Murphy performer back home after extended cruise

    Culberson – Nate Goodlet is back home after spending more than 50 days aboard a cruise ship.
    His story was shared in last week’s edition of the Cherokee Scout.
    Goodlet is a performer on a cruise ship. When countries started closing borders due to the coronavirus pandemic, Goodlet and other crew members were stuck waiting on the ship on the other side of the world and working to prove themselves healthy for a return home.
    On May 9, the plan was for him to fly a charter flight from the Philippines to Los Angeles, then take a Delta flight to Atlanta. On the afternoon of May 11, they were told the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention would not let them take commercial flights. They headed to the airport not knowing how they’d get home from Los Angeles.
    In the Philippines, their temperatures were checked five times, and they had to walk through a sanitation tent at the airport where they and their luggage were fogged with disinfectant. The terminal was packed – it was filled with Americans from all over the islands to board a “Sweeper Flight” to bring them all home together.
    “So we had a fully booked 300-person flight to Los Angeles,” Goodlet said. “No social distancing on the plane or in the terminal.”
    When they arrived in the United States, there were no precautions taken against the virus, but those who were not on the ships were allowed to take commercial flights home. Cruise crew members took a bus to a private plane, or stayed on the bus to be taken to their West Coast homes.
    Goodlet got his own row of seats on the plane to New York City and was fed dinner.
    “The flight attendants on the charter plane were amazing and treated us like humans, not as the CDC had made us feel,” he said.
    Once in New York,
Goodlet was given the option of flying to Tampa and taking a bus home, or taking a bus home from New York. He chose the bus, as there were two other crew members from North Carolina also taking the bus from New York.
    The bus dropped off eight crew members at their homes – one in New Jersey, one in Pennsylvania, two in Maryland, one in Virginia, then the three in North Carolina. Goodlet was the last one dropped off, arriving home at 4 a.m.
    From what he understood, all American crew members from his ship were expected to be home by now. However, Canadians still had challenges, as the CDC would not allow them to fly out of any U.S. airports.