of the show? yeah, him. i'm not going to say his name this is "nightline." tonight, pandemic wave warning, for a bruised and battered cruise industry, trapped aboard the very first floating epicenters last spring. >> his fever is now 103 again. he's burning up. >> missed signals and cabin captives. >> keep in mind there are no masks. >> no masks. >> now how to make everything shipshape. >> i think would be a travesty if we didn't cruise again. plus, taking another shot from dream to stream. we talk to the cast of hamilton. the barrier-breaking broadway musical, transformed, and now more relevant than ever. "nightline" starts right now.

with juju chang. >> good evening. thanks for joining us. tonight a record number of covid-19 cases reported in the past 24 hours. more than 66,000. and more than two-thirds of u.s. states showing increasing cases. dr. anthony fauci today saying americans are living in the perfect storm. one industry under fire, cruise lines, looking to fix what mistakes were made when the virus surged at sea this past spring. here's abc's gio benitez. >> i am angry. i'm angry. we could have died. >> reporter: marleen and fred feel betrayed. >> i paid for two weeks of pleasure, not four weeks of misery. >> reporter: the new york couple says it's time for a reckoning with the cruise ship industry. >> the first two weeks of our cruise was -- >> great. >> it really was the first vacation. and then it's almost as if it was all taken away. >> it's like when people say what happened, and you go, march

didn't exist. >> reporter: the cantrells are suing celebrity cruises, owned by royal caribbean, as part of a proposed class action lawsuit, just hundreds of those passengers to get infected during the pandemic. >> i just want them to never allow something like this to happen again. as the captain kept saying to us, his job is to keep us happy and healthy. well, guess what? they didn't. >> reporter: also still recovering from a cruise turned nightmare, john and the retired couple was on the "diamond princess," the very first cruise ship known to be affected by covid-19. >> i feel like part of my life was stolen, but i'm alive, and i'm well. my desire to keep traveling is still there, and i feel safe. >> reporter: for now, those ocean liners remain docked after

becoming an early warning sign, a microcosm of what would happen around the world. now the plan to reinvent themselves and get back on the water. >> i think would be a travesty to not cruise again. we're going to be out cruising and enjoying life. >> reporter: are you ready to get back on a cruise ship? >> no. i don't trust them. they lied to me. they out-and-out lied to me. >> reporter: for the big three cruise lines, carnival, royal caribbean and norwegian, the date to relaunch their fleets remains uncertain. disney is also a part of the cruise industry. its ships remain idle as well. >> the cruise industry has not seen anything like this before, not from a financial perspective, and not from any other kind of perspective. >> reporter: how often do you go on cruises? >> once a year for the last how long? >> 20, 25 years. >> reporter: so you love cruisin'. >> love cruises. >> love cruising. >> no question.

>> reporter: when fred and marleen left new york back in late february there weren't too many cases of covid-19 in america, although the cruise line prohibited people who'd recently been in heavily-infected countries like china. >> we called celebrity, and they said the cruise is going, and by the way, you're not getting any money back if you don't go, and it wasn't cheap. >> if there had been a warning from the u.s. >> don't go. >> we wouldn't have gone. >> reporter: they flew to south america to set sail on a two-week adventure on the celebrity cruise ship, eclipse. >> i wanted to see the penguins. i wanted to get as close to antarctica as we could before it started melting. >> reporter: spoken like a true science teacher. >> it was my dream. >> reporter: the trip seemed to go without a hitch even as covid-19 cases suddenly explode back home. two days before the cruise was supposed to end, the cdc issued its no-sail order, effectively shutting down future cruises. but for the ships already out at

sea, confusion and chaos. so now you're approaching chile. >> right. >> reporter: you are expecting to get off. >> right. >> reporter: and what happened? >> the captain comes on, and i said, well, this can't be good. >> he said we have a problem. they're not letting us dock. we don't know what's going on. he literally said we are going in circles. >> reporter: after four days of uncertainty, the ship starts heading for san diego. >> but imagine, dining rooms, casino, shops, buffet. pool. open! come on down! >> nobody is staying socially distant. >> no. >> reporter: the cantrells are assured constantly in p.a. announcements and written letters from the captain that everything is okay. >> and all guests on board remain healthy and happy. >> reporter: the only real sign of trouble came when the ship docked. an ambulance was waiting to take away a sick passenger.

the cantrells flew home. they were ready to leave the whole thing behind until two days later. >> we got an e-mail from celebrity. please be advised that a passenger has now tested positive that was on board the ship. >> reporter: within a couple days, he realizes the minor cough he had was getting worse along with fever and fatigue. >> the er doc said how long have you been on ship? 30 days. no doubt you're going to be infected. >> reporter: do you believe the cruise line did everything they could to keep you snaef. >> no, they should have quarantined us in the cabins. >> reporter: that is what happened for this couple who drew worldwide attention. we first met them in early february when the ship was quarantined in japan. >> i want to show you around. measured it out because i had

nothing else to do. it was eight feet by 15 feet. that includes the bathroom and everything. 36.7. >> reporter: eventually, john started showing symptoms. >> his fever is now 103 again. >> reporter: john tested positive and had to be evacuated to a japanese hospital. after 26 days on board, melanie was evacuated back to the united states. she tested positive for the virus. it wasn't until the beginning of martha t march, that the pair finally got the good news. >> honey, we're going home! i love you. >> we just held on tight, we couldn't let each other go for a while. >> reporter: they were lucky. the "diamond princess" had more than 700 confirmed cases and at least 14 people died. >> when we first came back, i got quite a few e-mails and phone calls that wanted me to participate in a class action lawsuit. >> we didn't think it applied to

us on our cruise ship, because they were dealing with it the first time. i think that if we were on subsequent cruise ships and they still continued to do the same thing over and over again, then of course they're negligent. >> and we'll either give princess the benefit of the doubt, as it relates to the "diamond princess" because it was the first, but for every ship that had a problem after that, it became more and more clear. >> reporter: he is the cantrells' attorney. he said the cruise lines had enough information to make decisions to protect passengers and instead did the opposite. >> no quarantine. no masks. they affirmatively took steps so that the cantrells and all the other passengers let their guard down. saying there were no cases on the ship. so they took all these steps to make the cantrells less safe. >> reporter: celebrity cruises did not respond for comment on the cantrells' lawsuit. >> i that i tink the whole worl

caught unprepared. >> reporter: the agency say it is was blindsided just like everyone else during the early days of the pandemic. >> i stand by all the information that was coming at us, and all the uncertainty that was affecting, absolutely everyone, that we did the right thing by suspending our operations on march 13th, and i believe we're still the only segment of travel and tourism globally that shut down across the board. >> reporter: now companies are being forced into re-imagining the new post covid cruise experience. >> you can expect to see protocols that specifically address mask wearing, social distancing and the other aspects of the pandemic that we're all hearing and reading about every day. >> there are no more loyal travelers than cruisers. cruisers have their favorite line, their favorite ship. and those passengers are incredibly valuable to the cruise lines in getting them back on board, it is very important. >> reporter: the cantrells and

herrings agree they would love to get back on board a cruise ship when it's safe. >> from my perspective, they can't reopen the cruise lines at all and make it work. not until there's a vaccine. >> reporter: let's say there's a vaccine, you think you're ever getting on a cruise again? >> i say yes. i think i would. i love to cruise. >> traveling to us is the spice of life. and the fact that we've had the virus, i've been through the worst of it, and i'm still willing to go out and enjoy life and travel and see this beautiful world. >> our thanks to gio. up next, the cast of the smash hit "hamilton" in their own words. get in the car. taco. does this sentra feel like a compromise to you? wait, what...? the handling is good, right? no compromise there. nope! watch this... umm... b-brie...brie brie! rear automatic braking. so if this nissan sentra isn't gonna compromise, why should you? you're right!

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hamilton. it's the hit broadway musical breaking barriers and smashing records with its hip-hop rendition of american history. the musical now going from the stage to the small screen. my colleague, robin roberts talks to the cast. ♪ >> reporter: "hamilton", the boundary-crossing phenomenon has gone beyond theater to become a vital part of our country's

culture. a look at america then told by america now. ♪ ♪ alexander hamilton ♪ my name is alexander hamilton ♪ >> i have two and a half hours of your time in the theater. and our goal over the course of writing it was honor the impulse that made me think it was a musical. and to me, that was the relentlessness of alexander hamilton. and the fact that this is a immigrant narrative before there was a united states. >> reporter: people saw the play, and then they went back to their history books, and don't you feel it really sparked a necessary dialog? >> i think it was a part of a necessary dialog. our job was to try to create something that would probe and question. i don't think the purpose of theater or art is to give answers. we haven't changed any of the language none of the text has changed

since lin put his pen down in 2015. but the world has. so what we bring in, and the questions that are yelicited no are going to be fundamentally different. >> reporter: let's bring in the actors. you get the call to audition. multi-cultural, hip-hop musical about the founding fathers. who thought it was a crazy idea? >> early in the show there's a song called "the story of tonight." four men of color singing about friendship and brotherhood. and i had never seen an image like that in my life. so, to me, that was the revolution. to me, that image alone made the piece worthy, made it something i was going to bring everybody i knew to see because an image like that rocks you and can change your life, just seeing it. >> reporter: george, chris! i was going to call you "mr. president." did you ever expect to play one

of the icons of american history? >> i'm standing in the east room singing a song about the first president leaving office to the first black president who's about to leave office with the portrait just over my shoulder of george washington. washington never dreamed that i would be standing there, and he certainly never dreamed that president obama would be sitting in that seat. >> we felt like we were on a trajectory then, or at least i did, and the feeling of that has been derailed somewhat, because i have seen no change over the course of mayy en tire life, right? a week before i came out to perform i got thrown up against a fence by a police officer for no reason. what it implies by watching the show, sparked a revolution and i think now is a good time to examine the show as an example of how to hold your country accountable.

and to start demanding the change you need to see. >> i think it's really interesting that we're going to revisit this show at the same time that these statues are coming down in the streets, you know. there's this young kid that worked very, very hard to get to me. she had a question for me. she said, you know, my friends and i talk about "hamilton" a lot. we talk about the fact that we don't think it's revolutionary at all. we just think it's a bunch of color of people telling white people's story again. what do you think of that? >> reporter: hmm. how did you answer her? >> i signed on to be a part of a show that i believed in. that was our leg of the race. now it's your turn. there's no doubt in my mind that some young kid is going to look at "hamilton" and write the show that makes what we did look quaint. that might be happening at this very, very home. all i said to the young woman is i can't wait to see the show you write. >> reporter: many of the founding fathers were also slave

owners, and yet they established our democracy. so how do you, how do you reconcile that, professor? >> i don't know that it's necessary to reconcile it. history's not just a happy story. it's not full of people that we all want to pal around with. it's full of people who had weak motives, were weak in ways and strong in ways. >> i think it's important when you see theater, when you see things happening on the news, when you learn things happening in the world that you understand that your discomfort is the beginning of a learning moment. so if anything, i hope that like watching "hamilton", and seeing the struggles, and seeing how much they were flawed can be an inspiration to people. >> so many of you have children. what do you have hope that they are going to take away after they've seen it, the young ones? >> i hope that they will do the deeper dive and discover the other voices of the revolution

and the truth behind these voices of the revolution. you know, my son, he grew up with the show. he has a memory of what it was in his head. it's foggy, but now he gets to see the film and he gets to see his uncles and his aunts and how powerfully and beautifully that they tell the story that he owns, and that helps me help make sense for him of the world right now. so my greatest hope is that, you know, we, we, we claim some ownership here, and we project an image that is more true of who we ♪ alexander hamilton be sure to tune into "hamilton". history has its eyes on you, streaming on disney plus. up next, heading to harvard

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and finally tonight, a young man insmipired by his fellow sanitation workers. rahan's family struggled when

his dad lost his job. he went from straight as to falling short. >> i got denied by every single college, so i asked to go work for the local trash company. >> up at 4:00 a.m. to help pay bills, his co-workers and friends inspired him to hit the boo bo books again. this is the moment he would find out if he got into harvard. >> congratulations! >> oh! >> that's "nightline," thanks for staying up with us, good night america, have a great weekend. >> dicky: from hollywood, it's "jimmy kimmel live" with anthony anderson. tonight, d.l. hughley, and bubba wallace, and now, anthony anderson! >> anthony: hello and welcome to "jimmy kimmel live."

my name is anthony anderson. this is my second night in a row guest hosting the show. i actually do a lot here on abc. i'm on "black-ish," "to tell the truth," and for the past 11 years, i've been playing the role of george stephanopolis on "good morning america." i have to be honest, i'm feeling a little sentimental tonight. we looked it up, and this is my 41st appearance on this show. it was sweet, the staff gave me a cake today with candles and everything. but then i blew on it and we had to throw it away. y'all could have let me eat the damn cake myself. this is the worst summer in recorded history and continues to roll on. i remember the old days when having a bad summer just meant you sat in poison ivy. in 2020, itchy ass is your best case scenario. remember that movie, "i know what you did last summer?" they should make one about this