SHELL TRAVEL CLUB

27 Feb 2020

Our trip unluckily coincided with the worldwide outbreak of Covid-19.  Our party of 29 members flew from the UK to the Dominican Republic to embark the ship, Braemar. Once on the numerous coaches to transport us to the port we were informed that the ship had been denied access to berth by the Port Authority due to several people on board displaying 'flu like' symptoms.  We were taken to hotels for the evening which was then extended to 3 nights. Our members were separated during this time as we were staying in 6 different hotels. Eventually, after three days, the ship was allowed to berth in St Maarten whereby all passengers awaiting to embark were taken by coach from the various hotels for the one hour drive to the airport.  After the long wait to check-in we then waited a further 6 hours in the departure lounge before boarding the two aircraft to take us on the hour long flight. On arrival, more waiting until minibuses arrived to take us to Braemar.  Many of us didn't arrive on the ship until the early hours of the following morning!  To cut a long and sad story short, the shortened cruise then went ahead with a different itinerary only to find that some of the ports wouldn't let us berth due to the infection that had started to show on board.  We then headed to The Bahamas (being the flag state of the ship) in order to fly home, only to find they wouldn't let us berth either.  After 3 days bobbing around (again!) in the ocean we set sail for Cuba from where we eventually flew home in 4 aircraft arranged by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.  One was a military aircraft that took those in isolation on the ship to Boscombe Down.