Yvonne and Peter Missio left their Missisauga home, with suitcases packed for the cruise of a lifetime, stopping in Tasmania, Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa, Bora Bora and Hawaii.

“It was a bucket-list trip,” said their daughter, Sonja Missio, from her home in Toronto.

COVID-19 seemed like a distant threat when her parents left for Australia five weeks ago, Missio said. So her parents boarded the Norwegian Cruise Lines ship in Sydney, Australia, in late February. The ship made its first planned stops in the South Pacific, allowing passengers to disembark but the land visits ended roughly two weeks later when countries refused to allow passengers to leave the ship, Missio said. The cruise was scheduled to run from Feb. 28 to March 20.

Now, as the Norwegian Jewel travels to a port in Hawaii, it is unclear if anyone other than local citizens will be allowed to depart, she said. The next option would be California, where thousands have tested positive for the virus, an exit location that Missio fears puts her parents at risk.

“People are panicking,” she said.

“We understand that getting them off that boat means they will be quarantined. We just want them on land where there is a plan in place to get them home, eventually.”

The Star called and emailed Norwegian Cruise Lines for comment but did not receive a response by deadline. On March 13, Cruise Lines International Association announced it was suspending cruise ship operations from U.S. ports of call for 30 days. The association told CNN that a “handful” of ships are still at sea, saying “our members are focused on bringing these ships back to port as soon as they can.”

Missio has been in touch with passenger Jay Martinez, following his posts on Twitter.

A public relations officer from Texas, Martinez and his wife are on their honeymoon. He said their cabin has “in essence been converted to a joint operations centre to work anything from media engagements, monitor breaking news and work as liaison to communicate messages between families on land and guests on board.”

Martinez said the staff on the cruise ship have been working hard but there has been no communication from the corporate office. Nobody knows where or when the passengers will be allowed to leave, although on Saturday, there was still hope that Hawaii might allow all the passengers to leave. There is no indication that anyone on the ship has the virus, he said.

“If Honolulu denies us (on Sunday),” Martinez wrote, “many of are concerned we will be rerouted to California where the Governor has said in a letter to the Trump administration that 56 per cent of the state’s population – 25.5 million people will be infected over an eight-week period.”

In an email, Yvonne Missio, 69, said there is no resolution in sight.

“I try not to listen to rumours and hope that a port lets us disembark as the ship is COVID free. Next worry is catching the virus on the way home.”

In Peru, Amy Schwartz and her family are trying to get home, after getting caught in the country’s travel ban.

Schwartz, who is 15 weeks pregnant, is on leave with the Nova Scotia government, spending the winter in Peru with her partner and toddler daughter. She said she has an asymptomatic congenital heart condition that flares up during pregnancy and had planned to return to Halifax in late March.

As the virus spread, Schwartz rebooked their flights, moving the return date to March 21. Shortly after that, the Peruvian government cancelled flights. Now she is hoping that the Canadian government will make good on an apparent plan to send an airplane to Lima for the Canadians trapped in the country.

“It makes me nervous, not knowing what will happen,” she said, citing a lack of evidence on the impact of COVID-19 on an early trimester pregnancy.

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For now, Schwartz and her family are waiting, hoping for definitive news from Global Affairs Canada.

“The uncertainty is wearing us down.”