Life on the cruise ship quarantined off a Japanese port can be summed up this way: The good, the scared and the bored. At times there’s a festive atmosphere, but other times there’s deep worry, on the days when new cases of the illness are confirmed.
FILE - In this Feb. 11, 2020, file photo, a reporter walks near the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship in Yokohama, near Tokyo. Life on board the luxury cruise ship, which has dozens of cases of a new virus, can include fear, excitement and soul-crushing boredom, according to interviews by The Associated Press with passengers and a stream of tweets and YouTube videos.
With another week or more of quarantine to come, the AP looks inside the vacation cruise that’s gone seriously off course:Even during the quarantine, it can seem like Cheryl and Paul Molesky are still on vacation. And the time, early in the quarantine, when eight people on Jet Skis cruised up, yelling out “Welcome!” and playing music. The passengers clapped and waved from their balconies.
More affordable rooms on the ship are not much wider than a double bed and don’t have much seating space aside from a desk chair, according to pictures posted in the ship’s website. The cheapest ones don’t even have windows. Many balcony rooms are around 222 square feet or less, according to the website. A lot of the interior rooms, which feature large mirrors in place of a window, are only 158 to 162 square feet.
Passenger Matthew Smith has been compiling regular food reviews on Twitter, and often details his attempts to get extra coffee. He tweeted that he feels, while sitting in his room between meals, just like his cat “waiting for her daily serving of canned food. Is it time? Is it time?” “Until the quarantine started, everything was business as usual, and everyone was freely moving around on board, so there are various possibilities of infection during that time,” said Kazuho Taguchi, director of global health cooperation at the health ministry.One crew member, though, said he had been isolated in his own 6 by 10-foot cabin on the third deck near sea level for two days after he reported a sore throat.
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Fear, boredom, adventure fill each day on quarantined shipFear. Surprising moments of levity. Soul-crushing boredom. That's daily life on the cruise ship quarantined off Japan's Yokohama. Passengers describe conditions on the ship, worried the virus could spread on board, in interviews with AP. By APklug
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