November 9th - The UK's First Arrivals in Orlando, Florida
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 9 November 2021
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Orlando, British visitors begin to arrive in the US now the travel ban has been lifted.
A conversation with some of the first arrivals from the UK and an update on the rules and regulations for getting here and travelling around the country.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Simon Calder, welcoming you to my independent travel podcast, bringing you the latest news on travelling, whether you're just dreaming of sunshine or actually making plans for an adventure. |
| 0:13.5 | As America opens up, I've been talking to some of the first arrivals from the UK in 20 months and finding out more about the rules that will affect them |
| 0:23.6 | and possibly you if you decide to go west to the United States. |
| 0:28.6 | By travelling via Canada, Niagara Falls and the American City of Buffalo, I made it to Orlando in Florida in time to meet some of the hundreds of people |
| 0:39.2 | who flew in. When the first flight from Manchester, or anywhere else in the UK, for that matter, |
| 0:46.5 | to Orlando touched down after the ban on British travellers was lifted, I was waiting to greet |
| 0:53.2 | the Virgin Atlantic arrivals in the |
| 0:56.2 | company of the airport's chief executive Phil Brown. |
| 0:59.3 | We've been looking forward to this day for a long time. We've worked hard trying to convince |
| 1:05.9 | the federal government that they need to open back up for a lot of different reasons, not the least of which you have a lot of folks from Great Britain that homes here. |
| 1:16.6 | They haven't been able to see their homes or the homes they've built. And then the experience. |
| 1:21.6 | I know that it's been a challenge for everybody in Great Britain with COVID, but this is an opportunity where they can come |
| 1:28.8 | and enjoy what we have to offer and it's something that you can't get on a Zoom call. |
| 1:35.0 | And among the first passengers to emerge from the media scrum were a couple of property owners, |
| 1:40.3 | Joe and Sue Mann from Manchester. We have a place here so we spend the winters here. |
| 1:47.0 | Not last winter. |
| 1:49.0 | We've had 18 months away and a lockdown away as well so it was really hard but we're really |
| 1:56.0 | looking forward to wintering out here now and the flight was great. Everything was very smooth actually we thought was it helped out. |
| 2:03.6 | We're the first plane to land apparently. |
| 2:06.6 | The very first plane so there's no queue, yeah, so we just went straight through customs. |
| 2:12.6 | Fantastic, but what about all the bureaucracy you had to sort out in advance? |
| 2:16.6 | Yeah, we didn't have to do that. |
... |
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