For passengers on a Holland America Line cruise ship, a fun-filled voyage on the luxury liner is quickly turning into a nightmare with deteriorating conditions on board and fears of a full-blown coronavirus outbreak after four travellers died and two others were infected. “We are stuck on this death ship,” said Yadira Garza, who is on board with her newlywed husband. “We are freaked out and terrified that we will be infected too. It’s just a matter of time if we stay on the ship.” Passengers on the Zaandam, currently off the coast of Panama, say they are desperate to get off the liner after Chile wouldn’t allow the vessel to dock. The company also said all ports on the ship’s route have also refused entry. Guests and their family members have taken to Twitter to plead for help. Then came some good news on Saturday: the ship’s captain announced Holland America is moving some passengers to a sister ship, the Rotterdam, because so many crew members have gotten sick, said Garza. The Panamanian government also agreed to let the Zaandam sail through the Panama Canal, reversing an earlier decision to block passage. On Sunday, small boats ferried passengers who’d been deemed healthy after answering a short medical questionnaire, and didn’t have a fever, from the Zaandam to the Rotterdam. Crew members took passengers in groups of 20 or so, instructing them to sit a few feet apart and not touch anything as a sort of on-board social distancing, said Andrea Bergmann Anderson, who watched the manoeuvres through the sealed window of her cabin inside the Zaandam. Lawyer Andrea Napoli is 33, fit and healthy, but still ended up in intensive care “They needed to get people off this ship to relieve the pressure because out crew is getting sick,” said Anderson, 63. She left her home near Cincinnati with her husband on March 4 to take the cruise, was denied the transfer to the ship anchored nearby after she told ship medical officers she’d been getting over a minor head cold when she started the journey. Anderson said the ship’s crew seems to be doing the best they can. She’s trying to stay calm and make the best of her confinement in her cabin. “Panicking doesn’t help anyone,” she said. Meanwhile, relatives of crew members on board the ship say they are being asked to work despite falling sick, or shortly after recovering from fever. Food is being delivered uncovered, with Garza describing finding hair and eyelashes on their plates of food. Holland America, a subsidiary of Carnival Corp, didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment on conditions for crew aboard the ship. It said in a tweet it’s working with Panamanian authorities on the transit. German minister’s ‘suicide’ linked to coronavirus crisis The Zaandam is the latest vessel owned by Carnival, the biggest cruise line in the world, to be struck with outbreaks of coronavirus, plunging the ships into dramatic public health crises that gripped the world’s attention. Now, some angry passengers say they weren’t screened adequately, even as governments, including the US, advised citizens to avoid cruise ships. The captain of the ship, originally carrying 1,243 passengers and 586 crew, asked guests to quarantine themselves on March 22 after a number of people on board reported influenza-like symptoms, said the cruise line. Four “older” passengers on the ship died and two individuals have tested positive, it said Friday, heightening anxiety on board. A total of 53 guests and 85 crew members have reported to the medical centre with flu-like symptoms, it said. And when Garza complained about long waits for service, a ship doctor told her Saturday that 40 per cent of the crew are now sick, she said. In an announcement to passengers on Saturday, the captain seemed to acknowledge the staffing shortage. The Rotterdam is delivering medical supplies and kits to test passengers and crew for Covid-19. “We have to rebalance the workload of the crew,” the captain said over the loudspeaker, in explaining the transfer of passengers. There’s growing concern about crew members spreading coronavirus. Crew members on two earlier Princess ships that had Covid-19 outbreaks hastened the spread of the disease to passengers, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention studies released earlier this month. On the Zaandam, like Garza and her husband, some passengers will be stuck on the ship, and may stay on as it sails through the canal and the Caribbean Sea, until it finally reaches Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Still, it may not be a straightforward disembarkation. Michael Udine. a commissioner for Broward County, where Fort Lauderdale is located, said at a special meeting Tuesday that he wanted to propose a motion to deny the ship’s entry, Local 10 News reported.