But with ports denying the boat entry, they have had to temper their concern with the amenities on board.
He said that the passengers’ last chance to touch land was in Perth, where they docked after “70 wonderful days” of crossing the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. That was when the U.N. World Health Organization alerted the pandemic in March. From that point the ship made only technical and refueling stops, before the journey back toward the Mediterranean, which took it through the Suez Canal, according to the company.
The Deliziosa, a nearly 300-meter vessel, will disembark 168 Spanish passengers on Monday at Barcelona’s port. Then the Deliziosa will head to its final destination, Genoa, Italy, where it is expected to let off the remaining passengers, Italians and those of other nationalities, on Wednesday. The Deliziosa was originally due to return to Venice on April 26.
The couple said that after a stop in Sydney, the ship’s activities were “reduced or sometimes canceled. We haven’t been able to get out on land since March 14 – that’s 34 days.” A French woman whose in-laws are aboard the Deliziosa garnered about 100 signatures on an online petition to urge the French government to intervene to get them home.
Last month, two other Costa cruise ships pulled into Italian ports, including one that earlier had aboard passengers who tested positive for COVID-19 before being disembarked in France.