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COVID-positive travelers say they were not allowed to board their cruise ship in Skagway this week. Instead, they say that Holland America helped them book travel on a state ferry and then an Alaska Airlines flight out of Juneau — the day after their positive tests.
Diana and Larry Lehrer were supposed to set sail from Skagway on Holland America’s Koningsdam after a bus tour through the Interior and Canada. But they tested positive for COVID-19 when they reached Skagway on Tuesday.
“The first test went fine and the second one didn’t,” said Diana Lehrer.
The next day the couple was on the state ferry, sitting masked near the front windows. The MV LeConte was packed with passengers from Skagway and Haines headed to Juneau.
“They wouldn’t let us on the cruise ship because that’s asking for trouble, so they gave us the option of quarantining here in Skagway or going home,” Diana said.
Diana said she was aware when she booked the package that if she or her husband tested positive during the bus trip, they wouldn’t be allowed on the cruise ship.
“We knew it could happen, but we didn’t think it would happen to us,” she said.
She said Holland America took care of them after they tested positive. The company paid for their hotel and delivered meals to their room.
“They walk you through everything,” she said. “They totally rebooked our travel back. They made it very easy.”
A Holland America spokesperson said that’s not the company’s policy. It will only help customers reschedule travel after they quarantine for five days.
But Mr. Lehrer later confirmed in an email that after one night in isolation in Skagway, a Holland employee did book their travel. He wrote: “We only had to make one phone call to Holland America’s scheduling phone number and they did their magic in less than ten minutes.”
Skagway Mayor Andrew Cremata says ferry or plane travel out of Skagway for travelers with active COVID-19 cases is not part of the municipality’s port agreement with Holland America.
“I know that that happens,” said Cremata.
“There’ve been groups of people with COVID at the airport that have been sent home, and they’re trying to fly out, and then there’s groups of people that have been put on the ferry,” he said.
You don’t have to test negative to board one of the state’s ferries or Alaska Airlines flights, but they both have a policy that you should not travel if you are sick.
Laura Bronk and her husband were on the same tour as the Lehrers — then they were on the LeConte, too, after a positive test. Bronk said their tour guide recommended the ferry over a small plane out of town.
She says the cruise company offered them five nights in isolation in Skagway, but they decided to get on the ferry instead. She said Holland was going to reimburse them for the ferry ticket.
“Your vacation’s over, you might as well go home,” Bronk said.
As for the Lehrers, the couple plans to catch flights from Juneau home to the East Coast. They say their symptoms are mild — a runny nose and a little bit of a cold.
Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve started its own cruise ship monitoring program this July. Cruise companies are paying for independent inspectors to board ships unannounced and check on wastewater management, emissions, marine mammal protection and compliance documentation.
Glacier Bay used to rely on the state’s Ocean Ranger program for these inspections, but the program was defunded before the pandemic.
Park scientist Scott Gende said the Ocean Rangers were essential to the park’s tourism structure.
“We would not have an inspection program if the Ocean Ranger program didn’t exist,” he said. “We were really hopeful that the Ocean Ranger program would continue.”
Alaska voters started the Ocean Ranger program in 2006 to protect wildlife and waterways from pollution. Governor Mike Dunleavy defunded the program in 2019.
Rangers made sure the large cruise ships followed state and federal environmental rules, especially around the kind of wastewater discharged into Alaska waters. It was paid for through a per person passenger tax the state levied on cruise companies.
The program’s defunding put the park and cruise companies in a tight spot because they signed a decade-long contract that legally commits them to inspections.
“Glacier Bay has concessions contracts, which result in probably the highest standards in the world,” said park superintendent Philip Hooge. “And we work tightly in partnership, really good relationship, with the cruise industry, but we also need to have independent verification on all aspects of our contract.”
The park covers 3.3 million acres, and it’s considered one of the gems of Southeast Alaska. Coastal temperate rainforest is punctuated by deep, glacier-carved fjords and snow-covered peaks. About 650,000 people visit the park each year and more than 95% of them arrive by cruise ship. The National Park Service’s duty is to protect those resources while still making them available to the American public.
They do that through a unique contract system with cruise companies. Cruise companies compete for 10-year contracts to sail the park’s waters. They commit to a number of extra environmental safeguards, like a zero wastewater discharge policy, and random, independent inspections to prove they’re in compliance.
The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation still does port inspections on cruise ships, but Gende says they don’t go far enough. The park needs inspectors that are on the ships while they’re at sail and who arrive on cruise ships unannounced for random inspections. Their independent contractor checks those boxes, but Gende says he hopes it’s a temporary solution.
“We’d be thrilled to death if the state would integrate that into their Ocean Ranger program and we can get some Ocean Rangers back on board. But until then, this is our approach, and we’re gonna continue forward with these third party inspectors,” he said.
Princess Cruises, Holland America Line, and Seabourn have signed a contract with third party inspectors. The park expects a contract between inspectors and Norwegian Cruise Line soon.
Correction: This article has been updated to clarify that the Ocean Rangers program still exists by statute but was defunded in 2019.
