Vallarta Turns Away Cruise Ship, Leaving Passengers at Sea for Christmas Adry Torres - Dailymail.com
go to original December 25, 2021

A cruise ship scheduled to stop in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico was forced to return to San Diego after being turned away by Mexican authorities due to positive employee COVID-19 tests. (CBS8 San Diego)

More than 1,000 American passengers spent Christmas k aboard a cruise ship after authorities in the western Mexico state of Jalisco blocked them from disembarking because 21 crew members had tested positive for COVID-19.

The Holland America Line ship sailed off from San Diego on Sunday with stops in the Mexican resort cities of Los Cabos and Mazatlán before it arrived on the coast of Puerto Vallarta on Thursday at approximately 7.30am.

The Jalisco state health department considered allowing each of the 1,035 passengers off the MS Koningsdam, which has at least 873 crew, as long as they turned in proof of negative COVID-19 tests, Mexican news outlet Milenio reported.

But, officials soon did a u-turn over fears that the outbreak could have spread further than the 21 infected crew members.

'This option was discarded because the health protocols indicate that no one could disembark when positive cases were registered on the boat, so the decision was finally made not to disembark,' the health department said in a statement.

The decision has frustrated passengers, with one, Paulette Laussane York, snapping a photo of the port city's beach shoreline.

'Puerto Vallarta from our veranda,' she wrote on Facebook. 'Mexican authorities won't let anyone off our cruise ship, Koningsdam. Some crew members (fully vaccinated) tested positive for COVID. Ship is headed back out to sea.'

It comes as the Omicron continues to drive a surge of new COVID cases across the US, with Christmas Eve seeing total infections edge closer to the all-time record.

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Related: Cruise Passengers on Holiday Trip Deal With Outbreaks: ‘We’re Sailing on a Petri Dish’ (The Washington Post)

Related: Cruises Are Once Again Facing Disruption Because of COVID-19 (CNN)