A Princess Cruises ship with 800+ positive COVID cases docked in Sydney Harbour (NSW Australia) at 6 am on Saturday, November 12.
Carrying ~3300 passengers plus 1300 crew, Majestic Princess disembarked at Sydney after a 12-day roundtrip to New Zealand.
However, a spokesperson for Princess Cruises said guests with COVID (all “mildly symptomatic/asymptomatic”) would isolate in their staterooms onboard before disembarking.
Guests will travel to their chosen destinations via private transport arranged by Princess.
NSW Health classified Majestic Princess as a “high impact”/“tier-three” ship - the highest classification in its tier system. This means there are 100/more positive cases per 1000 people onboard, or that the ship is unable to maintain critical services because of staffing/resource shortages.
Passengers disembarking need to adhere to NSW Health guidelines: wearing a mask as well as maintaining a 1.5-meter/5-feet distance from people not in the travel group.
All passengers and crew members required negative COVID tests prior to joining the ship. Guests over the age of 12 and the crew needed to be fully vaccinated.
Cruise ships were stopped from entering Australia's waters in March 2020 in order to curb the impacts of COVID, but the restriction was lifted in April 2022.
Ships are still required to report COVID cases/status updates to NSW Health.
For more Majestic Princess incidents and accidents see the ship's CruiseMinus page.