bluemoon68

One option may be to arrive in London the day before your flight?

There is talk of one hour rapid tests at Heathrow, I don't know if this will fit in with the Seychelles requirements, but it would make life a lot easier.

aristoph

Seems the swab test that LHR is offering isn’t accepted by any country (there is some question mark about Italy) - everyone requires the PCR test.

ledcran02

I see above that people are getting their passport numbers on their PCR test certificates - is this necessary for the Seychelles, because I can't find it in the Ministry of Health requirements, and it appears to cost extra to have the number put on for some test providers.

Freddorick

According to the agents on the web chat on the Seychelles Travel Authority website (https://seychelles.govtas.com/) they don’t need it.

Oddly, when you ask the agents there if you need the time printed on the test they keep claiming that it would be better to have it on, but that they will accept it also without.

ledcran02

Thanks Freddorick - we were planning on getting next-day-result PCR tests on Thurs ahead of departure Sat afternoon, so that works out great for us.

bluemoon68

Can I ask who you were thinking of using for these tests? Most places we speak to seem to say they aim for results within 48 hours, but that really isn't good enough.

tillyholly

I would love to know as well. We were supposed to be flying sat as well but had to cancel as it is just not doable based in edi. Have rebooked for january in the hope tests will be readily available by then. Please post what it is like when you get there. Very jealous.

ledcran02

We're going in person to the Hale Clinic in London, based solely on their website they seem to have a pretty straightforward process (test goes to courier at 615pm, you get results back the next evening via email). £225 per test. If worse comes to worse, our hotel is cancellable right up until our departure and we can always get a flight voucher. But hopefully will work out OK and we will let you know how we get on. Have no idea about non-London options unfortunately.

bluemoon68

We were going on 7/11. Now this latest lockdown puts it all in jeopardy.

Would happily move everything forward to 4/11 to avoid the travel ban, if BA would definitely be sending planes out to bring people home at the end of our holiday, but I guess this is questionable. Would need to know by Monday to sort a covid test in time!

Freddorick

Not sure if this is of too much use to anyone anymore, but here are a few things that might be useful for people departing before the lockdown takes effect:

- We ended up using unilabs for the PCR tests. We booked directly with them. They are a large lab company and you do the test directly in the lab. Staff was very knowledgeable and helped schedule the tests and noted flight details to make sure that they arrive back in time. Turnaround time is 36-48h where 48 is the maximum time needed. We ended up receiving them back after 32 hours. The test itself was among the most pleasant covid tests we did so far. At 100GBP it was also reasonably priced.

- The online health declaration is very extensive and you will need to upload confirmations of all your hotel bookings in the first 14 days. However, you are free to change hotels afterwards according to the webchat. Turnaround time was ~2h for us (advertised time is 6h).

- While you get a mobile boarding pass you can’t actually get airside before going to the checkin desk. I wasn’t aware of this and had initially planned to use the service desk in the lounge to validate passports and PCR test.

- BA agents at checkin and the gate were very keen to see the health authorisation and the PCR test. We had them printed, not sure if they would have accepted a digital copy.

- Arriving on the Seychelles we were among the first off the plane but it seemed that they selected the first 5 or so people “randomly” for an on-the-spot antigen and PCR test (they do both). You have to wait for the antigen results which takes ~15min. Staff was nice and they let me wife off the hook and were ok with just testing me, even though we were both randomly selected.

- Immigration wanted to see lots of details, return flights, all hotel confirmations, etc. We showed them confirmations on our phones. However, they didn’t really care to look at them.

Seychelles is nice and it seems we narrowly avoided the lockdown.

babyg_wc

Ive just returned from the Seychelles, there was no requirement for either the passport number or more importantly the TIME (just the date), this was for travel on October 14th-26th. I doubt anything has changed.

babyg_wc

gosh this is quite unlucky - you would need to get your test tomorrow....... personally I would still go, as BA have a duty of care to get you home and there are still non-direct options (emirates) to get you home... the issue will be your travel insurance etc - whilst the Seychelles never checked ours its a requirement to have full travel insurance (which may be tricky once the government officially makes travel bans). I wouldn't be surprised if BA just cancel the flights altogether given our flight had 20 - 30 pax max, they must be losing loads of money on this route ATM.

bluemoon68

We have travel insurance subject to the FCO not having ABE restriction at our departure time. Given that it is public health England that have put this lockdown in force and the FCO still has the Seychelles on the safe travel list, that is one thing sorted.
That turned out not to be true! Apparently if the advice is not to travel you should heed it if you want to be covered.

My concern is that BAs duty of care could amount to them telling us soon after arrival that our one and only option for getting home is in 3 days time! It's a long way to go for just a few days.

babyg_wc

You have the right to be re-routed, under comparable transport conditions... leaving early isn't comparable. Either way unless you have your tests today and your flights are moved its a moot point.

bluemoon68

I just checked with my travel insurer. As the government advised against travel on Saturday, they won't cover people who go abroad knowing that the advice is changing, from the time the advice comes into force. So my travel insurance would only be valid until 5th. I asked for that to be double checked and they said if people went abroad before Saturday they would be covered for the whole of their trip, but anyone going abroad once that advice has been announced won't be covered from when the new advice comes into force. (I know I could get new insurance elsewhere, but this another hurdle.)