How 42 Hours Locked on a Carnival Cruise Changed Me
By: Ariana Bindman
Tags: Cruises, Personal Essay, Transportation, Covid 19, Cruise Ships

The next day, as we cleared our cabins and prepared to disembark at our final port in Long Beach, the captain made a concerned announcement: Someone on the boat was exhibiting symptoms of an illness, and they didn’t know what it was.

Personnel didn’t think it was the same virus as the one on the news, but to be safe, they would have to test them for it. A helicopter hovered over the ship, where it would administer the test and harbor the results. In the meantime, we would not be allowed back into our cabins or off the cruise and had no idea when — or if — we ever would.

It went from a resort serving you omelettes for breakfast to a Motel 6 giving you preopened Lucky Charms.

At first, the cheery 24-year-old Australian girl on the intercom tried distracting us with games and competitions. She’d tell us just another 30 more minutes, and then 30 minutes would turn into 45. The wait was indefinite, but that was okay, because they were reopening the ice cream machines! Meanwhile, swaths of us were standing together on a 1.5-foot-wide deck with no access to restaurants, the common areas, or our cabins.

Cruise employees were reluctant to let us back into our rooms because they had already flipped them for the next passengers, and they weren’t prepared to feed the thousands of us still onboard. Everything they gave us was off-menu, offbeat. They tried to use everything they had and did so begrudgingly: It went from a resort serving you omelettes for breakfast to a Motel 6 giving you preopened Lucky Charms.

Hours passed, and everyone started to panic. Including me.

Seven or eight passengers started crying next to me, running around trying to get reception so they could call their people: their partners, their kids, their employers. Save for my mom, we all felt trapped, and we all thought we had this mysterious disease. Remembering the news broadcasts, I pulled up an article on my phone about our neighbors, the Princess Cruises. I doomscrolled about how passengers had been trapped there for weeks and how some had gotten sick with this illness and died.

I began to spiral.

Service was spotty, but I got hold of my boyfriend, and we both started crying on the phone. I just wanted to go back to Oakland and see the love of my life, eat real food, and be with my cat.

For a brief, desperate moment, I contemplated diving off the ship and swimming to shore.

Afterward, I approached a friend I had made in the cruise ship’s smoking section, but they turned me away. Socially, everyone put walls up, even the tokers who snuck bongs on board, apparently. People began hoarding food and cigarettes — and though I’m not proud of it, I was totally prepared to smoke butts out of the ashtray. I also considered rationing. After all, we too could be here for weeks.

“Could I get away with pocketing extra fries?” I thought to myself as I nervously eyed the buffet.

After a full day of waiting, the helicopter came back with the test results: They were negative. But there was another problem: Customs was closing in 10 minutes.

As we all prepared to make a mad dash for the exit, we realized it would be impossible to get through the crowds and make it in time. For a brief, desperate moment, I contemplated diving off the ship and swimming to shore.

“Well, folks, I guess you’re staying with us tonight,” sighed the cruise captain on the intercom. At that point, we had been waiting outside all day and were let back into our cabins at 10:45 p.m.

Later that night, I got into a fight with my mom, who, outrageously, wanted to stay on the boat the next day, even if we were given the option of leaving. “It’s a free extra day of vacation!” she argued. Half-jokingly, I told my dad, a Navy retiree, that I was going to make an SOS sign. “Don’t you dare,” he said angrily. I guess he didn’t think it was so funny.

When we finally disembarked the next morning, I was shocked to see crowds eagerly lined up with their luggage to get on board. None of them would, though, because this was the last Carnival cruise that would dock before the state indefinitely shut down. As we left the port, I worried about the staff, many of whom emigrated from different countries all over the world. Where would they go? How long would they be stuck here? When would they see their families, their loved ones?

Compared to what passengers on the Princess cruise ships had to endure, my experience was a joyride, I realize. I’m relieved that I didn’t get quarantined for weeks or even days at a time and that no one actually got sick — even though I’m personally convinced that the wrong passenger was tested and someone had the virus at that point. After all, we had been traveling, and we all ate from the same buffets and shared the same common areas.

Almost a year later, I’m still having nightmares about ships and water.

Had someone actually tested positive, my experience surely would have been even more damaging to my psyche than it already was. I’m extremely thankful that it wasn’t.

Until recently, I hadn’t realized how much this trip traumatized me, but it feels cathartic to finally talk about it. Almost a year later, I’m still having nightmares about ships and water. In my dreams, I’m usually either clinging to life rafts, missing the boat, or swimming to shore and trying to rescue my sister. When I wake up, I’m in a panic.

Something about the total loss of control on the boat stuck with me. One minute things can be normal; the next, not at all. The way the pandemic kicked off in my life has made me even more uneasy and unable to deal with the instability this year has brought.

I was once extroverted, and now I’m just not. I’m also afraid to go into most physical spaces, especially where there’s any sort of authority figure present. If anything, getting corralled on the cruise made me realize that any stranger with an intercom can instantly take away all of your basic rights — and people will just obey them. And when your dignities get taken away, no one will save you, not even your Navy SEAL dad. Now, no matter where I go, I’m always searching for my exit, my way out. All it takes is one moment of uncertainty to make you feel powerless — almost as though you’re surrounded by water.