A COUPLE who have been trapped on a cruise ship during the coronavirus pandemic are on their way home.

Heather and Geoff McClure set off on their ‘holiday of a lifetime’ on March 5 and were due to disembark the Coral Princess on March 19.

However after the Lindale couple and a number of other passengers contracted coronavirus the ship was docked in Miami nine days ago and everyone was confined to their cabins.

After spending 35 days onboard the couple were yesterday allowed to disembark and last night boarded a flight to Heathrow.

Princess Cruises has chartered planes from British-based luxury private jet firm Volanteus.

After landing in London the couple will then board another plane, to Edinburgh, before being driven home to Lindale by coach.

Mrs McClure, 55, said last night: “We had more phone calls yesterday from Princess than we’ve had in the entire cruise. Think they’ve felt the pressure from us!

“We’ll fly into Heathrow, then stop at a Novotel overnight and fly to Edinburgh the next day and ground transportation from there.

“Not sure why we can’t fly from Heathrow to Manchester but at least we’ll be back in the UK tomorrow morning.”

Princess Cruises said all remaining passengers would be on flights home by last night.

The process of getting people off has been complicated because passengers haven’t been allowed to go to local hotels.

Additionally, a new federal law in the USA prohibits cruise passengers from flying on commercial planes.