Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Carol Masser and I'm Jason Kelly. Today we're
Speaker 1: bringing you this week's cover story, and wow, what a
Speaker 1: story it is, Carol. Yeah, it's all about Carnival, and
Speaker 1: it's really about what the company knew, when they knew it,
Speaker 1: and what they did about the virus. What's interesting is
Speaker 1: the tagline on it. Carnival executives knew they had a
Speaker 1: virus problem, but they kept the party going. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: as the story points out, the ships they become a
Speaker 1: floating testament to the viciousness of this new coronavirus. But
Speaker 1: they've also raised questions about corporate negligence and fleet safety
Speaker 1: and really it extends well beyond the cruise business. I
Speaker 1: think that's safe to say. Yeah, absolutely, Jason, I've been
Speaker 1: on a ship. I've done some stories about Carnival, talked
Speaker 1: with their CEO, Arnold Donald. You know, you go to
Speaker 1: one of these ships, they are massive, and you're talking
Speaker 1: about thousands of people that go on the ship for fun.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a tourist attraction. There's also hundreds of
Speaker 1: people who were supporting them in terms of employees, So
Speaker 1: you have a lot of people in a relatively tie
Speaker 1: in small space, and that's why when something like a
Speaker 1: virus hits even just one or two people, it really
Speaker 1: goes through the ship pretty quickly. Well, and this story
Speaker 1: does such a nice job of detailing what happened, a
Speaker 1: very critical timeline that they dig into, but also where
Speaker 1: we are now, because by the way, there's still ships
Speaker 1: at sea, and more importantly, maybe what happens next. Check
Speaker 1: it out, just try and social distance this. Carnival's crews
Speaker 1: executives knew earlier than most that they had a COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen problem. They kept the party going as long as possible,
Speaker 1: by Austin Carr and Chris Paulmary. The news when it
Speaker 1: reached the Grand Princess early on March fourth, barely registered
Speaker 1: at first. In a letter slipped under passenger cabin doors,
Speaker 1: Grant Tarling, Carnival's chief medical officer, announced that the US
Speaker 1: Centers for Disease Control had begun investigating a small cluster
Speaker 1: of COVID nineteen cases in California that might have been
Speaker 1: linked to the ship. Up thirteen days after leaving San
Speaker 1: Francisco for Hawaii, the vessel would be skipping a scheduled
Speaker 1: stop in Mexico on its return voyage. And sailing back
Speaker 1: early to its Bay Area port. That day, passengers noticed
Speaker 1: new hand sanitizer stations and crew members wearing gloves. But
Speaker 1: life on the Grand Princess, which advertises and one cabins,
Speaker 1: twenty restaurants and lounges, about a dozen shops, and four
Speaker 1: freshwater swimming pools, otherwise went on as normal. Guests prepared
Speaker 1: for a ukulele concert, played bridge at shared tables, and
Speaker 1: took line dancing classes. That night, Laurie Miller and her
Speaker 1: husband John attended True or Move, a show featuring an
Speaker 1: MC in a cow costume. The following morning, John joined
Speaker 1: about two hundred other passengers in the ship's Broadway style
Speaker 1: theater for a lecture on Clint Eastwood movies. I'm surprised
Speaker 1: they're even letting this event happened, he whispered to a
Speaker 1: nearby friend. This is a big crowd. Around lunchtime on
Speaker 1: March fifth, the ship's captain, John Smith announced a quarantine
Speaker 1: over the ship's public address system. All two passengers needed
Speaker 1: to go to their cabins to shelter in place. Lorie
Speaker 1: Miller was in the Da Vinci dining room eating chocolate
Speaker 1: peanut butter ice cream. Oh my god, she remembers, thinking
Speaker 1: this is real. Then she ordered more ice cream. Other
Speaker 1: passengers ambled to the ship's stores and dining areas too,
Speaker 1: to take advantage of the perks while they could. Everybody
Speaker 1: went to the buffet. Recall sixty one year old Debbie Loftus,
Speaker 1: who was traveling with her parents. I just thought, Oh crap,
Speaker 1: the ukulele concert is going to be canceled. Crowds of
Speaker 1: elderly guests filed to their cabins through narrow hallways and
Speaker 1: down the stairs of the ship's seventeen decks. Sixty nine
Speaker 1: year old Karen Deaver tried an elevator, only to find
Speaker 1: it packed with fellow passengers. So much for social distancing,
Speaker 1: she joked aloud. As the lockdown progressed, the ship became
Speaker 1: a fixture on cable news and social media around the world,
Speaker 1: live streamed by frustrated, scared passengers as if it were
Speaker 1: the Titanic of the TikTok Age of the first forty
Speaker 1: six crew and passengers who were tested to the virum
Speaker 1: of the first forty six crew and passengers who were
Speaker 1: tested for the virus twenty one were positive. President Trump
Speaker 1: suggested they should be prevented from disembarking. At the time,
Speaker 1: the number of confirmed cases in the US was still low,
Speaker 1: and Trump implied that the vessel's caseload would make it
Speaker 1: look like the US was doing a poor job of
Speaker 1: handling the pandemic. I don't need to have the numbers
Speaker 1: double because of one ship, he said. But this wasn't
Speaker 1: Carnival's first outbreak nor its last. In February, another of
Speaker 1: its ocean liners, the Diamond Princess, accounted for more confirmed
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen infections than any nation except for China. Since then,
Speaker 1: no cruise operator has been hit harder than Carnival. At
Speaker 1: least seven more of the company's ships at sea have
Speaker 1: become virus hotspots, resulting in more than fifteen hundred positive
Speaker 1: infections and at least thirty nine fatalities. Carnival notes that
Speaker 1: other cruise companies have been impacted. Carnival's ships have become
Speaker 1: a floating testament to the viciousness of the new coronavirus
Speaker 1: and raised questions about corporate negligence and fleet safety. President
Speaker 1: and chief executive Officer Arnold Donald says his company's response
Speaker 1: was reasonable under the circumstances. This is a generational global event.
Speaker 1: It's unprecedented, he says. Nothing's perfect. Okay, they will say, wow,
Speaker 1: these things Carnival did great, these things twenty hindsight, they
Speaker 1: could have done better. Donald says that if his company
Speaker 1: failed to prepare for the pandemic, it failed in the
Speaker 1: same way that many national and local governments failed and
Speaker 1: should be judged accordingly. Each ship is a many city,
Speaker 1: he says, and Carnival's response shouldn't be condemned before analyzing
Speaker 1: what New York did to deal with the crisis, what
Speaker 1: the Vice President's task force did, what the Italians, Chinese,
Speaker 1: South Koreans and Japanese did. We're a small part of
Speaker 1: the real story. We're being pulled along by it. In
Speaker 1: the view of the c d C, however, Carnival helped
Speaker 1: fuel the crisis. Maybe that excuse flies after the Diamond Princess,
Speaker 1: or maybe after the Grand Princess, says Cindy Friedman, the
Speaker 1: experienced epidemiologist who leads the c d c's Cruise Ship
Speaker 1: task Force. I have a hard time believing they're just
Speaker 1: a victim of happenstance. While it would have been tough
Speaker 1: to get every one aboard the ships back to their
Speaker 1: home ports without infecting more people. Friedman says several of
Speaker 1: the plagued Carnival ships didn't even begin their voyages until
Speaker 1: well after the company knew it was risky to do so.
Speaker 1: She says its actions created a huge strain on the country.
Speaker 1: Nobody should be going on cruise ships during this pandemic,
Speaker 1: full stop, she says. Donald and his team say they
Speaker 1: are making every effort to protect and treat their remaining passengers.
Speaker 1: The company has attempted to dock its fleet until the
Speaker 1: pandemic subsides. All but about thirty two hundred passengers and
Speaker 1: crew are back on shore. Carnival's future is less clear.
Speaker 1: Australian police have launched a criminal probe into whether the
Speaker 1: company's Princess Cruise as subsidiary misled authorities about an outbreak
Speaker 1: aboard a ship docked in Sydney, and its Coast To
Speaker 1: Cruises subsidiary is facing multiple passenger lawsuits regarding its COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen response. Princess says it's cooperating with the investigation, while
Speaker 1: Costa says we are prepared to vigorously defend ourselves. Carnival
Speaker 1: canceled all its cruises in mid March, and its share
Speaker 1: prices down seventy so far this year. It's executives speak
Speaker 1: about their next moves in militaristic terms. They're setting up
Speaker 1: situation rooms, cutting through the fog of war, countering the
Speaker 1: virus on the front lines, says John Paget, Carnival's chief
Speaker 1: Experience and Innovation officer. The cruise space is as bad
Speaker 1: as it gets. It's armageddon. One side effect of an
Speaker 1: armageddon is to render the recent past faintly ridiculous. Last
Speaker 1: September in Brooklyn, Paget boarded another DOC ship to show
Speaker 1: off his company's new Medallion class badges. The electronic fobs
Speaker 1: were meant to double as abbin keys and credit cards,
Speaker 1: while also tracking passengers locations as they moved around the ship.
Speaker 1: The offering was part of a big digital overhaul to
Speaker 1: be introduced on at least six ships in twenty We're
Speaker 1: trying to eliminate guest friction, Paget said. Carnival's business had
Speaker 1: experienced a remarkable turnaround after Donald became CEO. In Over
Speaker 1: the next five years, the company's market value roughly doubled
Speaker 1: to fifty one billion dollars in twenty seventeen, Donald invested
Speaker 1: in building a one hundred and eighty thousand ton mega
Speaker 1: cruiser called the Mardi Gras, Carnival's largest ship ever, which
Speaker 1: cost about one billion dollars and is supposed to begin
Speaker 1: sailing in twenty twenty with the sea's first on board
Speaker 1: roller coaster. Before the COVID nineteen crisis began, the company's
Speaker 1: nine cruise brands employed one hundred and fifty thousand people.
Speaker 1: Carnival was founded in nineteen seventy two by Ted Harrison,
Speaker 1: an Israeli American who wanted to transform the image of
Speaker 1: the cruise industry from stuffy ultra luxury to a middle
Speaker 1: class splurge with a party atmosphere. Arison's first ship, also
Speaker 1: named Marti Gras, had only three hundred passengers and got
Speaker 1: stuck twenty minutes after leaving Miami on a soundbar, where
Speaker 1: it remained for twenty eight hours. In the nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: and nineties, Arison's son, Mickey, bought up a string of competitors,
Speaker 1: took the company public, and made his family one of
Speaker 1: the wealthiest in America. By the turn of the century,
Speaker 1: Carnival owned thirty six percent of the North American market.
Speaker 1: Mickey Arison bought the Miami Heat and became friendly with
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Carnival sponsored the Apprentice more than once. After
Speaker 1: the Great Recession crippled the cruise business, Arison began to
Speaker 1: look like a less capable steward in Carnival's coast of
Speaker 1: Concordia crashed into a rock formation and sank in the
Speaker 1: calm waters off Tuscany, killing thirty two people, including a child,
Speaker 1: while the captain abandoned ship. The following year, a fire
Speaker 1: in the engine room of the Carnival Triumph, now better
Speaker 1: known as the Poop Cruise, left hundreds of guests stranded
Speaker 1: in the Gulf of Mexico without air conditioning or working
Speaker 1: toilets for several days. During both the Tuscany crash and
Speaker 1: the Poop Cruise, Arison was spotted at Heat Games. Arison
Speaker 1: was facing a shareholder revolt by the time he announced
Speaker 1: he was stepping down as CEO in favor of Donald,
Speaker 1: A board member and former Monsanto executive, Harrison remains Carnival's chairman.
Speaker 1: Donald positioned himself as a reformer, set on improving coordination
Speaker 1: between the company's various management teams, but he didn't manage
Speaker 1: to clean up its record in twenty seventeen, the U.
Speaker 1: S Department of Justice find Carnival's Princess line a record
Speaker 1: forty million dollars for dumping oil contaminated waste at sea
Speaker 1: and falsifying official discharge records to cover it up. Last June,
Speaker 1: Donald himself entered a guilty plea on behalf of Carnival
Speaker 1: for violating the terms of its settlement after authorities discovered
Speaker 1: that its ships kept on dumping even after the twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen ruling. We acknowledge the shortcomings, Donald told the Miami judge,
Speaker 1: I am here today to formulate a plan to fix them.
Speaker 1: He would head into twenty twenty committed, he said, to
Speaker 1: changing the company's tendency to cut corners on safety. At
Speaker 1: eleven twelve p m. Japan Standard time on February first,
Speaker 1: more than a month after the outbreak on the Grand Princess,
Speaker 1: the Diamond Princess was skimming around Asia on a multi
Speaker 1: weeak cruise. One of its sanitation vendors, Walllam Group emailed
Speaker 1: an alert to the vessel's chief administration officer and a
Speaker 1: guest service's inbox. A Walam representative said a passenger was
Speaker 1: being treated for COVID nineteen in Hong Kong would kindly
Speaker 1: inform the ship related parties and do the necessary disinfection.
Speaker 1: The alert read unfortunately and somewhat inexplicably. According to Roger Frizelle,
Speaker 1: Carnival's chief communications officer, nobody was monitoring those in boxes.
Speaker 1: He first says the messages hadn't been read for at
Speaker 1: least days, then later emails that actually unemployee had read
Speaker 1: them much sooner. In Carnival's latest version of the timeline,
Speaker 1: which it revised repeatedly during various interviews over the past
Speaker 1: several weeks. Nancy Chung, a Hong Kong based director for
Speaker 1: the Princess Line, learned of the positive test a few
Speaker 1: hours later after seeing a report from now News TV
Speaker 1: about a hospitalized coronavirus patient who was understood to have
Speaker 1: traveled to Hong Kong on a cruise. Chung texted and
Speaker 1: executive in California who requested she connect Hong Kong health
Speaker 1: officials with Tarling, the company's chief medical officer. According to
Speaker 1: screenshots of the messages viewed by Bloomberg business Week, the
Speaker 1: company says these messages show it acted promptly, but Carnival
Speaker 1: didn't tell passengers they might have been exposed to the
Speaker 1: virus until the evening of February third, about forty three
Speaker 1: hours after the initial alert from Wallam was sent. There
Speaker 1: are other inconsistencies that suggest Carnival wasn't entirely on the ball.
Speaker 1: The Hong Kong Health Department put out a press release
Speaker 1: announcing the COVID nineteen case late on February one, and
Speaker 1: at eleven thirty three a m. On February second, Tarling
Speaker 1: sent an email to Hong Kong health authorities with the
Speaker 1: subject line confirmed coronavirus case that included the passenger's name, age,
Speaker 1: and ward location at Princess Margaret Hospital. But Carnival says
Speaker 1: this was a mistake. The subject line should have had
Speaker 1: question mark question mark question mark because he was asking
Speaker 1: if it's confirmed, says for Zelle, the Carnival spokesman, adding
Speaker 1: that Tarling didn't get official confirmation until six pm on
Speaker 1: February two. Tarling says he didn't see the previous day's
Speaker 1: press release. A spokesman for the Hong Kong Health Department
Speaker 1: notes that in addition to the press release, it immediately
Speaker 1: informed the shipping agent in Hong Kong of the cruise concerned.
Speaker 1: Another twenty four hours elapsed before Captain Gennaro Arma informed
Speaker 1: passengers and crew on the Diamond Princess of the COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen case. In his announcement at six thirty three pm
Speaker 1: on February three, he tried to project calm as the
Speaker 1: ship cruised toward Yokohama, Japan. The guest hadn't reported feeling
Speaker 1: ill during his time on board, Armah said over the loudspeaker,
Speaker 1: but passengers should avoid close contact with anyone suffering respiratory illness,
Speaker 1: wash their hands for twenty seconds, and seek treatment from
Speaker 1: the ship's nurses if they had fever, chills, or a cough.
Speaker 1: Rest assured there will be no charge for this service.
Speaker 1: He said. Upon arrival in Yokohama that evening, Japanese health
Speaker 1: officials started medical screenings. Arma added, the situation is under
Speaker 1: control and therefore there are no reasons for concerns. Even
Speaker 1: after Carnival became aware of the potential coronavirus case, passenger
Speaker 1: say staff tried to keep the fund going. Guests continued
Speaker 1: eating and drinking at buffets and bars, hanging out in saunas,
Speaker 1: and attending shows, including an operatic performance called Bravo Carnival
Speaker 1: distributed itineraries known as Princess Patter, guiding guests to trivia
Speaker 1: contests and other group activities. On February third. They were
Speaker 1: encouraging us to mingle, says Gay Corter, who, after getting
Speaker 1: her temperature taken by a Japanese official the next day,
Speaker 1: went for a walk on deck and saw tables of
Speaker 1: as many as thirty people playing mah jong. A Carnival
Speaker 1: spokesman says the staff discontinued most scheduled activities on February fourth,
Speaker 1: Though Japanese officials didn't institute a ship wide quarantine requiring
Speaker 1: passengers to stay in their cabins until February five. The
Speaker 1: president of Carnival's Princess Cruz's Division, Jan Swartz, says the
Speaker 1: company was deferring to Japanese health officials. She says the
Speaker 1: crew followed government guidelines delivering the passenger's food and prescription
Speaker 1: refills as the quarantine at Yokohama's port wore on. Carnival
Speaker 1: c e o'donald says he was aware of the situation,
Speaker 1: but didn't personally take control of the response efforts until
Speaker 1: February five. We have a nice chain of command, He says,
Speaker 1: as it became a bigger issue, I'm dialing into the
Speaker 1: situation updates. It was an increasingly chaotic period for Carnival.
Speaker 1: Shortly before the Diamond Princess problem, there had been a
Speaker 1: coronavirus scare aboard one of its ships near Italy, and
Speaker 1: a second in mid February on another Carnival cruise in Asia.
Speaker 1: Carnival says these were false alarms. Countries around the world
Speaker 1: began refusing to allow the company's boats to dock, fearing
Speaker 1: they had spread the virus, creating novel challenges for Donald
Speaker 1: and his team. It wasn't like there were protocols and
Speaker 1: that this was established. You're at sea, you're moving people around,
Speaker 1: and the rules are changing as you go, he says.
Speaker 1: He adds that by early March, when the virus hit
Speaker 1: the Grand Princess, Carnival had systems in place to take
Speaker 1: better care of its guests. Some Grand Princess passengers had
Speaker 1: to fill out a questionnaire asking if they had recently
Speaker 1: been to China, though there were no questions about whether
Speaker 1: they had symptoms consistent with COVID nineteen. On March five,
Speaker 1: after the ship's crew canceled the ukulele concert and any
Speaker 1: further games of True or Move. The Grand Princess went
Speaker 1: into a holding pattern off the San Francisco coast while
Speaker 1: the White House and state and local officials figured out
Speaker 1: what to do. Passengers were stuck in their cabins for
Speaker 1: almost two weeks as helicopters delivered provisions and test kits.
Speaker 1: The Grand Princess pulled into port on March nine in Oakland, California,
Speaker 1: where the CDC mostly took over. Like those aboard the
Speaker 1: Diamond Princess, the passengers endured an additional fourteen day quarantine
Speaker 1: after disembarking before being allowed to travel home. Between the
Speaker 1: Diamond Princess and Grand Princess, eight hundred and fifty people
Speaker 1: tested positive for COVID nineteen and fourteen have died. More
Speaker 1: would follow from outbreaks on other ships. Asked why Carnival
Speaker 1: didn't act sooner to initiate stringent shipwide quarantines and why
Speaker 1: so many passengers reported being able to stroll about the
Speaker 1: ships following alerts of possibly deadly infections. Swartz says the
Speaker 1: company was following the direction of health authorities. It's very
Speaker 1: easy and Monday morning, you know, hindsight to say what's
Speaker 1: the view of what should have been occurring, She says,
Speaker 1: we did our best to take care of people. Carnival
Speaker 1: executives say they're proud of how they served the customers
Speaker 1: aboard these cruises. They refunded everyone's tickets and on board purchases,
Speaker 1: provided free internet access during the corn teens, and assisted
Speaker 1: with post cruise travel accommodations. Swartz, who notes she's had
Speaker 1: many tours of duty in crisis management during her twenty
Speaker 1: years at Carnival, says she expects the experience to make
Speaker 1: customers more likely to cruise with the company, not less.
Speaker 1: There are many loyal Princess guests who have told us
Speaker 1: that this is actually cemented Princess as their number one
Speaker 1: vacation choice, she says. During Bloomberg Business Week's March seven
Speaker 1: phone interview with Schwartz, reports surface that four more people
Speaker 1: had died and at least one thirty eight passengers were
Speaker 1: sick aboard another Carnival ship, the Zandam, part of its
Speaker 1: Holland America line. Over the following days, the ship lingered
Speaker 1: near the coast of Fort Lauderdale, waiting for government permission
Speaker 1: to dock at Port Everglades. Florida. Yadira Carza, who embarked
Speaker 1: on the Zandam for her honeymoon, says from the ship
Speaker 1: that she and her husband are terrified. The crew are
Speaker 1: sick and getting sicker. It's a matter of time before
Speaker 1: gets to us and we're infected, she says. For some
Speaker 1: people it will be the last trip of their lives.
Speaker 1: As of early April, Carnival still had passengers at sea,
Speaker 1: nearly a month after the CDC issued a March eighth
Speaker 1: public advisory to defer all cruise ship travel worldwide. Spokesperson
Speaker 1: for Zell says Carnival wasn't under any legal obligation to
Speaker 1: follow the CDC's advice. The advisory is not an edict,
Speaker 1: he says. Donald and Schwartz say there's nothing they could
Speaker 1: have done to halt further infections in February, when they
Speaker 1: say the world still didn't grasp how much the virus
Speaker 1: was spreading outside China, but the US declared a public
Speaker 1: health emergency and restricted travel to China on January thirty one,
Speaker 1: even as Carnival ships continued to sail around Asia. There
Speaker 1: were other early warnings. Paget, the Innovation chief, says that
Speaker 1: in January after he'd communicated with the manufacturer in Wuhan
Speaker 1: the origin of the pandemic about making batteries for the
Speaker 1: digital badge system. The leadership, including Arno Old Donald, all
Speaker 1: knew about the scale of the coronavirus outbreak. Paget says
Speaker 1: he became aware of the problem's magnitude on January. He
Speaker 1: remembers the exact date because it was the day before
Speaker 1: Kobe Bryant died. The biggest thing about that, it's a
Speaker 1: learning I don't think I'll ever forget, and we shared
Speaker 1: it with Arnold when we were talking, is that we
Speaker 1: actually had insight into the global situation much earlier than most.
Speaker 1: Paget says. Carnival canceled cruises set to embark from England
Speaker 1: Chinese ports, but these measures don't appear to have altered
Speaker 1: anything for ships making mid cruise stops around Hong Kong
Speaker 1: or other parts of Asia. Carnival executives also make the
Speaker 1: highly questionable assertion that cruise ships don't spread disease more
Speaker 1: easily than it would spread elsewhere. Nothing to do with
Speaker 1: cruise ships, Donald says. COVID nineteen spreads the same in
Speaker 1: an airport terminal, a subway station, a restaurant, a theater,
Speaker 1: a stadium. That's misleading, says Friedman from the CDC's Cruise
Speaker 1: Ship Task Force. Her team has seen coronavirus infection rates
Speaker 1: approaching on two of Carnival's ships, she says, much higher
Speaker 1: than the spread in a supermarket or subway. Part of
Speaker 1: the problem, she says, is that cruises are often populated
Speaker 1: with people at greater than average risk for the disease.
Speaker 1: More than two thirds of the Zendam's passengers are older
Speaker 1: than sixty five, She says, crew members sleep in bunk
Speaker 1: beds and usually share bathrooms. If these ships had stopped sailing,
Speaker 1: our large team could all be working on helping states
Speaker 1: and local public health authorities with their community outbreaks, she says.
Speaker 1: In apparent response to these discrepancies, Frizelle emails a BuzzFeed
Speaker 1: article reporting that multiple people had died from a COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen outbreak at a family burial service, his point being
Speaker 1: that virus is spread on Carnival ships just as they
Speaker 1: do at funerals. Since the company has failed three percent
Speaker 1: of c d C ship health inspections, three times worse
Speaker 1: than rival Royal Caribbean Cruises, which fails one percent of inspections.
Speaker 1: In an inter view, these statistics seem to surprise Donald.
Speaker 1: What we fail health inspections? He says when asked about them.
Speaker 1: After gathering his thoughts, he adds, I would say, though,
Speaker 1: that we do not have a record in any shape,
Speaker 1: form or fashion of being unhealthy of guests on our
Speaker 1: ships being more ill than another travel venues period, let
Speaker 1: alone other cruises. Why didn't Carnival simply dock every ship
Speaker 1: immediately after their initial crises? In effect, that's what people
Speaker 1: have been trying to do. But what happened was ports close,
Speaker 1: airports close, borders close, and even now we have tens
Speaker 1: of thousands of crew on our ships that we can't
Speaker 1: get home. Donald says, it's not because we want them
Speaker 1: all on the ships. It's because things closed down and
Speaker 1: we couldn't get them off. As a publication, Carnival had
Speaker 1: two of its one dred ships still at sea. Donald,
Speaker 1: who's working remotely from his home in Florida, says he's
Speaker 1: under constant stress from NonStop conference calls. The day go
Speaker 1: by so quickly, he says, sometimes it's hard to leave
Speaker 1: the bedroom because the call starts so early you haven't
Speaker 1: gotten dressed. Or showered yet, and then you're waiting for
Speaker 1: a break in the calls so you can do that.
Speaker 1: It's so crazy. Along with overseeing the fleet, he's been
Speaker 1: working the phones to raise money, including a fresh five
Speaker 1: d and seventy five million dollars in equity for a
Speaker 1: bargain eight dollars a share. He says these funds will
Speaker 1: give Carnival enough liquidity to survive and extended pause in
Speaker 1: its operations. Obviously we're hurting, he says. If we don't
Speaker 1: bring capital in, we wouldn't have a company. Although Arison
Speaker 1: has spoken with Trump during the crisis, Carnival and its
Speaker 1: rivals were left out of a federal bailout of US businesses,
Speaker 1: in part because they aren't legally speaking US businesses. Carnival
Speaker 1: paid seventy one million dollars in taxes on twenty point
Speaker 1: eight billion dollars in revenue last year to Panama, where
Speaker 1: it's technically incorporated. There was very strong bipart asan opposition
Speaker 1: to a cruise industry bailout, and there will continue to be,
Speaker 1: says Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. They have flown
Speaker 1: under international flags and abated or skirted taxes with a
Speaker 1: record of predatory conduct. They need to prove that they're
Speaker 1: going to follow American norms and laws. Donald acknowledges that
Speaker 1: his company doesn't pay the i R S like a
Speaker 1: typical company. It's true that as a corporation, we don't
Speaker 1: pay income tax, he says, But he says Americans benefit
Speaker 1: from the port and harbor fees that Carnival pays in
Speaker 1: accordance with the demands of the maritime industry. While the
Speaker 1: fleet is out of service, Paget is continuing to invest
Speaker 1: in technology upgrades, and Schwartz says she's working to dramatically
Speaker 1: improve our sanitation protocols. Donald says it will take some
Speaker 1: time for all the negative noise about cruising to go away,
Speaker 1: but there are indications people still want to cruise. On
Speaker 1: that point, he may be right. According to a recent
Speaker 1: Carnival filing with the u S Securities and Exchange Commission,
Speaker 1: half of customers who sought cancelations between March second and
Speaker 1: March fifteenth for upcoming bookings opted to take credit for
Speaker 1: future cruises instead of a full refund. Almost all the
Speaker 1: passengers interviewed for this story say they'd cruise with the
Speaker 1: company again after all Carnival offered many of them free
Speaker 1: vouchers for future trips. The more you travel with them,
Speaker 1: the more goodies they give you, says Quarter, a survivor
Speaker 1: of the Diamond Princess. It's like rats and cocaine. With
Speaker 1: Jonathan Levin, Michael Smith, and k O Nha.