A small cruise in southeast Alaska had to return to port after one of its passengers received news that they had tested positive for COVID-19.
Uncruise’s Wilderness Adventurer set sail from Juneau on Saturday bound for a weeklong trip through Glacier Bay National Park and surrounding areas but learned of the positive coronavirus case just days into the voyage. The ship was carrying 36 passengers and 30 crew members.
Uncruise CEO Dan Blanchard told KTOO that there were stringent safety measures in place prior to departing, which included requiring every passenger to be tested up to five days before boarding the ship. Passengers were also tested a second time upon arrival at the city’s airport. Blanchard said that at one point, some guests were out exploring and managed to get cell service.
“And our guest received a call from a testing facility in Juneau, run by the state of Alaska, that their second test had come back positive,” he said.
The company’s emergency response protocols were immediately activated, and guests were quarantined in their rooms until the vessel made it back to Juneau. The individual who received the positive test was given another saliva test, as were other close traveling companions, and those results were sent off to a lab.
Once back at the port on Wednesday morning, the passengers were put up in a hotel to quarantine, and the crew remained on the ship to do the same. Nobody else aboard the Wilderness Adventurer have shown any symptoms of COVID-19.
This was Uncruise’s first sailing of the year in Alaska, and the first cruise to sail Alaska waters this year. It will also likely be the last cruise in Alaska this year. Other companies shut down their plans for cruises earlier this year as the coronavirus began to spread, which has been a major blow to southeastern Alaska communities who rely on the tourism industry.
Liz Perry, president and CEO of Travel Juneau, told the Anchorage Daily News prior to the ship’s departure that “basically they’re the only cruise operating in North America right now.”
Passengers will receive credit on future Uncruise trips, although the company’s four other cruises scheduled for this summer were canceled.
“Probably the two things that could have changed this situation. One is obvious: a vaccine. But the other is rapid testing,” Blanchard said.
Alaska has had more than 4,100 confirmed cases of illness and nearly two dozen deaths associated with it since the pandemic began. In Juneau, there have been 159 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University.
