Very early today we started receiving calls from concerned cruise passengers who were on their ship, the Adventure of the Seas, which is operated by Royal Caribbean. They told Nell in our office that the ship had been turned away from St. Lucia before they arrived there because two of their passengers had "flu like symptoms" on board the ship while at sea. They had just heard that Antigua was following St. Lucia's lead and not giving clearance to the AOS to come into port in Antigua.
The passengers told Nell that although the two passengers had flu like symptoms, they had been told that these symptoms were not indicative of Swine Flu which is probably what St. Lucia and now Antigua's port authorities were worried about. In fact, i am guessing on who made the decisions not to give the Adventure of the Seas clearance but with up to 5100 people on board the ship is a huge income generator for the islands. If in fact the people were tested for swine flu and were found not to have symptoms then i think it was pretty stupid for Antigua to blockade the ship. I can't find any news on this anywhere but i understand from Wadadli Cats that the ship is on it's way to Miami and has told them to contact RCL for more info.
The good news is that it doesn't sound like there is swine flu on that cruise ship and even if there was the ship didn't arrive in Antigua or St. Lucia. The bad news is that all the guests on the ship have had their holidays ruined and all the starving businesses here in the Caribbean will be hungry once again tomorrow.
Since writing this and posting it on twitter earlier today this link just came out with news about it.
