Do cruise ship bands still play "Nearer My God to Thee"?

I wouldn't be caught dead - or alive - on a cruise ship, so if I'm going to contract COVID, it's not going to be while I'm standing in the buffet line or scooting a puck down the shuffleboard court on the Love Boat. But there are many who live by the cruise. And some who live by the cruise are seemingly willing to die by it, too.

Cruising's been mostly in the past tense since COVID hit - at least once the last wandering ship was repatriated. But you can't keep a good cruise line down. Or even a bad one. And so it has come to pass:

The first cruise ship to set sail in the Caribbean since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic has reported that a passenger on board has tested positive for the virus, according to The Points Guy. (Source: People)

The first ship in the water, SeaDream 1, was a smaller one - it's actually something called a "superyacht" - and carried just 53 passengers and 66 crew members. And yet one of them managed to ship ahoy while infected. So after a couple of days at sea, the captain got on the intercom to announce that a passenger had tested positive. 

Reporter Gene Sloan was on board to document the safety measures that were being taken:

Sloan detailed that the captain asked all passengers and non-essential crew to immediately return to their cabins to isolate. The doctors on board then began systematically testing passengers using three rapid COVID testing machines. Everyone on the ship had already been tested several days before departing, the day of their departure, and again several days into the trip.

If I'd been on this cruise - or any cruise - I suspect that I'd already have been isolating in my cabin, but I don't imagine I'd be the typical cruiser.

For those who do like to get out of their cabin, there had already been a couple of island ports of call. They were cautious ones:

...passengers were only allowed to visit empty beaches and did not come into contact with locals as part of the effort to protect communities from potential infection.

This may have spared the islanders, but not the passengers. And now it turns out that Passenger Zero was the first of seven passengers who've now tested positive. Oops.

This was reported by Ben Hewitt, another "cruise journalist" on the trip. 

The voyage was meant to demonstrate that increased safety protocols, including regular testing aboard the ship, could allow cruise voyages to take place during the pandemic. (Source: CNN)

Maybe not.

"It's not a great development for the cruise industry," [Gene] Sloan told CNN via email on Wednesday from his cabin on board. "I think the hope had been that the rigorous testing that SeaDream was doing would keep Covid off its ship."

"Not a great development", alrighty. 

Anyway, the SeaDream was counting on testing to keep folks safe, and crew members were assuring passengers that, thanks to testing, "the ship was a Covid-free 'bubble.'" They were such bubble believers that neither passengers nor crew members wore masks. Then, with no explanation, a few days into the cruise - even before the 'return to your cabins' announcement was made - a mask policy was put into place. Wonder why...

Meanwhile, the CDC is working with the industry to help it resume operations on larger ships, and cruise lines are looking for volunteer passengers to go on shakedown cruises to work out safety protocols. The SeaDream experience - with a pretty high percentage of passengers contracting COVID - isn't helping any. After the COVID positives were reported, two members of Congress "called on the CDC to reinstate its no-sail order for cruise ships and reverse efforts to restart the industry's US operations."

All I know is, you won't find me among those "that go down to the sea in ships."

And it does leave me wondering whether cruise ship bands still play "Nearer My God to Thee."