Grand Princess: Florida couple sue Princess Cruises

CBS Bay Area cameras showed disembarkation process

Yesterday, as they do every day, the San Francisco Bar Pilots assumed navigational command of a ship and safely brought it to the Port of Oakland. What was different this time round was the ship that the pilot brought in to Pier 22 was the Grand Princess.

According to Captain Joseph Long, President of the San Francisco Bar Pilots,significant preparation and planning went into the operation, including providing appropriate safety measures and personal protective equipment for the pilot, who boarded the ship at 10:00 am.

Among the some 3,500 people aboard Grand Princess when the pilot brought it in were an elderly Fort Lauderdale couple, Eva and Ron Weissberger. When they boarded the ship in Hawaii two weeks ago, reports the Miami Herald, “they had no idea someone infected with the novel coronavirus had just disembarked.”

Now, after being confined to their room since March 5, they face the prospect of two weeks further quarantine on a military base.

The Herald reports that their daughter, Debi Chalik of Plantation, Fla., based law firm Chalik and Chalik, and California co-counsel Michael Simmrin of Simmrin Law Group, have filed a lawsuit on their behalf against Princess Cruises in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles, accusing the company of negligence in allowing the Weissbergers parents and thousands of other cruisers and crew to be exposed to the novel coronavirus.

Read the Herald story (which contains a link to the filing) HERE

As of this morning all passengers were expected to have disembarked the ship by the end of the day, report local media.