Tourists Leave Ship In Barcelona After Weeks In Virus Limbo

Hundreds of passengers from an Italian cruise ship disembarked in Barcelona on Monday after five weeks without setting foot on land because of coronavirus restrictions.

Since the ship left the northern Italian city of Venice on January 5 for a round-the-world tour, no coronavirus case has been found on board.

But because of the crisis, nobody has been allowed to disembark since March 14 in Australia, with the ship cancelling all of its planned stopovers in Asia -- though it did make some technical stops.

Several countries have closed ports and borders in a bid to stem the spread of the pandemic.

With some 1,800 passengers, the 12-deck Costa Deliziosa docked early Monday amid heavy rain to allow hundreds of people off before heading back to Italy.

The 300-metre ship entered port after receiving the green light from Spain, just days after French officials refused to let it disembark some 460 passengers at the southern port of Marseille.

First to get off were 168 Spanish and three Portuguese passengers who disembarked in small groups and were taken to the city centre in buses, an AFP correspondent said.

Roughly 100 French tourists followed and were to be bussed across the border to the southern city of Montpellier, a cruise spokeswoman said.

One of them was French pensioner Patrick Contini, 70, who said he and his fellow French passengers had been advised to disembark in Barcelona.

"They told us that the French government had suggested we disembark here and that they would transport us to Montpellier," said Contini, who lives in southwestern France near the Spanish border.

"It's a relief. If we'd had to go to Genoa, it would have been a lot harder to get home."

The Spanish government indicated other European passengers had been offered the opportunity to leave, saying they would be provided with "other means of transport to reach their home countries".

While large parts of the world went into lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, passengers on board the ship continued to enjoy theatre performances and gala dinners, said one of the passengers, Carlos Paya.

"We were on a Noah's Ark, a world apart," the 58-year-old told AFP by telephone shortly after arriving at his home in Valencia, about 350 kilometres (220 miles) down the coast from Barcelona.

"My heart sank when I stepped outside in Valencia, the empty streets, without people... You can't get used to it, it's a shock and I think it will take us a few days to get used to it."

The Costa Deliziosa is due to head back to Genoa, where all remaining passengers and nearly 900 crew will disembark, a statement from Costa Cruises said.

Meanwhile, the MSC Magnifica -- another cruise ship carrying a similar number of passengers which had also avoided the virus -- arrived in Marseille on Monday and 1,700 tourists disembarked, 700 of them French.

Regional health officials said none of them had been tested before getting off the Magnifica because "there were no cases on board and the passengers.. had not disembarked for 40 days".

Unlike the Magnifica, the Costa Deliziosa was not scheduled to stop at Marseille and French officials said its request was denied as the port already had its hands full and was not able to cope with another mass arrival of passengers.