Trip Report East Bay Resort: South Caicos Oct 2 - 9, 2021

[Cornellxc]

Also, Gilleys has some of the best food in TCI. Get the Conch stew or curried conch. Good stuff for sure.

 

[tridacna]

Also, Gilleys has some of the best food in TCI. Get the Conch stew or curried conch. Good stuff for sure.

There’s a new restaurant about 5 minutes walk from the outbound terminal that’s pretty good. Nice outdoor seating with a view of the airport. Forgot the name. Just turn right from the Domestic Terminal.

 

[mddyver]

I just returned from a week at the new Reef Diver's resort in South Caicos: East Bay Resort. This was a reschedule of a reschedule originally planned for LCBR in 2020. I posted in the Bahamas forum because it's the closest I could find to the T&C.

Travel: Getting there is a psychological ordeal. You have to be fully vaccinated, get an Antigen negative test within 72 hours of travel and purchase special "health" insurance in the unlikely event that you test Covid positive on the way back. Once armed with all of that info, you complete a somewhat confusing form as per TCI regulations and the wait for approval begins. We were a large group of divers (20) and the wait was horrifyingly slow. Some people received instant approvals. Others had to wait until 2am on the Sat morning of travel. Less that 6 hours before lift-off. It was handled horribly by the TCI authorities. It should not take 3 days to issue these approvals. The three top industries in the T&C are tourism, tourism and more tourism. People were ripping out their teeth in frustration. Two divers who were departing on the Friday prior and spending a night at an intermediary city were told that they would not be boarded on the first flights by their airlines because TCI had not yet authorized their documents. Miraculously both received authorization 10 minutes before their flights. I spoke to several other passengers on the flight over who confirmed similar stories. The TCI authorities need to fix up this mess - it's a lousy way to start a vacation.

Excellent Trip Report. My wife and I are leading a large group to South Caicos: East Bay Resort in 10 days. We arrive a week in advance.

I'm already experiencing angina trying to navigate the TCI website. Our departure is five days out, so we were hoping to complete the forms in advance and then just upload our negative test results at the last minute. The site allows you to start adding information, but you can't complete the process without the test results. Hopefully the information we did submit will be saved, but we're prepared for the worst case.

I'm glad we did a test run as we found PDF files were more readily accepted than jpeg files even though the site says both are acceptable. We also made the mistake of inputing our existing US based private health health insurance instead of our international health coverage via DAN.

PCR test result lead-times in our area are now 3-5 days, so we booked a rapid antigen test.

If you have any other tips on navigating the approval process, please share.

This is going to be a real journey.

 

[Ghost95]

Great report! Are there many beach diving or snorkeling sites for people who don't dive? I've been interested in that area. My wife doesn't dive but loves to snorkel.

Also, I wanted to share a tip for those of you traveling with this COVID thing going on. I have traveled a lot to South America, mainly Guyana, and what we've found is that the required tests PCR or Antigen don't always come in on time, even the supposedly rapid ones (unless you wait in the office). I try and test Antigen no more that 2 days before departure in case of delays along the route. Sometimes the countries want within 3 days of departure from your home airport some want within 3 days of arrival in the country. It depends on who you talk too also. I've had immigration look at the TIME the test was taken within 3 days.

If your flight is booked as a single trip from your home airport to your destination with a connection in say MIA, you may not be allowed to board the plane at your home airport without the test results even though they should come in while you're in the air. But, by booking the first leg of your flight to MIA and then booking your departing flight separately, you'll be allowed to get to MIA and add a couple hours to your testing window. A few hours can make the difference in getting the test results. Sometimes it's more expensive to do it that way but you can get to your connection with a minimum of COVID hassle. I think there is a rapid test place in MIA as well but I'm not positive.

Thanks again for the report.

 

[tridacna]

What day of the week are you arriving and departing?

 

[d^2b]

PCR test result lead-times in our area are now 3-5 days, so we booked a rapid antigen test.

If you have any other tips on navigating the approval process, please share.

This is going to be a real journey.

I guess you know you need a "special" antigen test with a nasopharyngeal (sp) swab. At least you did in November, and we could not get one locally, had to get a NAAT test instead.

 

[tridacna]

I guess you know you need a "special" antigen test with a nasopharyngeal (sp) swab. At least you did in November, and we could not get one locally, had to get a NAAT test instead.

What do you mean by “special”? The antigen test needs to be proctored and results must come from lab grade equipment. CVS, Walgreens etc tests done on site are all acceptable.

 

[d^2b]

What do you mean by “special”? The antigen test needs to be proctored and results must come from lab grade equipment. CVS, Walgreens etc tests done on site are all acceptable.

Just reading the TCI assure site, list of acceptable tests.

• Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction tests (RT-PCR).
• Nucleic Acid Amplification tests (NAA).
• RNA or molecular tests.
• Antigen tests completed via nasopharyngeal swab.

Maybe the swab type is not strictly enforced, but I didn't want to test that. Later they say

For Antigen tests: Only results from nasopharyngeal samples are accepted.​

So they seem to be serious about it.

​

 

[Ghost95]

Make sure all you test information is correct and matches your passport as far as name goes.

We did have one guy get denied boarding at his home airport because his test didn't have the word "Nasal" printed on it even though the test listed was a nasal swab and could be confirmed by a quick google search. This was at his home airport in the US.

It took a lot of hassle on his part to get that straightened out before being allowed to fly to MIA. He got his test through one of those Any Test Now, diagnostic clinics.

 

[tridacna]

Just reading the TCI assure site, list of acceptable tests.

• Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction tests (RT-PCR).
• Nucleic Acid Amplification tests (NAA).
• RNA or molecular tests.
• Antigen tests completed via nasopharyngeal swab.

Maybe the swab type is not strictly enforced, but I didn't want to test that. Later they say

For Antigen tests: Only results from nasopharyngeal samples are accepted.​

So they seem to be serious about it.

​

Dumb list - they need to update. NAAT includes PCR tests. All lab antigens are naso swabs.

Unfortunately, I’ve been down this road with them. Worst part was the waiting for approval. Now it’s getting the results in time!