepared to treat all but the most serious cases on board to avoid adding more stress to Florida's health care system.
