Anyone been to / going to Greek islands?

[Twobigsapphires]

Due to holiday on Greek Island in 2 weeks. Really anxiety inducing, anyone in the area boat or can offer reassurance?

Returned from Crete yesterday, just as wonderful as usual. No extra hassle really, just a glance at the forms both ends. Everything in resort as normal, felt very safe.
Took about an hour the day before leaving to sort the LFT , PLF and online check in. Anyone worried about travelling, please go and have a great time

@Postbox123

Returned from Crete yesterday, just as wonderful as usual. No extra hassle really, just a glance at the forms both ends. Everything in resort as normal, felt very safe. Took about an hour the day before leaving to sort the LFT , PLF and online check in. Anyone worried about travelling, please go and have a great time

How much did all the tests cost? Both there and back?

£30 pp special rate through tui

Returned from Rhodes. Just for your info if wanted-everything was fine just massive queues at the London airport. But if you have completed everything on the PLF you only need to show your passport as everything was on their system so was fine. Happy returns to those coming back.

@Adelphia1977 - thank you for the update. We return tomorrow. Which London airport did you come in at?

Stansted

Returned from Corfu on Friday after a fantastic week. Took about an hour and a half on Wednesday afternoon to take and register the rapid tests but they were all negative which was a relief.

Flight home was smooth , never seen Corfu airport so well organised.

Arriving at Gatwick and going through passport control was straight forward. No one asked to see our passenger locator forms once we were in the UK.

Did our Day 2 PCR tests this morning and posted them off.

Just about to sit down for Sunday lunch and mine and DH phones ping. NHS Test and trace! We are contacts of a positive case ( we assume from the plane )

Thankfully we don't need to isolate for 10 days as we are both fully vaccinated and the kids are exempt. We have booked PCR tests for tomorrow and will stay at home until results come in as common sense tells us to but we are also about to do lateral flow tests just in case.

We are flying to corfu tuesday and i know how you feel about the tests. Very annoying but we got the self test upload ones so no need to send off, just upload photo of test and passport to the company.
Wondering about day 2 and 8 tests right now, havent ordered them as yet.

Reporting a smooth return from Rhodes to Luton. Both ways the only 'hassle' was the long queue to bag drop. Luckily didn't suffer too much as we had opted for 'speedy boarding'.
Happy travels everyone and thank you to previous posters for sharing your encouraging experiences. 😊

Do you need to buy day 2 before leaving or sort or once out there or when back ?

You must buy or order day two tests in advance of the return flight as you will need to put the order number on your UK gov passenger locator form.

Am mightily confused re booking day 2 tests for even we get back.

1. Unvaccinated Under 18s only need to test on day 2 - do I book them a 'vaccinated' test or an unvaccinated one?
2. Where is the cheapest place to get them from?

Any advice appreciated!

After a fantastic two weeks in Kefalonia, we are home!
Completed Chronomics Fit to Fly tests on Friday (within 48 hr window of return). Easy peasy and results through in seconds of uploading photo of test results. Filled in PLF same day (one for my daughter and I, and a separate one for my husband). Checked in on line at the same time. All of that took less than 30 minutes. Saved all documents as PDFs on same phone which made airport check in easier. They also asked to see our vaccination certificates. Check in took about 5 minutes. All airport staff Greece side were extremely pleasant.
Great flight and once landed we were through passport control in minutes. No other document check as everything linked to passports. Luggage came through quickly and we were on the road within half hour. Still have Day 2 tests to do but they were here waiting for us when we got home.
We've had the most wonderful time and I'm laughing about how anxious and tetchy I was now. It was absolutely worth the minimal hassle and I'd go again next week if I could!!
Hope everyone had a similar experience.

All those saying quick at Gatwick etc on landing as "linked to passports" - how do we know this?

As far as I can see there's nothing different in the e-gates having used them twice.

We didn’t go through the e gates at Gatwick. Passport was checked, I had all the forms in my hand and the man said he didn’t need to to see as could see from my passport. No idea how!

Only our passports were checked at Luton. I think the PLF from the gov.Uk website probably creates the digital link so they don't need to see paperwork. If your day 2 test numbers are not genuine then PLF doesn't accept them so it's already checked. Don't think they need/want to see anything else anyway.

@brizzlewizzle - if the adults are vaccinated then book your day2 tests for 'vaccinated, amber country' - for everyone including kids.

You can do this before you set off from Uk or before you fly back. Either way you need the text codes to enter into your return PLF before you fly back.

We did ours with expresstest but I believe there are cheaper postal options.

We're just back from Rhodes. It was stressful doing the pre-departure COVID tests, just in case ...! I'd advise all to book tests which do not include live video link (just adds more things to worry about). Go for the ones where you just send a photo through. My live video appt was 30 mins late ... you want to avoid it eating into your holiday time like that. Once done though the certificate came through quickly. No problems at Greek airport - just show the passenger locator form, your vaccination certificate and the COVID test certificate.
One family were turned away as they turned up with nhs tests - no idea how anyone can have missed that this is not allowed!
In Gatwick we had an hour wait to get through customs - they saw the PLF details electronically, only thing asked for was my dd's birth certificate as she does not share my surname.

I'm glad I've seen this as the uk gov link suggests Greece not asking for testing if double vaccinated

www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/greece/entry-requirements

Please can someone post link re the day 2 / fit to fly tests as that's not clear from the link above so do have sympathy with the people stopped at the airport.

Also this link doesn't mention day 2 or fit to fly tests if vaccinated. I'm confused!

@RockingMyFiftiesNot if you’re double vaccinated you don’t need a test to fly out to Greece. You need your PLF and vaccination certificates.

When you come back to the U.K. you need to do a LFT by an approved company or pharmacy 48 hours or less before departure. You need to have booked your day 2 test for when you are back in the U.K. as you need the code for the PLF.

Thank you @Delatron - I realised after I'd posted that I'd misread several posts (which to be fair were ambiguous).
I was aware of the UK requirements, was starting to panic about Greece thinking i'd read it I correctly.

Thanks for the clarification

No worries. It’s really confusing and it took me a long time and a lot of double checking to get my head around it!

Do you have a recommendation for companies to use for the test prior to departure?

Can I just ask about the LFT before your return to the UK, what’s to stop someone just dropping plain water on the slide so you guarantee a negative? It occurred to me as I’m not sure how they can enforce the actual test being done?