The dream cruise ended unexpectedly with bitterness for the travelers on board the luxury cruise ship MS Europa 2, after a corona outbreak. Instead of spending New Year’s Eve in Mauritius, they will hopefully reach home and celebrate it there. The luxury vessel of the Hamburg shipping company Hapag-Lloyd left Dubai on 18th of December on a 19-day Christmas and New Year’s Eve cruise with 280 fully vaccinated guests and 380 also fully vaccinated crew members and is now returning to the departure port, to disembark in Dubai on 30th of December. Supposedly, at least five crew members were infected on board and also a number of passengers currently unknown. If available, people will be flown home on a plane, and infected guests are transferred to quarantine hotels, as well as all contact persons. 

Some safety and health concept changes have been made on board the ship on the way back to Dubai, including the self-service at the buffet, which has been immediately stopped and blocking some areas of the ship as quarantine zones. 

“We confirm the schedule change and premature end of the current journey of the EUROPA 2. We have identified cases of COVID-19 during routine COVID-19 tests on board. The affected people are fine, they have no or only mild symptoms. All persons on board (guests and crew) are fully vaccinated. The safety of guests and crew members always comes first.

In accordance with the established prevention and hygiene concept, the persons who tested positive and the contact persons who tested negative (identified as contact group 1) were immediately isolated from one another on board. It is planned that the people who tested positive will be disembarked in Dubai and placed in quarantine here, where they will be looked after by a medical service provider,” stated Hapag Lloyd Cruises on this incident.

“We very much regret that we could not carry out the trip as planned. Of course, Hapag-Lloyd Cruises organizes the return journey for the guests,” say from the company. 

Hapag-Lloyd Cruises has been operating cruises with a thorough prevention and hygiene concept, which has been checked and verified by the SGS Institut Fresenius from the summer, 2020. The most important are the complete vaccination of passengers and crew, as well as mandatory COVID-19 tests prior to and during the cruise. Another preventing procedure is the isolation of all crew members before starting work on board the ship. All of these prevention and random testing of passengers can detect the possible infections at an early stage and properly counteract the spread.