A CCL-Carnival Cruise Line ship that departed PortMiami Florida has "a small number" of people onboard who have tested positive for COVID, and has been denied entry to ports at a couple of Caribbean islands.
However, Carnival Freedom was granted access to visit Amber Cove (Dominicana), company spokesperson AnneMarie Mathews said in a statement.
The statement reads "Carnival Freedom is following all protocols and has a small number on board who are in isolation due to a positive Covid test."
"Our protocols anticipate this possibility, and we implement them as necessary to protect the health and safety of our guests and crew. This is a vaccinated cruise, and all guests were also tested before embarkation."
Carnival Freedom departed PortMiami on December 18 and called at Willemstad (Curacao Island, Dutch Antilles) on Tuesday. Her scheduled stops at the Caribbean islands of Bonaire (Kralendijk) on December 22 and Aruba (Oranjestad) on December 23 were canceled.
Those calls were replaced by Friday's stop in Dominicana.
Carnival Freedom will return to PortMiami as scheduled on Sunday, December 26, the cruise line said.
The entry into Curacao was also delayed due to the COVID cases detected onboard.
Dr. Izzy Gerstenbluth, a national epidemiologist for Curacao, said he was alerted by the cruise ship prior to her docking that it had crew who tested positive for COVID. Once Gerstenbluth arrived onboard, he determined the cases were contained among the crew members. Curacao allowed the passengers to leave the liner, but the crew remained onboard.
For more Carnival Freedom incidents and accidents see the ship's CruiseMinus page.