My friend Jennifer went on a cruise around South America on March 1. It was supposed to last two weeks. Instead, she got stuck on the ship, doing the cha-cha-slide and eating shrimp cocktail for 30 days. She is 28. Like if you want to hear her story.

OK, gather round. It's time to tell the tale of the Celebrity Cruise of Doom.

The cruise set sail March 1. Jen and her family had originally booked a different cruise—through Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and China—but the virus situation was looking worse and worse in Asia. The cruise line offered a credit, so they switched to a Latin America itinerary.

At the time, there were few (if any) known cases of Covid-19 in South America. Jen says the cruise ship did some perfunctory screening before everyone got on board—they asked passengers to report recent travel to China or Italy—but that was essentially it.

So Jennifer and her family get on board and, honestly, she's living her best life. She's doing water aerobics. She's learning to dance salsa and merengue. She strikes up a friendship with several bartenders at the martini bar and drinks, in her estimation, $1,000 in martinis.

(If you're conjuring a mental image of Jen as a 65-year-old woman, that's totally cool. She is, in fact, 28, one of the youngest people on the ship.)

The cruise goes to Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile. Jennifer is really living it up at every port, eating giant shrimp, visiting art museums, going snorkeling with sea lions. The sea days are beautiful, too. The cruise sails past Cape Horn, the literal end of the world.

MEANWHILE, on land, it's also the end of the world. The Covid-19 situation is getting worse. Cities are going on lockdown. The cruise WiFi is super expensive so Jennifer was only getting updates during port days, when she had cell service, or from MSNBC onboard in her cabin.

Life at sea gives Jen a chance to block out the real world and focus on her new circle. She develops feelings for one of the bartenders, “an unrequited Jack and Rose situation.” She befriends two retired Boston schoolteachers in their 70s and a Denver police detective.

A week into the cruise, “shit completely hit the fan.” The CDC announced that people should not go on cruises. But at this point, what could she do? There was some corona chatter onboard, but mostly, it was business as usual: silent discos, ABBA sing-alongs, more martinis.

The cruise was supposed to end in Chile, at a port in San Antonio. A few days before that, Jen’s cousin started to get nervous. He suggested they get off at the port before San Antonio, find their own transportation, and GTFO. He worried they were going to get stuck on the ship.

But ultimately the group said no. They’d been on the cruise for two weeks already, they were told everyone on board was healthy, and they’d already been to a few cities in Chile where they could dock. It seemed fine.

The night before they’re supposed to get off, Jennifer spent hours at the martini bar. She got kind of drunk, then went back to her cabin and set an alarm for 7am. The next day they were going on a wine tour and then heading to the airport to fly home.

Then at 6am, there's a DING DONG over the overcome. “This is your Captain speaking," a voice says. He announces that Chile won’t let them dock, so they’re just going to float around in circles while they work on it. He says they’re negotiating. Jennifer is very hungover.

These “negotiations” go on for multiple days. They have no idea if, when, or where they will get off the boat. Jennifer’s nervous about getting off in Chile because flights keep getting cancelled, and she doesn't want to get stuck in Chile either. The ship continues circling.

At this point, Jen figures they’ll just dock in an adjacent country. When that doesn’t happen, the ship has to either squeeze through the Panama Canal to get to Florida, or sail all the way to San Diego. The captain chooses San Diego—and 10 more days at sea.

The Chilean government agrees to let the Chileans get off, but no one else. They wouldn’t even let the ship dock, so they had to send these little boats out to get provisions—food, fuel, medication—on land. The process takes three days.

They’d been on the boat for multiple weeks at this point. Jen notes that the sick bay was pretty crowded, but it had been since day one—cruises, remember, carry a lot of old people—so she tried to remain unconcerned. Plus, if someone had Covid-19, wouldn't they know by now?

To keep everyone entertained on this "bonus cruise," the staff puts on a talent show. The passenger choir also gives a rattling performance of the song "Don't Stop Believing," as the ship slowly makes its way back to the United States.

As they approach San Diego, Jen realizes she isn't just leaving vacation. She's leaving life before Covid-19. Back on land, bars and restaurants are closed, people are isolated in their homes. She goes to the final-night cruise party realizing it'll be her last party for a while.

They dock in San Diego, take everyone's temperature, and survey them for symptoms. It took no more than 15 minutes to de-board. Jennifer and I grew up in San Diego so, conveniently, she has a place to quarantine there. Everyone else gets on flights back to their hometowns.

Then she gets an email from the cruise announcing a passenger onboard tested positive for Covid-19. News reports say that three crew members had tested positive, too.

As of now, all the crew and 200+ international passengers (who couldn’t get off in San Diego for visa reasons) remain onboard. They’re docked in the San Diego harbor on a 15-day lockdown while the world decides what to do with them.