Dear Sir,

We have been to Bermuda many times over the past 50 years and our upcoming visit is by cruise ship. As we are sailing in a few days, we had to complete our check-in process and that led me to the Bermuda Travel Authorisation form. Because of Covid, we are used to extra administrative work and had no problem filling out a form — until we get to the bottom of it and it requires $US40 for each of us.

I am not sure what Bermuda calls it, probably an administration fee, but the rest of the world calls it a greedy money grab. Had I known about this before now, I would have booked a cruise with a different itinerary.

The Government might think, “Too bad for them but we got their money, so we won”. Sorry, not in this case. We are only in port for eight hours and in that time we would have likely spent much more than 80 bucks, but you have that money now and we will not be setting foot off the ship that day.

Plus, as we tell others of this situation, we will not be promoters of Bermuda tourism. Looking for an address to send this letter, I did see you have a poll going on for this very question and at this point 51 per cent of the respondents want it shut down and the door opened to all visitors.

I wouldn’t go that far, but at least vaccinated visitors should be able to enter unencumbered by so-called fees. My wife and I have both had four shots and in the future will be using that status to visit places that truly welcome us.

Goodbye, Bermuda!

JAMES WHITE

Nanticoke, Ontario