CRUISE & Maritime Voyages' ship Columbus arrived in Tilbury in the early hours of the morning at the end of her month -long repatriation voyage.

Thurrock-based CMV has recorded no Covid-19 coronavirus cases with any passengers or crew members on board Columbus or any other ships in their fleet of six.

Columbus was sailing on a 120-night Grand Round the World Cruise which sailed from London Tilbury 6 January 2020.

When that was aborted Columbus sailed on her 7,842 nautical mile repatriation voyage directly back to the UK from Phuket, Thailand with 907 passengers including 602 British nationals and 619 crew members onboard.

The voyage included a technical call in Colombo, Sri Lanka, transited the Suez Canal and five passengers were repatriated via tender to Malta (2) and Gibraltar (3) before Columbus arrived today at the London Cruise Terminal at Tilbury.

CMV carried out a unique passenger transfer operation at sea, just off the coast of Phuket, in order to transfer British Nationals from CMV's Vasco da Gama to Columbus to bring them home to London.

At the same time, Australian passengers were transferred from Columbus to Vasco da Gama in order to repatriate them to Fremantle.

Christian Verhounig, CEO at Cruise & Maritime Voyages said, "We are tremendously proud of our onboard and shoreside teams for their fantastic job organising this repatriation voyage to bring our passengers home.

"On behalf of the directors, staff and especially our hard-working crew, CMV would like to thank all of our passengers for their support, patience and understanding at this time."

CMV has been in regular contact with UK Department of Transport, Border Force, UK Public Health, the Port of Tilbury, as well as the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), to confirm details of Columbus' arrival today into London Tilbury.

A strict phased disembarkation process incorporating social distancing measures will take place today 14th April and tomorrow. CMV has worked with the passengers of other nationalities onboard Columbus and their respective embassies to ensure their safe onward travel home.

All other CMV cruise ships have returned to their home ports except Vasco da Gama which is returning to London Tilbury with no passengers on board, due to arrive on 30th April.

The arrival of the Columbus has meant some changes to the Tilbury- Gravesend ferry, whose operators have said: "We are expecting a portion of the Columbus guests to be using the ferry and so after a 30 day ship bound quarantine we ask all ferry passengers to avoid using our services between 0900 and 1300 for the respect of those disembarking Columbus and wishing to get home as quickly as possible.

"Where no passengers other than from the cruise ship are expected we will be relaxing our social distancing measures to allow passengers to cross quickly and efficiently. This will allow us to get back to normal ASAP and accept regular users again.

"During this time we will be socially distancing our crew only and operating free of charge to disembarking cruise passengers. Additional crossings may also operate."