CABIN FEVER
Passengers were disappointed when Hong Kong’s new year celebrations were cancelled because of concerns over something called the ‘Wuhan virus’
THE cruise was a once-in-a-lifetime experience – but not in the way any of the passengers had been expecting. Many on board the Diamond Princess had booked the 29-night voyage from Singapore to Japan via Vietnam, Hong Kong and Taiwan to celebrate weddings, anniversaries and landmark birthdays.
The ship, a sparkling-white, 18-storey gin palace, was the “jewel of the sea”, according to its brochure. Guests would be able to dine in black tie at the captain’s table, soak in a Japanese “onsen” bath, swim in freshwater pools and drink from champagne fountains.
“It’s effectively a five-star hotel,” says Alan Sandford, a retired teacher from Nottingham, England who joined the cruise with his wife, Vanessa, for his 65th birthday.
The Diamond Princess set sail from Singapore on 6 January with 1 041 crew and 2 589 passengers. There were 12 South Africans aboard, mainly from Europe, America and Asia. On board were 77 Britons, including the Sandfords.
Joining the ship in Yokohama on 20 January for a 14-night “lunar new year” cruise were David and Sally Abel, an English couple from Northamptonshire celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, and Gay Courter, a 75-year-old American who’d written a novel called The Girl in the Box – a medical mystery set on a cruise ship, which she’d researched on the Diamond Princess.
Cruising is contagious. The passengers I spoke to were cruise junkies. The Sand-fords were on their 10th cruise, Elaine Spencer from Kent on her third as she and
