Cliff Kolber and his wife from Miramar say they felt it was safe to take a cruise in early March, at a time when the Trump administration was advising Americans not to let the virus upend their lives.
Now, they’re stuck on a Holland America cruiser that’s being treated like a pariah because more than 70 aboard are sick. They are forbidden from leaving their cabin. The couple turn away delicious pastries for fear it will make them deathly sick.
The Kolbers, speaking for the first time about their ordeal, described in vivid detail Wednesday how their vacation has become a nightmare at sea. What bothers this South Florida couple the most: Their own government might not let them come home.
“This is my country, where am I supposed to go?” Doris Kolber told the South Florida Sun Sentinel by cellphone. “If my country doesn’t want me, who will? And I’m not sick, so why am I being punished?”
With scores of passengers and crew on board who have “influenza-like” symptoms — possibly coronavirus — the Holland America cruiser is headed for Port Everglades in Broward, where it hopes to dock Monday, nine days after the original scheduled end of the voyage.
The ship had set off on the voyage March 7 as the rate of new coronavirus infections was rising around the world. Several Broward County commissioners want the ship turned away, worried the vessel poses a health risk to the community at large.
That is distressing to Cliff, 72, and Doris, 65, who is on cancer immunotherapy medication. They do not have any coronavirus symptoms.
“It broke my heart,” Doris Kolber said by cellphone. “Everything we’ve been through we’ve been able to tolerate. [But] our commissioners stab us in the back: ‘Go and die.'”
Kolber said, “Leave them [the ones who are ill] on board and quarantine them, but don’t punish those of us who are not sick. I just can’t even wrap my head around it.”
Holland America said that as of Tuesday, 77 people were showing influenza-like symptoms. Local leaders worry it would be a health risk for the county to let them disembark because of the rapid infection rate of the new coronavirus.
A statement from the cruise line was not available Wednesday.
Bertha Henry, Broward’s administrator, did not respond to queries Tuesday or Wednesday whether she would issue an emergency order to stop the ship. But even without her, Commissioner Michael Udine said he would call an emergency meeting within days to force a commission vote before Monday’s scheduled arrival. He has the support of at least two other commissioners.
Udine argues that the passengers boarded the ship after the coronavirus outbreak began globally.
The MS Zaandam ship was sailing a South American voyage that departed Buenos Aires, Argentina, on March 7 and was originally scheduled to end in San Antonio, Chile, on March 21.
The company said in a statement that “due to global health concerns, Holland America Line made the decision to suspend its global cruise operations for 30 days and end its current cruises in progress as quickly as possible and so guests could return home.
“Despite previous confirmations that guests could disembark in Punta Arenas, Chile, for flights, we were not permitted to do so.”
The Kolbers’ son, Jerry Kolber, bristles at the idea that his parents were wrong to continue their scheduled vacation.
“My folks literally followed the exact advice of President Trump and Gov. (Ron) DeSantis at the time of their departure, who were both encouraging everyone to live their lives and keep working [and] traveling,” he said.
President Donald Trump suggested on multiple occasions that the virus was less serious than the flu, telling a TV host on March 4 that “it’s very mild” and that people infected with the coronavirus may get better “by sitting around and even going to work.”
CNN reported that on March 6 Trump told reporters: “We have very low numbers compared to major countries throughout the world. Our numbers are lower than just about anybody.” Even after the cruise began, on March 10, he said: “It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away,” according to MSNBC.
Cliff Kolber said he thought they would be fine because their itinerary didn’t include Asia or Europe, and restrictions in Florida — from schools to businesses — didn’t begin until after the cruise began.
Some county commissioners are sympathetic and won’t say no to the ship.
“I don’t think having them adrift at sea is the right thing to do,” Commissioner Beam Furr said on Wednesday.
“It almost harkens back to the ship in the late ’30s, when ships were not allowed to come into the United States,” he said, referring to the S.S. St. Louis, which was denied entry by President Franklin Roosevelt to dock in Miami Beach in 1939.
More than 900 passengers, all Jewish refugees trying to flee the Nazis, were forced to return to Europe. More than 200 of them would be murdered during the Holocaust.
“I know fear makes people look at things differently, but we have to look at fear in the eyes and do the right thing,” Furr said. “We do have a responsibility to our fellow man. We are our brother’s keeper. This is one of those times when you step up and do the right thing.”
Still, he knows there’s a problem. “We are suffering from capacity issues here. Broward and Miami-Dade County have been affected by the coronavirus. I do think if it came into port that here has to be a responsible way to do this that doesn’t affect the health of this county as well.”
Still, Udine doubled down on his stance Wednesday and said he feels he is doing the right thing to prevent deaths in Broward by minimizing the potential spread of the virus and keeping hospital beds with lifesaving equipment open for the county’s most vulnerable population.
He has other ideas for the ship: docking at a Holland America private island or turning an empty Fort Lauderdale hotel — or even the Miami Heat arena — into a quarantine location. Micky Arison, owner of the Miami Heat, is also the owner of Holland America.
The Kolbers, who are parents and grandparents, are both retired — Cliff as chief financial officer with a health insurance company and Doris as a computer program analyst for the Miami-Dade police.
They are spending their hours reading on their iPad and Kindle, and watching TV.
They aren’t allowed to leave their rooms, so the crew delivers three meals a day and leaves it outside the door.
“When the crew passes we bring it in and wipe everything down, wash our hands, then we eat,” said Doris Kolber. When they are done, the plates go back into the hallway. The crew is also delivering passengers soda, red and white wines and six-packs of beer.
If the food is brought uncovered, they refuse to eat it. So far that’s included juice for breakfast and a breakfast pastry.
“A couple days ago they had oatmeal uncovered. The dessert yesterday was uncovered, it looked delicious,” Cliff Kolber said. He guesses he turned away macaroons and pieces of different kinds of cakes. He didn’t spend any time studying it: “I don’t know what they were, but they looked good.”
On Wednesday, they said they were 230 miles south of the equator. They are getting regular updates from the captain by intercom assuring that he is working everything out about where they’ll end up. The captain was vague about a certain country “giving us a hard time about docking,” he said.
“He has taken the role of the mama bear protecting his cubs,” Doris Kobler said. “He is fighting for us.”
She is saddened by Broward’s response: “Our commissioners want us to jump into the ocean and die.”
Lisa J. Huriash can be reached at lhuriash@sunsentinel.com or 954-572-2008 or Twitter @LisaHuriash
