SINGAPORE — Close to 2,000 passengers started disembarking from the Costa Fortuna cruise ship at 9am on Tuesday (March 10), after being denied entry to ports in Malaysia and Thailand over coronavirus fears. 

Marina Bay Cruise Centre, which is home to the ship, was closed to the public on Tuesday. 

Passengers, who were given the all-clear by authorities, were ushered hurriedly out of the cruise centre in groups of 20 to 30 by security guards in masks, who blocked them from talking to the media.

Tour buses were waiting at the centre to ferry the passengers to Changi Airport. 

Among the ship's passengers, 64 are reportedly from Italy, which has seen its Covid-19 cases rise to more than 9,000 in the last three weeks. 

Passengers TODAY spoke to said there were fears of the coronavirus onboard the cruise but the atmosphere was generally good. 

An Australian passenger who was travelling with her husband said: "I would be lying if I said there wasn't any fear (of the coronavirus) onboard but no one was panicking.”

The woman, who looked to be in her 50s and declined to give her name, said that her temperature was taken before she disembarked. 

Another passenger, a French national in his 60s, said he was more worried about online rumours that there were infected people onboard.

"Everyone is healthy and we had a good time. That's the story," said the passenger who also declined to be named. 

"We went through checks before we boarded." 

Passengers also expressed their disappointment of being turned away at the previous ports of call, where they were supposed to disembark. 

An Austrian passenger told TODAY: "We are all cleared and healthy. I didn't think they had to do that."

But his travelling partner added that he understood the measures which countries are taking as the coronavirus outbreak is spreading rapidly across the world.

In a statement on Monday, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and Singapore Tourism Board (STB) said the ship had declared that none of its passengers onboard had a fever or other symptoms of respiratory illness. 

Precautionary measures —  such as swab tests and temperature screening — would be put in place for disembarking passengers, the agencies had said. 

While the seven passengers TODAY spoke to said that their temperatures were taken, none had to undergo a swab test. 

Costa Fortuna did not pick up any new passengers since leaving Singapore on March 3.

In recent weeks, cruise ships have been put under the spotlight for widespread infection.

Diamond Princess cruise was quarantined off the coast of Japan after 700 people onboard were found to be infected. Eight people subsequently died after contracting the virus onboard. 

Last week, cruise ship Grand Princess was held off the San Francisco coast after 21 people onboard tested positive for the coronavirus. Its passengers were allowed to disembark in the port of Oakland after five days at sea.

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