TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin The Long Way home: March 21, 2020

It seemed a long way home…
March 13th, 2020 … we’d been in SXM for 6 weeks of our 8 and the noise from home (Canada) was heating up with Covid info.
Familiarity with SXM (after 20 years of extended stays) was breeding a lack of concern for us. If we’re stuck here, we knew what we’re doing and we could cope.
Then Canada decided to shut down! Yoikes, but we were still fine here!
The BIG THEN, our son, connected with the Canadian medical association, emailed, saying “Come home NOW!” Further, WestJet, on which we had a confirmed flight home for March 25th, posted that their last flight to SXM would be March 23rd. Now, we panicked!
What to do … Started to SEACH!
Initial search, gave us ONE OPTION: St Martin to PANAMA City to DC to Toronto, 27 hours.! More YOIKES. Out WestJet flight was about 5 hours!
Panic was setting in … then… inspiration … a middle of the night search .. and remembering that although living in Canada, we were fortunate enough to live 45 minutes from the Buffalo airport…. We gathered the new plan ….
Search revealed only a few seats on a flight from SXM to EWR and then also a few seats from EWR to BUF on Friday, March 21st. We grabbed two seats! (our friends from Connecticut grabbed the last two seats). The subsequent flight to Buffalo was almost full as well. Also booked, a pick–up from our Canadian Airbus to home on arrival.
FRIDAY, MAY 21st .. SXM airport: all was well:; only one seat free on the flight to Newport. Tense on board .. one person coughing! People we’re stressed!
Newport was close-quartered, no masks, no distancing! MY wife was without shoes for 40 minutes in Newark security because of scanning of personal laptops. More stress!
NEXT FLIGHT EWR to BUF: Flight supposedly close to full (200 peeps); only 15 passengers made the connection!
BUFALO: 11:20 PM: met by our Airbus staff who crossed early to meet flight for 12 passengers. Only three were there.
Crossing from US to Canada@ 1:10 am: Border closed at MIDNIGHT (still closed almost 1 year later) but open to Canadians only: met by security and regarded as the LAST BUS to cross the border. Freezing wind hollowing off Lake Erie over the Peace Bridge and I was in SXM shorts!)
(NOTE: folks arriving later that night had to walk across the long bridge because taxis could not cross the bridge going to Canada and taxis from Canada could not cross the bridge to meet these folks.)
MARCH 22: we drove my wife’s car to YYZ (Toronto) to retrieve my car from Park’N’Fly and drive home again! Then, 14 days of self-isolation! WHEW! REFLEIF!
Missing SXM this year; but BOOKED for 10 weeks next year! Hallelujah! Se ya’ on Orient Beach!

Good job scrambling to find a way to get home.

Yikes! Don’t know what I would have done but I’m sure it would have involved a lot of bad words and tears!

Alcohol too for me.

All you quote is what we feared so we decided to cancel our 2020 March trip. Booked 2021 as soon as flights opened then worried if we'd really make it. We did and I'm glad. I was missing SXM so much.

Your next trip shouldn't be a problem. Good luck.

Oh YEAH! SXMScubaman! Alcohol .. especially at SXM prices compared to CND ... there was some alcohol consumed during all this! Thx for you comment!

A post script ... here in Canada, the medical peeps are declaring the THIRD WAVE.

I'm 74.5 and am eligible for the vaccine in another 15 days ... counting down the days!

RunnernReader--wow, what a story!! We had some friends who were on island when they were closing down last year, and they had quite a tribulation getting a flight home, without the added drama of the border being closed!!

I was surprised, talking to a Canadian friend of mine yesterday, that the eligibility age for shots in Canada is still 80!! Good luck!

RunnernReader. Just curious about how did you find out that your date for eligibility is in 15 days. We live in the same city as you and are a little bit younger than you but not that much. It would be nice to have a date to look forward to. Thank you.

We returned home from SXM expecting to be eligible for vaccine and now find the site is down and not enough vaccine available. Yet, places are on news saying their states plan to start 16 years old and up. I can't figure this out.