Last the cruise ship, which still carries passengers, finally made it to port, arriving in Bremerhaven, Germany on Monday after a 6-month odyssey during the coronavirus pandemic.
All of the remaining 8 passengers aboard MV Artania were able to disembark on shore from a liner that embarked on a 140-day cruise from Hamburg on December 21.
In March, 36 passengers were confirmed to have coronavirus after passengers were checked by doctors when the ship arrived in Fremantle, Western Australia. The infected were quarantined at local hospitals, cruise operator Phoenix Reisen told the media.
Not sure about physical distancing, but hundreds of people lined up to see the cruise ship MV Artania leave Fremantle port this afternoon #perthnews pic.twitter.com/bCZQiAC0b9
— Ben Gubana (@bengubana) April 18, 2020
Three people on board died: 2 male passengers aged 69 and 71 and a 42-year-old crew member.
Healthy passengers of the ship remained in quarantine on board until their return flight home at the end of March.
Hundreds of passengers flew back to Frankfurt, although some remained in an Australian hospital until they recovered. The last 8 passengers chose to go home by ship rather than by air, thus becoming the last cruise ship passengers to remain at sea while the coronavirus pandemic spread around the world.
On April 18, Artania left the Australian port and sailed back to Europe, which should have taken several weeks, but the ship made stops in Southeast Asia to disembark many of the remaining crew members.
Approximately 75 crew members remained on board until Bremerhaven to assist the work ship, whose captain Morten Hansen, the star of the German reality show Crazy for the Sea, kept passengers and relatives updated on what was happening on his Facebook page.
Hansen even celebrated Mother's Day, deviating slightly from the planned route to «Draw» the contours of the heart.
And just before leaving the port in the city of Perth, 2 crew members decided to tie the knot, and got married during the ceremony, at which they sent the service. Abriel Maluga, Consul of Germany, reports CNN Travel.
