Following the National Government’s pronouncements moving the country to alert level 2, The Blue Train is pleased to announce that it will be resuming services for private charters as of September 2020 and leisure travel will resume with a full schedule including some local destinations, from 1st November 2020. While on lockdown, The Blue Train has shared news regarding new COVID-relevant hygiene protocols, ensuring safe travel in a COVID-19 era. These protocols ensure that there is adherence to the highest level of hygiene for the safety of our guests, and to inspire their confidence while onboard The Blue Train.
‘We are pleased to be opening up operations as the country settles into level 2 of the risk adjusted response to COVID-19. While we are excited that tourism is opening up, we are cautious about how we are proceeding, having implemented a stringent hygiene protocol. Our protocol ensures that over a number of days before travel, we will be in touch with guests and pre-screen them numerous times prior to their departure date. We want our guests to know that they are safe with us, to have the confidence to step onboard The Blue Train and let go of any anxieties, and truly surrender to the luxury of slow,” said Vincent Monyake, Executive Manager at The Blue Train.
Private charters are group bookings for both business and leisure travel. In business, these can be for meetings, incentives, events and conferences. The Blue Train is well equipped to host these various types of gatherings, with the ability to adapt its setup for conferencing, boardroom and group meeting set ups, complete with multi-media facilities.
Private charters are the perfect group bookings for family gatherings such as reunions and weddings, trips amongst friend groups, cooperatives and stokvels. For these, The Blue Train can be adapted to meet the personal needs of the guests.
The available routes for private charters are unlimited – The Blue Train can be chartered to any destination in the country that falls within the working railway network. Ready experiences include:
- A Lunch or Dinner Charter:Pretoria Circle Route
- An Overnight “Trip to Nowhere”:Pretoria
- A two-night trip: Pretoria – Sun City – Pretoria
- A two-night trip: Pretoria – Durban – Pretoria
- A two-night trip: Pretoria – Kruger National Park – Pretoria
- A two-night trip: Pretoria – Magaliesberg – Pretoria
“The move to alert level 2 means that our operations will have to resume gradually. Resuming of our full operations is set to be from 1st November 2020, and will be dependent on further pronouncements from the government of South Africa. At the beginning of the lockdown, we offered our guests and clients options of cancelling their bookings or deferring them to later dates of travel. As a result, some dates of departure have very low occupancy levels, which necessitates for cancellation of these departures and consolidation thereof with other departures. Our sales team will advise our clients accordingly and timeously of these amendments. For now, The Blue Train is ready to operate its private charters,” concluded Monyake.
The Blue Train will continue to communicate updates to its operations as the Government of South Africa provides more information on the ongoing national response to COVID-19.
