Corona scare gives cruise line share prices a slight ding

Written by Nick Blenkey
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Stocks of cruise lines took a minor hit today, in apparent reaction to reports that a passenger on board SeaDream Yacht Club’s SeaDream 1 had tested positive for COVID-19.

The boutique cruise yacht is currently docked back in Barbados, its winter homeport, after cutting short what was to have been a seven night voyage with calls at Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Barbados. The cruise was the first in the Caribbean, the world’s biggest cruise market, since the pandemic effectively shut down the industry.

Aboard the ship for the cruise were 53 passengers and 66 crew, compared with its normal complement of 112 guests, maximum, and 95 crew. The passengers include travel writer Gene Sloan who broke the news of the positive test in a tweet.

At the close of trading on the NYSE today shares of Carnival Corporation were down 7.9% on the day, those of Royal Caribbean Group were down 3.92% and Norwegian Cruise Line Holding by 3.4%.

Those losses came far from wiping out the huge gains made by cruise line shares on news of the Pfizer vaccine breakthrough (see earlier story).

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