The couple stranded in the Maldives have finally returned home

A newlywed couple get stranded at a luxury resort in the midst of a global crisis. It’s a premise that seems ripe for a rom-com, or even a horror movie. And for Raul and Olivie De Freitas, that remains a possibility. But until recently, their story was grounded entirely in reality. The South African honeymooners planned for a six day vacation in the Maldives but ended up stuck there for three weeks after their country’s airports closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. As they figured out a plan to get home, a New York Times article about their surreal experience became widely circulated online. “We never in a million years expected that this would become such a big story,” Olivia tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “We just thought we were normal people.”

Video Transcript

OLIVIA DE FREITAS: We got married a week before we left for our honeymoon, so we got married on the 14th of March.

RAUL DE FREITAS: Yeah. We'll be spending our one-month anniversary in quarantine.

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Hi, I'm Raul De Freitas from South Africa.

OLIVIA DE FREITAS: Hi, I'm Olivia, and we are the couple that was stuck in the Maldives for three weeks on our honeymoon. So we really started looking at honeymoon destinations really last year, so like August, September. Well, I always dreamed of going to the Maldives. There was no word of coronavirus, so we weren't concerned about anything at all. We thought that the Maldives was a very low risk area, so we thought it-- it should be fine. And at that stage, the South African lockdown hadn't been announced. So when we got to the Maldives, I mean, we were just so amazed by the beauty of everything, the color of the water. Everything was just incredible. It was nothing that either of us had ever experienced before. You go snorkeling every day. You go swimming every day. You lie outside and just stare at the water for hours on end.

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In that moment, I was definitely freaking out. I was like, this is impossible. How can I not be allowed to go back? And I think you just start thinking a million things like, what does this mean if we are stuck here? You just start thinking, what if we're stuck without food? What if we don't have accommodation? The guests started leaving slowly, slowly, and eventually we were the last ones there.

RAUL DE FREITAS: Because we got close with the guy that does our room.

OLIVIA DE FREITAS: And they call them "room boys."

RAUL DE FREITAS: Yeah, that's what they refer to themselves as. Eventually, we started helping him make the bed, just start helping him clean up just, you know, to give him more time just to sit down and speak about anything. So as that relationship developed, I started speaking to him about my love for soccer. So he was like, you know, at the staff quarters where they stay, there's a small little AstroTurf where they play [INAUDIBLE], and he invited me to go play there that evening with him.

OLIVIA DE FREITAS: So when Raul and I spoke to this journalist, we never in a million years expected that this would become such a big story. I mean, we just thought we were normal people. We've actually had about three or four producers contacting us for a movie. They basically just say that we are interested in your story, and we'd like to make a series out of it or a movie.

RAUL DE FREITAS: If someone was to play me in a movie in Hollywood, it would have to be Adam Sandler. I think that would be perfect. I think-- think it would be a comedy. Who should play Olivia? We were thinking because of the name, maybe Olivia Wilde.

OLIVIA DE FREITAS: [LAUGHS]

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The total of the charter was $104,000, so that had to be paid whether we were five people or 50 people. And it was a 250-seater. I think in the end we were around between 50 and 60 passengers, I think. I'm not too sure. And we were planning to buy a house, so obviously we will have to re-evaluate--

RAUL DE FREITAS: Evaluate our finance.

OLIVIA DE FREITAS: --that situation and see how it'll work out from here.

RAUL DE FREITAS: Currently, we're in a government quarantine facility. It's situated in Johannesburg.

OLIVIA DE FREITAS: So they bring breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But we're not allowed to leave the room, so we're confined to this small space. The quarantine period is 14 days, but we did the COVID-19 test yesterday. And they said once the results come back, they will then discuss. If they-- if it's all negative, then we could go back. But so far, we don't have any symptoms.

RAUL DE FREITAS: And they wanted to separate couples, but then as the whole group we stood against it. I mean, like, there's no chance. Our intention was never-- wasn't for anybody to feel sorry for us about being there. We were spoilt in getting an opportunity to be there. Obviously, we did pay for it, and we worked hard to fund our trip there. But there are bigger problems in the world, and there are people suffering more.

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