It was to be the trip of a lifetime for the British couple. One disease ensured that. Another turned that dream on its head and left them feeling like global pariahs.
Simon and Kerry Lafrenais remortgaged their home to pay for the round-the-world cruise on the luxury P&O liner Arcadia. The couple, aged 52 and 47, could not wait. At an advanced stage of multiple sclerosis, Kerry had already lost control of her legs and one arm and was steadily going blind. The 99-day holiday was to be a final adventure.
Instead, the coronavirus pandemic, which unfolded as they made their way around the globe, turned the voyage into an endurance marathon. First, the itinerary was changed to avert Covid-19 hotspots. Then port after port turned their vessel away due to fears of contamination. By the time the passengers finally returned to Southampton on Easter Sunday, they had not set foot on dry land since Australia, 31 days and 30,000km earlier. The captain told them this was a record.
After deadly Covid-19 outbreaks on at least 10 cruise liners – including the Diamond Princess and Ruby Princess, which are in the same Carnival conglomerate as the Arcadia – disembarking passengers are likely to be greeted with as much suspicion as sympathy. Even before the pandemic, cruises were viewed with hostility in some quarters because they were associated with the wealthy.
But in Simon and Kerry’s case, the opposite was true. They had racked up debt so they could pay £36,000 for the cruise. Simon was borrowing from his future so Kerry would have a present beyond the usual confines of her bedroom. It was part of a strategy of investing in happy memories to tide them through the tough times of her degenerative condition.
The multiple sclerosis had revealed itself 18 years ago when Kerry suddenly could not take her foot off the accelerator pedal during a holiday in Devon. The couple, then living in Hertfordshire, narrowly avoided an accident, but could not escape the life-changing diagnosis that followed. Simon’s first response was to propose marriage so he could assure Kerry she would not be alone as her condition worsened. They both worked as bank clerks, and spent the next two years saving for a spectacular wedding in a Scottish castle so they would have special photos to look back on. Kerry – a self-proclaimed “Essex girl”, with a cheeky grin and a ribald sense of humour – led the ceilidh dancing. To his friends’ astonishment, Simon – a somewhat laconic son of Sri Lankan immigrants who was more comfortable listening to the Cure – joined in.
In the years that followed, Kerry had to use a stick more often, then a wheelchair. In 2016, Simon decided to quit the bank so he could become her full-time nurse. They sold their house in the London commuter belt and bought a cheaper home in Lincolnshire so they would have enough to live on until their pension. Kerry was increasingly bed-bound and in need of medication to dull her pain. The couple could no longer afford annual holidays. Instead, they planned a round-the-world cruise with the lump-sum early retirement payment that was due in 2023.
But with Kerry’s condition deteriorating fast, Simon realised that might be too late. Going behind his wife’s back for the first time in their marriage, he secretly made preparations to remortgage their home so they could go on the trip early. He knew it was a financial risk, but – like their wedding – he felt they could live on the memories it would create. Before going ahead, he got up the courage to tell his wife what he had done.
“She looked at me stunned, asked me to repeat myself and then burst into tears,” he recalls. “Now, I don’t handle crying people well, but it turned out they were tears of joy. What a relief!”
Kerry perked up. In the following months, she excitedly planned what to wear at each stage of the cruise and what sights they would see. Adding to Simon’s happiness was the prospect of three months in which the crew and medical staff of the ship would partly relieve him of nursing and cooking duties. He decided he would share highlights of the voyage with friends by posting a simple haiku and photographs on Facebook at each destination, and compiling a cruise playlist on Spotify.
Neither imagined, as they set sail in January, that escaping confinement from one disease would lead to quarantine because of another. The following account of their voyage – compiled from Simon’s diary, social media posts and messages, and media reports – shows how the pandemic caught up with them.
3 January – Southampton
A fireworks display accompanies Arcadia’s departure from port. Few, if any, of the 2,388 passengers know that four days earlier, China informed the World Health Organization that an as yet unnamed virus had broken out in Wuhan. The trip will mark Simon and Kerry’s 15th wedding anniversary. “Watch out world!” Simon posts on Facebook along with a first haiku: “Southampton, ‘Hello’, Beginning of adventure, Hoping for calm seas.”
15 January – Curaçao, Caribbean
After crossing the Atlantic, Simon and Kerry have a health concern, but not about Covid-19. They still haven’t heard of the disease, although it has now taken two lives in Wuhan, and spread to several countries, including Thailand, the US and South Korea. The British couple’s worry is that Kerry feels pain in her foot. It turns out to be cellulitis, an infection that could cut the journey short because her immune system is weak. The ship’s doctors prescribe antibiotics and warn that she may have to disembark for possible amputation if the symptoms worsen. “I feel numb,” Simon writes.
27 January – San Francisco
The antibiotics take effect and Kerry’s foot clears up as the ship passes through the Panama canal. By the time they reach San Francisco, she is well enough to enjoy the sights of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. Inside the happy bubble of the ship, there is still no inkling of coronavirus, although the disease is spreading wider. Several US airports have begun to screen passengers from Wuhan, but cruise liners are considered safe. That is about to change.
3 February – Hawaii
After almost a week at sea without free internet, passengers reconnect at Hawaii between outings to second world war memorials. They are almost halfway across the Pacific to Asia, where cases are rising exponentially. But the outbreak is still barely on the radar. “If the coronavirus had been in the news it passed me by,” Simon writes.
4 February – Mid-Pacific
While the Arcadia is at sea, another vessel in the Carnival conglomerate of cruise line companies – the Diamond Princess – is quarantined in Japan after more than 100 passengers are found to be sick with Covid-19. This leads to heightened concerns about the risk of outbreaks on other vessels. In the following days, the captain of the Arcadia informs passengers that the Asian leg of the world tour has been cancelled. Instead they will spend more time in Australia and New Zealand.
11 February – Polynesia
Kerry gets a cake and a card from the captain for her birthday. The itinerary is changed again. A planned stop in Tonga is scuppered by an outbreak of measles on the island, so the Arcadia diverts to Tahiti. Coronavirus still feels a distant threat, although it has almost taken a thousand lives around the world. Passengers are more worried about sunburn.
11 March – Freemantle, Australia
New Zealand and Australia mark the high point of the trip for the British couple. They love shore excursions to Auckland and Sydney. At Tauranga, on New Zealand’s North Island, Simon says people are so laid-back that he would like to live among them. In Brisbane, Kelly is thrilled to hug a koala. Simon revels in the landscape around Hobart, Tasmania. “Words cannot convey, Breathtakingly scenic views, Mount Wellington, thanks,” he posts on social media. But the pandemic is creeping closer. In Perth, Western Australia, they hear that one or two new passengers have failed health screening tests and have been refused permission to board. They set sail from Freemantle at 7.42pm on 11 March, hours before the World Health Organization declares coronavirus a pandemic. As a result, it will be 30,000km before they are allowed on dry land.
12-21 March – Indian Ocean
“From then on we seem to have lurched from disaster to disaster,” Simon recalls. The Arcadia is refused permission to land in Sri Lanka due to the coronavirus lockdown. This was to have been a big moment for the couple. Simon’s parents emigrated from Sri Lanka in 1966, the year before he was born. He was taking his wife to meet his relatives there for the first time. “It’s heartbreaking,” Simon writes. “It is hard to put into words the disappointment. This is probably the last chance for this type of meeting – financially, it is unlikely we could afford to do this again and, physically, I’m not sure Kerry will be able to.” Other setbacks follow. Dubai and Malta close their ports, meaning the ship has to divert from the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean. “Our world cruise is shrinking,” Simon writes. “Each new day seems to bring bad news … Cruise ships have become the pariahs of the world. Nobody wants us to dock.”
22 March – Durban, South Africa
By the time the ship reaches the Horn of Africa, the pandemic has taken 30,000 lives worldwide. There are still no cases of Covid-19 on the ship, which means it can fly a yellow (sickness-free) flag, but passengers have to practise physical distancing and sit apart from one another at dinner. Anxieties and frustrations have crept into conversations. These rise to a pitch when the Arcadia is denied permission to evacuate passengers from Durban and then forced to wait five days to refuel and resupply. Simon begins to fear Kerry may not have enough medicine if they are held up much longer. Without the right pills, the pain would kick in and her physical deterioration would accelerate. They finally dock on 26 March but only three South Africans are permitted ashore.
29 March – Atlantic Ocean
The ship is on its way back to the UK. Restrictions on board are tightened. The couple spend more time in their cabin. With one last refuelling stop in Tenerife, the focus is now on home, where relatives and friends are in lockdown and more than a thousand people have died. Simon asks a neighbour to buy groceries so the fridge will not be empty when they return home. He is surprised by how difficult it has become to buy online – a sign of how out-of-touch the ship is. “Bizarrely, fruit and veg is plentiful but loo roll is out of stock – I think people have their priorities wrong,” he says.
12 April – Southampton
The Arcadia docks in Southampton, the last of P&O’s fleet to return home. The usual fanfare welcome is absent. The passengers – who have spent 72 days of the 99-day cruise at sea – have to disembark in stages to ensure physical distancing rules are maintained. They have effectively been in quarantine for 31 days, but they have to be briefed about the changes they must adapt to on a land transformed. Since they set off in early January, the virus has killed more than 110,000 people. The UK is now a hotspot with almost one in 10 of those deaths. They are given a letter from the captain in case police stop them on the way home, and they have been warned they now have to take special precautions just to go to the shops.
Simon and Kerry know it could be a lot worse. Their story is one of frustration, not tragedy. They are grateful to be in one piece and to leave with a P&O compensation voucher for a 33-day trip next year, which eases Simon’s greatest concern that Kerry would end the trip with nothing to look forward to.
They drive back to Lincolnshire in a car full of suitcases, heads crammed with conflicting memories and a future of a quarantine behind familiar walls.
Simon finds time for a final haiku on Facebook. “The cruise is over, Thanks for the likes and wishes, Back to abnormal”, and – expressing himself better in musical choices than words – a Spotify playlist. It starts with Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads and Fantastic Voyage by David Bowie, then progresses towards Isolation by Joy Division and Ghost Town by the Specials. The final track is A Better Future by Bowie. In case anyone should think this last choice is uncharacteristically optimistic, he adds a caveat: “Imagine it as a question, rather than a statement.”
