Quarantined cruisers near ‘mutiny’

The quarantine of Grand Princess cruise ship evacuees has been anything but smooth sailing, one of the passengers being held near San Diego due to coronavirus fears told the Daily News.

“Honestly, we came close to a mutiny this morning. It was a bunch of old people with needs,” Michael Bell, 71, said.

He said his luggage was mistakenly sent to Travis Air Force Base 500 miles away, all the breakfast was gone by the time he got up Friday and the subsequent line for lunch was a “mob scene” with desperate people abandoning the 6-foot separation rule.

“I’ve been walking around in dirty clothes for three days,” he said Friday afternoon, still waiting for an update on his missing bag.

“I heard someone named Pam is in charge of my building. I have no idea who or what Pam is. It’s a big problem. We’re not getting the information we need,” he said.

The retiree from Chico, Calif., is one of the hundreds of Grand Princess passengers quarantined at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar near San Diego after 21 people on the cruise liner tested positive for coronavirus.

Bell said he had trouble sleeping Thursday night due to his unfamiliar surroundings. When he woke up later and went downstairs to pick up his breakfast, everything was cleared out, he said.

“I only got a sweet roll I found sitting around in the break room,” he said.

When lunch rolled around Friday, anxiety was running high, he said.

Attempts to reach a spokesperson with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was not successful Friday.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that at least one of the evacuees sent to Miramar tested positive for the novel coronavirus after leaving the ship.