Cruise & Maritime Voyages’ ship Columbia arrived in London Tilbury on 14 April 2020 at the end of her month -long repatriation voyage to the UK, which sailed from Phuket, Thailand on 18 March.
CMV has recorded no Covid-19 coronavirus cases with any passengers or crew members on board Columbus or any other ships in their fleet of six.
Columbus sailed on her 7,842-nautical-mile repatriation voyage directly back to the UK from Phuket Thailand with 907 passengers including 602 British nationals and 619 crew members onboard.
The voyage included a technical call in Colombo, Sri Lanka, transited the Suez Canal and five passengers were repatriated viatender to Malta (2) and Gibraltar (3) before Columbus arrived at the London Cruise Terminal at Tilbury at 0800.
CMV’s top and overriding priority is the health and safety of all our passengers and crew. Columbus has remained under heightened levels of hygiene protocols during the repatriation voyage.
CMV carried out a unique passenger transfer operation at sea, just off the coast of Phuket, in order to transfer British Nationals fromCMV’s Vasco da Gamato Columbus to bringthemhome to London.
At the same time, Australian passengers were transferred from Columbus to Vasco da Gama in order to repatriate them to Fremantle.
Christian Verhounig, CEO at Cruise & Maritime Voyages said, “We are tremendously proud of our onboard and shoreslde teams for their fantastic job organising this repatriation voyage to bring our passengers home. On behalf of the directors, staff and especially our hard-working crew, CMV would like to thank all of our passengers for their support patience and understanding at this time.”
CMV has been in regular contact with UK Department of Transport, Border Force, UK Public Health, the Port of Tilbury, as well as the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), to confirm details of Columbus’ arrival today into London Tilbury.
A strict phased disembarkation process incorporating social distancing measures will take place on 14 and 15 April. CMV has worked with the passengers of other nationalities onboard Columbus and their respective embassies to ensure their safe onward travel home.
All other CMV cruise ships have returned to their home ports except Vasco da Gama which is returning to London Tilbury with no passengers on board, due to arrive on 30 April.
Columbus was sailing on a 120-night Grand Round the World Cruise which sailed from London Til bury 6 January 2020.
