When 20-year-old college sophomore Kali Felty embarked from San Diego in January for a Semester at Sea, she imagined the 106-day world voyage would be the trip of a lifetime.
Instead, COVID-19 worries led to the unexpected closure of several ports of call along the way, trapping more than 540 international students from 27 countries aboard the ship for weeks at a time. Along the way, there have been constant itinerary changes and now an unexpected end this weekend in South Africa, more than a month ahead of schedule and 8,400 miles from their original final destination in Amsterdam.
Felty is the daughter of Carlsbad residents Amy and Jordan Moss, who have followed her voyage through its many ups and downs over the past two months as COVID-19 virus cases grew from an isolated outbreak to an epidemic to a worldwide pandemic. Amy Moss said her daughter has called her many times over the past month sick with worry over the often-shifting itinerary as one country after another refused to let their World Odyssey ship into port.
Kali Felty, 20, of Carlsbad photographed aboard the World Odyssey ship where her Semester at Sea voyage this spring is coming to an abrupt end due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
(Courtesy photo)
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Fortunately, despite the presence of the virus in two of the three countries they visited on the abbreviated voyage, Semester at Sea officials say that none of the students on board have tested positive for the virus, said Layne Hanson, vice president of public affairs for Semester at Sea.
Moss said the ship’s staff has worked hard to keep the students engaged and entertained, but the uncertainty has caused stress for her daughter and the other students. Each passenger gets just 7 minutes of WiFi each day for phone calls and they must wait in line for 15-minute sessions on a ship computer.
“Those kids are very isolated out there. There’s not a lot of WiFi, so they’ve felt really disconnected,” Moss said. “The kids have never felt in danger or scared, but the constant changes in where they’re going and when they’ll come home has been really hard on them. My daughter goes from calling me up crying in the middle of the night to calling me and being very strong and calm and saying everything is going to work out fine.”
Hanson said the challenges the company has faced with this semester’s trip — the 128th voyage in the company’s 57-year history — are unprecedented.
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“This kind of thing specifically has not happened in the world before,” Hanson said. “We’ve been through Ebola in West Africa and SARS in Asia, so similar outbreaks have happened when we were at sea and we’ve had to divert. But this particular level of disruption is something I’ve not seen in our history.”
Felty is midway through her second year at Michigan State University, where she’s majoring in sociology. After enjoying a summer program in Italy before her freshman year, she worked hard and saved diligently to afford the $34,000 Semester at Sea tuition, where she could earn up to 15 college credits in onboard courses while the floating campus visited 11 countries on four continents.
The voyage began Jan. 4 with a bus from San Diego to Ensenada, where the ship headed off to its first port in Hawaii. After a day there, the ship traveled on to Kobe, Japan. Moss said that was where the students first began hearing more about the virus spreading in China. The company made the decision to skip a planned port of call in Shanghai, China, and traveled instead directly to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, where they had an extended 12-day stay.
Kali Felty, 20, of Carlsbad, photographed in Vietnam during one of the few ports of call visited this winter during her Semester at Sea program.
(Courtesy photo)
But from that point on, the voyage began encountering problem after problem. The ship was refused entry to the ports in Surabaya, Indonesia, and Cochin, India. So after nearly two weeks at sea, the ship was allowed to dock for a week in the West African island nation of Mauritius from Feb. 29 to March 7.
Hanson said the decision to conclude the voyage early in Capetown, S. Africa, and send the students home immediately was the result of a number of recent international announcements, including a travel advisory from the U.S. State Department, President Trump’s travel ban from European countries and the World Health Organization’s confirmation about the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We absolutely want students to go home as soon as possible,” Hanson said. “That’s why we made this decision in concrete terms.”
The ship is scheduled to dock in Capetown Saturday morning. Moss said she and other parents were upset that the decision was made so hastily that parents didn’t have time to coordinate their children’s trip home. She had to scramble Thursday morning to find a flight to San Diego for her daughter in which she wouldn’t face an overnight delay or a quarantine in a foreign country.
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Moss paid $1,800 for a fare routing Felty back to San Diego, though Hanson said her staff would be willing to work with the family to find a discounted fare with partner airlines at a much lower price. Students will also be allowed to stay on the ship in port until March 16 if they can’t find a flight home immediately.
After that, many students will be going home to an uncertain future. Michigan State has shut down its classes, so Felty will spend the rest of the spring semester in Carlsbad, where she will finish her Semester at Sea courses online to receive full credit.
Moss is relieved her daughter will be home soon, but she’s frustrated that U.S. consulate officials have not come forward to help the young students as they deal with traveling home to cities worldwide during the pandemic.
“It’s been a nightmare. They’re just going to drop these kids off to fend for themselves,” Moss said. “I have been calling senators and even the White House because I feel like the government is not taking care of these hundreds of kids who will be stranded out there. "
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Coronavirus fears bring students' Semester at Sea cruise to an unexpected end - The San Diego Union-Tribune
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