Thousands of would-be cruise passengers had to stay ashore due to a mysterious computer technical problem: goodbye to the end of the year cruise.
The year 2020 ends badly for everyone, as our lives this year have been disrupted by the Coronavirus. But there is also a strange and unspecified "computer technical problem" that is also ruining the New Year's Eve of thousands of people: the (no longer) lucky passengers of the cruise ships AIDA, German shipping company of the Anglo-American group Carnival, the same as the Italian Costa Crociere.
The company has in fact cancelled the New Year's Eve cruises, to be precise the trips of the ship AIDAperla starting from December 26 and those of AIDAmar starting from December 27. On Facebook AIDA wrote that the reason for the cancellation is to be found in "technical computer limitations". At the moment, both the AIDAmar and AIDAperla ships are stuck in port in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, and the company denies that it is a malware or hacker attack.
Captain's announcement
German newspaper Bild reports that at 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 22, the captain of the AIDAmar made an announcement to cruise passengers explaining that there were major computer problems at the company's headquarters in Rostock, Germany, and that all subsequent voyages of the AIDAmar and AIDAperla would be canceled.
AIDAmar and AIDAperla were cancelled and all subsequent voyages of AIDAmar and AIDAperla were cancelled.
The company: no hacker attack
AIDA denies that there has been a hacker attack or that its network has been infiltrated by a virus and reiterates that it is only an extensive computer problem in the communication with the ships. It also claims that all ships in its fleet have no technical problems and that it will reimburse all passengers.
German TV NDR, however, says it has learned from passengers on board that there were technical problems on the ships as well. Again Bild states that it was impossible to use the boarding cards to buy goods and services on board with the credit card.
According to NDR, finally, the Rostock magistracy is investigating with the hypothesis of computer sabotage.
At the moment, all of the German company's ships are grounded in or near ports in various parts of the world, while thousands of would-be cruise passengers who braved the Coronavirus by booking an AIDA cruise are forced to spend a much less exciting New Year's Eve than expected.