TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Restrictions Entering SXM

It is a start to restrict travelers from China and other countries hard hit with this virus. My fear is if the list includes Washington State or California. When does a country or state go on this list?

Very weird--Is that page half way cut off in the middle for anyone else?

I can see it all but it takes a while to load.

Fine for me

I see the entire page.

Huh. Must be my browser, which is Microsoft Edge. Huh, just checked IE and it is the same thing... Weird. I am going to send them an email....

Working fine on my tablet.

Weird. Eric is having the same problem on Edge..

Must be your server.

I am using Chrome.

No, it's not our server. Our server doesn't have anything to do with how we see websites.

Mine is cut on Microsoft but is fine on Google.

Some very interesting questions for sure. We have been to California 2 weeks ago and are headed to the island next week. Guess my first question is, Is it the responsibility of the gate agents to ask or would it be the customs agents in St. Maarten? If you answer yes, do they put you in a room and put you on a flight back to the U.S.A immediately? Do the customs agents screen every passenger coming off a cruise ship and ask them the same questions? As you can see, there are so many problems that come into play here. I fully understand where the government of St. Maarten is at as with such a small island you cannot have this virus enter, however if you do it at the airport, you have to restrict travel from cruise ships, ferry's, private yachts and planes as well.

Am I missing something? I didn't see travel to California as being a restriction for SXM.

California or any other state or territory of the US was not included in the restriction.

I was referring to Sxmmartini's query as to what if that is expanded to travel from Washington and California next week, although Ontario where we live now has 34 cases so maybe it won't matter. Just speculating was all I was doing.

Gotcha. I didn't see her post. I think it would be financial suicide for SXM to restrict travelers from the US. I sure hope the hysteria is over soon.

No. The media will keep it going and milk the heck out of it.

Sad to say that you're probably right.

Friday at midnight begins a complete ban of ALL European nations to the U.S.A. The ban does not include the United Kingdom. The ban is for the next thirty days! SXM has travel bans on China and Italy but not all European nations.
This is just the beginning...

I am an airplane/airline lover so often see things through that lense.

https://www.straitstimes.com/busine...sident-virus-threatens-airlines-survival

This article from Singapore has the Korean Air president indicating the airlines survival at stake with 80% of fleet grounded.

Now the European action which unfortunately is warranted for the next many 2-6 weeks to stop the wave.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/10/itali...ss-shares-chilling-coronavirus-thoughts/

The above account is from a doctor in Bergamo, Italy where it describes how the hospital reorganized thinking the worst and then a quiet nothing pause and then the tsunami of patients needing beds, ICUs, all with bilateral interstitial pneumonia which can cause irrersible lung damage and death.

So, all hype? the colleges don't want to see their kids in ICUs. Harvard, Ohio State, Florida, Notre Dame you name it.
The alternative is to allow the bug to spread and take our death and damage tolls.

Airfare/cruises are dirt cheap next week. We booked both two nights ago and are now gamblers on whether to get on a plane Sunday for a Monday-Friday sailing.total invested $210 each for airfare and 4 night cruise. Plus tax/gratuities.

After all, nobody has ever told the cruise line at embarkation they didn't have diarrhea when they actually did just to get on the boat.

In this case the carrier may be asymptomatic and just road the subway to jfk and sat next grandmother whose grand child just escaped Milan, Italy and gave a souvenir of the leaning tower of Pisa.

We've thought of just going to a hotel in Miami, wiping it down and the rental car and going to the open air beach and eating pop tart ramen and canned soda and beer.

At least it will be warm.

Flew from Miami to SXM yesterday on American Airlines. The question about "Have you traveled to China, Italy, etc. in the last 2 weeks?" was asked in Miami at the electronic kiosk -- clearly recently reprogrammed -- when we checked in. Then we were asked the same question by the immigration officer at Princess Juliana Airport when we arrived.

Also, SXM gets daily arrivals from Europe and mixes with daily arrivals from USA and then we all return. Isnt that a weak link?

Should SXM declare itself more North America or more Europe as “St Martin is France” and EU.

This travel ban/ restrictions is just going to make the economies worse. A French national can go to the UK and spend 14 days there then travel to the U.S.A. St. Maarten is going to kill the golden goose if it starts banning flights and cruise ships.
What about cargo ships bringing in supplies? If SXM cuts off the outside world it would be worse than this virus.

But if they don't, it could decimate this small island. Take the economics out of the picture, it has no place.

Trading just halted after S&P dropped 7%

You are right economics has no place with this global pandemic...

The last thing I want to do is sitt across the aisle on a Jet Blue flight with someone infected with the virus.

Covid-19 and don't forget Dengue Fever on SXM it is a wonder anyone will travel to SXM.


https://watchers.news/2020/03/10/de...6-099-cases-and-100-fatalities-reported/

Here's what we faced last week traveling to-and-from St. Maarten. Customs & Immigration at PJIA asked my wife and I if we had travelled from Iran, China, or Italy in the past 14 days. We did not so our answers were 'no'. They did not take a temperature reading of our foreheads as they are supposedly doing on Martinique (according to some folks we met when out dining one night). When we left SXM a week later we were again asked if we had traveled to those countries when we checked-in with with Jet Blue to get our boarding passes. After that it was smooth sailing until we reached our departure gate when once again I got selected for random screening. They refer to this as random, but I seem to get selected at PJIA every year. Don't know why this keeps happening, but it was a minor inconvenience.

Customs and Immigration at Ft. Lauderdale airport took a full 90 minutes, and we noticed that many of the TSA staff now wearing face masks. Made on connecting flight to Buffalo easily (allows allow a minimum of 2 hours to clear immigration) and by far the two cleanest seats on that Jet Blue Airbus 320 were the two we sat in after my wife cleansed them from top-to-bottom with Clorox wipes. We believe we were fortunate to fit our SXM trip now, because who knows that future restrictions await.