(Bloomberg) -- The first cruise to sail the Caribbean since the pandemic shuttered the industry has returned early to Barbados after passengers got preliminary positive test results for Covid-19.
In a statement Thursday, SeaDream Yacht Club didn't say how many passengers had received positive tests. But Sue Bryant, a journalist for the U.K.'s Times and Sunday Times newspapers who was on board, wrote on Twitter that five people had tested positive and there was a possible sixth case.
On Wednesday, a reporter for the Points Guy website who was also on the SeaDream 1 ship, Gene Sloan, wrote that an initial person had tested positive, citing an intercom announcement from Captain Torbjorn Lund.
All guests and nonessential crew are quarantining in staterooms as the ship awaits authorization to disembark in Barbados, according to the company. Crew tests all came back negative, SeaDream said.
According to the Points Guy report, there are 53 passengers and 66 crew on the vessel.
The episode comes as larger cruise companies, including Carnival Corp. and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., are seeking to prove the safety of the industry so they can sail again from the U.S. Since March, the capital-intensive industry has been essentially on hold, with companies hemorrhaging cash just to maintain vessels until they can take paying customers again.
Cruise companies' shares were rebounding early Friday from declines on Thursday. At 7:57 a.m. in New York, Carnival was up 3%, Royal Caribbean had risen 1.2% and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. had gained 2.1%.
The SeaDream Yacht Company did not immediately respond to phone calls and emails, but in a statement the company said all passengers were subjected to two Covid-19 tests before embarking, and they're all being retested.
The SeaDream Yacht Company, with offices in Miami and Oslo, had planned at least 22 cruises from Bridgetown, Barbados in coming weeks.
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