Forums39
Topics38,594
Posts311,749
Members26,557
|
Most Online2,218 Jan 21st, 2020
|
|
2 registered members (Manpot, jrw),
757
guests, and 70
spiders. |
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
Re: Covid testing prior to departure
[Re: beachlovers84]
#245533
01/21/2021 08:40 PM
01/21/2021 08:40 PM
|
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 82,721 Central Florida!
Carol_Hill
Traveler
|
Traveler
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 82,721
Central Florida!
|
Since that requirement doesn't kick in until January 24, I doubt anyone here will have experience with this, yet.
Carol Hill
|
|
|
Re: Covid testing prior to departure
[Re: beachlovers84]
#245539
01/21/2021 09:53 PM
01/21/2021 09:53 PM
|
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 26
TinaOysterBay
Traveler
|
Traveler
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 26
|
We are currently in St. Maarten, I scheduled our pre-departure Covid tests yesterday with SLS (St. Maarten Laboratory Services), wanted to make sure we could get the appointment on the day we needed it. It is a PCR test, we were told results come back within 24 hours. You send them an email with your Name, DOB, address, flight info, Passport #, etc and they then send you an email back with your scheduled test time. You pay at the time of service ($75), and results are uploaded to a patient portal. Their website is www.sls.sx, the details are listed for what they need in order to schedule your test. Hopefully this all goes as planned, they are the same company our resort is offering testing through, but the resort testing day was too early for our flight. *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** This is from the email they sent me:
In preparation for your pre-travel COVID-19 screening at the Sint Maarten Laboratory Services (SLS), please read the below instructions carefully. Please note that pretravel screening is on an appointment basis ONLY. [b]How can you make an appointment for pre-travel screening? Email the following information to: prescreening@sls.sx
- Full Name - Date of Birth (dd-mm-yyyy) - Gender - Address - Telephone nr. - Email address - Date of Travel - Time of Travel - Passport nr Once the information is accepted, an email will be sent to you from SLS with your appointment date and time. Please arrive on time for your appointment! What will you need for your appointment at the lab? Please provide an ID and payment upon registration. We accept Cash, Maestro and Visa cards. What to expect from the procedure? The nasal swab procedure is performed by trained staff within the lab and takes only a few seconds. How will you receive the results? Your PCR results will be available online within 24 hours of collection by accessing your SLS patient portal. Registration of the patient portal will take place upon check in at the lab. Hope this helps!
|
|
|
Re: Covid testing prior to departure
[Re: Mikel]
#245570
01/22/2021 01:26 PM
01/22/2021 01:26 PM
|
Joined: Jan 2015
Posts: 705 South Coast of MA
SXMBND
Traveler
|
Traveler
Joined: Jan 2015
Posts: 705
South Coast of MA
|
The CDC order says 3 days (no mention of 72 hours) and our resort is telling us that if you leave on Saturday afternoon, you can test on Wednesday morning. Will be interesting to see how it is actually implemented. Thank You.
|
|
|
Re: Covid testing prior to departure
[Re: beachlovers84]
#245591
01/22/2021 09:09 PM
01/22/2021 09:09 PM
|
Joined: Jul 2018
Posts: 315 Rhode Island
eightzerobits
Traveler
|
Traveler
Joined: Jul 2018
Posts: 315
Rhode Island
|
Guests only, but Divi has onsite testing Starting Thursday, January 28, Divi Little Bay will be providing testing at the resort on Thursdays from 5-6 p.m. in the hospitality room for $125 per person, which will be billed to your room to be paid at the end of your stay. Guests can sign up for testing upon arrival to the resort by providing their name, date of birth, and e-mail address. Once the tests are completed, they will be taken to the laboratory for testing, and results will be available within 24 hours. For assistance with on-site testing on alternate days, please contact the Front Desk.
|
|
|
Re: Covid testing prior to departure
[Re: beachlovers84]
#245937
01/27/2021 03:06 PM
01/27/2021 03:06 PM
|
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 182 East Tennessee
lhbsurf
Traveler
|
Traveler
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 182
East Tennessee
|
We arrived yesterday and booked an appointment with a local doctor for a rapid test the day before we leave. It cost $75 per person. I'll let you know if we have any hiccups - we are scheduled to leave on February 9.
We have been able to distance easily and most everyone seems to be masked when appropriate. We did notice that Mullet Bay was packed today, so we avoided there.
Laura
|
|
|
Re: Covid testing prior to departure
[Re: beachlovers84]
#246023
01/28/2021 10:24 PM
01/28/2021 10:24 PM
|
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 26
TinaOysterBay
Traveler
|
Traveler
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 26
|
For those wondering, here is our experience with Covid testing on the island today:
We have an afternoon flight on Saturday, and opted to test directly at SLS laboratory (St. Maarten Laboratory Services in Little Bay) this morning, to stay within 72 hours of departure. (American Airlines customer service was unable to tell me if we would be allowed on their flight if testing on Wednesday morning at our resort - technically within 3 days, but more than 72 hours, so we decided to play it safe and go to the lab on Thursday.)
Registered online - easy to do with the instructions on their website. Very responsive to emails. Set up our patient portal passwords to get results. Arrived at 8am for an 8-8:30 am appointment window. Sounds like they do ALL appointments early morning. There were approximately 40 people milling around outside the entrance when we arrived, all masked. Lady working for SLS handed us a number for our group, we were #27, and they had just called in #11 from the 7:30 am group. Groups ranged from 1-8 people. We had to wait outside until called to do our final registration and payment before testing - we were called in for paperwork at 10:10. Took awhile to do the paperwork, even though we had provided all the info in an email prior and set up our passwords on their patient portal prior to arrival at the clinic. After completing the paperwork we were directed to a shaded tent in the back of the clinic - from there we were called almost immediately for testing, which took just a few minutes, and were back on the road at 10:30 am. Total time elapsed was 2.5 hours, we did not expect to wait so long with an appointment! Received our results in the patient portal this evening, sometime between 4pm and 9:30 pm.
Takeaways:
1)Even though we had an appointment, it took almost 2.5 hours before we were actually tested. I felt bad for people waiting with kids and babies in tow! You have to wait outside, and there was very limited shaded area to stand in. They did have 5-6 chairs on the sidewalk, and steps to sit on, but most had to stand. I suspect part of this was due to it being the start of ramped up testing and working out the kinks.
2) Traffic from Oyster Pond to the lab in Little Bay on Hamster Ave was slow! Took us about 35 minutes to get there, we left at 7:25 am.
3) The people working at the lab were SUPER nice, and everything was very clean and professional feeling. Very diligent about everyone wearing masks, sanitizing hands, etc.
4) We had our results back the same evening, which was great.
5) Cost was $75, we paid cash but I did see some people using credit cards.
6) A guy I was chatting with as we waited said one of his friends was denied boarding back to the US yesterday as his test was more than 72 hours old (it was 77 hours old), not sure if that was on St. Maarten or elsewhere, but that was what he told me.
Hope this answers some questions for those wondering!
Last edited by TinaOysterBay; 01/28/2021 10:30 PM. Reason: added lab location
|
|
|
Re: Covid testing prior to departure
[Re: TinaOysterBay]
#246026
01/28/2021 11:05 PM
01/28/2021 11:05 PM
|
Joined: Jan 2015
Posts: 705 South Coast of MA
SXMBND
Traveler
|
Traveler
Joined: Jan 2015
Posts: 705
South Coast of MA
|
For those wondering, here is our experience with Covid testing on the island today:
We have an afternoon flight on Saturday, and opted to test directly at SLS laboratory (St. Maarten Laboratory Services in Little Bay) this morning, to stay within 72 hours of departure. (American Airlines customer service was unable to tell me if we would be allowed on their flight if testing on Wednesday morning at our resort - technically within 3 days, but more than 72 hours, so we decided to play it safe and go to the lab on Thursday.)
Registered online - easy to do with the instructions on their website. Very responsive to emails. Set up our patient portal passwords to get results. Arrived at 8am for an 8-8:30 am appointment window. Sounds like they do ALL appointments early morning. There were approximately 40 people milling around outside the entrance when we arrived, all masked. Lady working for SLS handed us a number for our group, we were #27, and they had just called in #11 from the 7:30 am group. Groups ranged from 1-8 people. We had to wait outside until called to do our final registration and payment before testing - we were called in for paperwork at 10:10. Took awhile to do the paperwork, even though we had provided all the info in an email prior and set up our passwords on their patient portal prior to arrival at the clinic. After completing the paperwork we were directed to a shaded tent in the back of the clinic - from there we were called almost immediately for testing, which took just a few minutes, and were back on the road at 10:30 am. Total time elapsed was 2.5 hours, we did not expect to wait so long with an appointment! Received our results in the patient portal this evening, sometime between 4pm and 9:30 pm.
Takeaways:
1)Even though we had an appointment, it took almost 2.5 hours before we were actually tested. I felt bad for people waiting with kids and babies in tow! You have to wait outside, and there was very limited shaded area to stand in. They did have 5-6 chairs on the sidewalk, and steps to sit on, but most had to stand. I suspect part of this was due to it being the start of ramped up testing and working out the kinks.
2) Traffic from Oyster Pond to the lab in Little Bay on Hamster Ave was slow! Took us about 35 minutes to get there, we left at 7:25 am.
3) The people working at the lab were SUPER nice, and everything was very clean and professional feeling. Very diligent about everyone wearing masks, sanitizing hands, etc.
4) We had our results back the same evening, which was great.
5) Cost was $75, we paid cash but I did see some people using credit cards.
6) A guy I was chatting with as we waited said one of his friends was denied boarding back to the US yesterday as his test was more than 72 hours old (it was 77 hours old), not sure if that was on St. Maarten or elsewhere, but that was what he told me.
Hope this answers some questions for those wondering! Thank you for this post, we have an appointment at the same location on 2/7 at 1:30 p.m. and it's nice to know what to expect.
|
|
|
Re: Covid testing prior to departure
[Re: BillDauterive]
#246035
01/29/2021 07:52 AM
01/29/2021 07:52 AM
|
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 26
TinaOysterBay
Traveler
|
Traveler
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 26
|
How did you present results to the airline? Did you have printed results to present to the ticket agent?
Hi Bill, we fly out tomorrow, and plan to show electronic copies of our results. With the portal you can download your results as a PDF, I did that and then emailed it as an attachment to myself. We plan to just pull up the email attachment to show at the airport, this worked coming down for one in our party who did not have a printed copy, so I am hopeful it works going back. A printer is the one thing I did not pack!
|
|
|
Re: Covid testing prior to departure
[Re: TinaOysterBay]
#246037
01/29/2021 08:36 AM
01/29/2021 08:36 AM
|
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 17,526 Ohio
ruralcarrier
Traveler
|
Traveler
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 17,526
Ohio
|
Thanks for the updates and good luck. I am not sure where you are staying but most resorts, even small ones, will have a printer one can use for printing a few pages.
J.D.
|
|
|
Re: Covid testing prior to departure
[Re: TinaOysterBay]
#246043
01/29/2021 10:08 AM
01/29/2021 10:08 AM
|
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 82,721 Central Florida!
Carol_Hill
Traveler
|
Traveler
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 82,721
Central Florida!
|
Tina--thanks so much for posting your experience. Does not sound terribly pleasant, but I read somewhere a report from someone who went to the Mullet Bay Clinic, and it was even worse..
Carol Hill
|
|
|
|