Coronavirus-plagued Grand Princess was expected to leave Oakland, but it remains docked

The coronavirus-stricken Grand Princess cruise ship, which circled at sea off the coast of California for days before docking at the Port of Oakland, was finally expected to set sail Sunday evening — to a spot in San Francisco Bay.

As of early Monday morning, however, the ship remained docked in the Port of Oakland, marking yet another delay in its trajectory.

When it finally leaves the port, the troubled ship will anchor in the bay for two weeks, with 75 medical workers brought on board to care for the 340 crew members and six foreign passengers during the 14-day quarantine, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Sunday.

Newsom did not specify where in San Francisco Bay the ship would anchor, but its expected departure from the Oakland port will end a nearly weeklong mission to offload more than 2,500 passengers, 21 of them who tested positive for COVID-19 illness. The area where passengers disembarked will be sanitized.

“It’s good riddance to me,” said former passenger Gene Qin of San Francisco, who along with his wife is quarantined in a San Carlos motel. “I’m suffering and even though the ship is leaving, we are taking the consequences with no choice.”

About 3,533 passengers and crew left Pier 27 in San Francisco on Feb. 21, headed to Hawaii for a 15-day pleasure cruise. Trouble arrived when passengers from the Grand Princess’ earlier Mexican Riviera trip began showing symptoms of the virus, including a 71-year-old Placer County man who later died as a result of COVID-19 illness.

Sixty-two passengers plus crew members had stayed aboard for the Hawaii trip, raising concerns of greater exposure on the Grand Princess. On land, federal and state officials scrambled to figure out how to test ship passengers and where to send the ship, as the virus spread in Bay Area counties.

In a dramatic scene, National Guard helicopters dropped off virus test kits to the Grand Princess, as it circled off the coast. Tests brought to a lab in Richmond, Calif. found 21 passengers, 19 of them crew members, tested positive.

On March 8, the day after the cruise was supposed to dock in San Francisco, Mayor Libby Schaaf, Newsom and federal officials said it would come to an unused and isolated part of the Port of Oakland’s Outer Harbor. They estimated the ship would stay for 72 hours.

Passengers cheered as they passed under the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz Island and the new span of the Bay Bridge. Arriving Monday morning, passengers began describing jail-like conditions and ever-changing information — or no information — from authorities.

Among the first to disembark on Monday were passengers who had tested positive and were taken to Bay Area hospitals. By Monday evening, the first plane, a Boeing 747 full of Canadian passengers, left Oakland International Airport’s North Field.

Kathleen Sterling of Oregon believed her 81-year-old father, who suffers from heart failure and asthma and had been ill, would be among the first off the ship. When he wasn’t, Sterling later hung a sign off her balcony listing her father’s ailments that read, “get him off the ship” and called 911.

“Nobody would talk to me, I don’t even know if there was a doctor on the ship on Monday. They just changed the plan. It’s no wonder it took so long for people to get off that ship, it was so disorganized,” said Sterling, who left the ship with her father and family on Tuesday and is now quarantined at Travis Air Force Base near Fairfield.

Throughout the week, passengers displaying mild symptoms were sent to hotels in Northern California and many more passengers were put on flights to various federal quarantine sites, including Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego and U.S. military sites in Georgia and Texas. Others were taken by bus to Travis.

The last flight was scheduled to depart at 6 p.m. Sunday, Newsom said.

Jacqueline Baker, a Los Gatos travel agent and Grand Princess passenger, was worried about the crew still stuck on the boat. The six passengers, according to Newsom, remained because the U.S. government had difficulty coordinating with their home countries.

“You become particularly close to your room steward, the waiter at dinner, the bartenders know some of my fellow passengers by name,” said Baker, 56, who is quarantined at Travis Air Force Base. “The people on the ship now, I feel like they’re on a doomed ship. What is to become of them? I just really wish wellness to everyone on board and hope they are not in an absolutely hellish situation.”

Oakland Mayor Schaaf expressed gratitude “to every worker at the state, federal, and local level who kept Oaklanders safe as we conducted a humanitarian mission to reunite thousands of stranded passengers and crew with their loved ones.”

Oakland Councilman Larry Reid said, “I speak for a lot of folks, they are happy to see the ship out in the water and away from land.”

Staff writer Julia Prodis Sulek contributed reporting. 

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