Does anyone get travelzoo alerts? I have for years because I love to travel but have never booked anything significant with them. I received an email Friday about a trip to the Maldives where you stay in an overwater “hut” for 72% off. The trip is 100% refundable and you can go through October '22.
Since it’s refundable, we went ahead and I’ve emailed them requesting the first week of March 2022. Dec-Feb are blacked out or an upcharge and the best time to visit related to weather is November-April. It’ll be interesting to see if (1) I get the dates requested and (2) if we’re actually sufficiently “over” Covid that we feel comfortable going. If so, I’ll be back to ask for tips from anyone who’s been. Right now I’d guess I have about 66% confidence we’ll go and 34% chance we’ll be requesting a refund.
@thumper1, if you’re interested in whales, that season is in the winter.
We really wanted to kayak the Nepali coast one trip, and you can only do that in the summer.
In the winter it seems like there are a lot of retirees, and singles/people with young kids. In the summer there are more families with older kids.
We like to go in the winter bc it’s cold where we live, and my husband really likes a warm winter getaway. Plus I love to whale watch from our balcony.
I have heard many places have closed down. Apparently Mama’s fish house on Maui, there for 40 years, has closed. I have a friend who normally goes twice a year, and she said many people there are really struggling (so many depend on tourism for careers).
I have family visiting from Oahu right now (tested themselves before departure and again upon arrival). They say a lot of restaurants are closed and they have no idea if they will ever open again
PS I have no idea how they think they are getting back into Hawaii but they are essential workers and I think they get an exemption from 14 day quarantine with a lot of testing
I checked out of curiosity and it seems like Mama’s Fish House is not closed forever. Per their postings, they held a “Mama’s Nā Keiki meal day”. They said
So that sounds like they could eventually reopen. I have a great memory when our son was in kindergarten - my husband had been in Japan on business for a month and we met him on Oahu. After a few days, we flew to Maui and had a late supper at Mama’s. Our son was so tired, he fell asleep with his head in my lap. covered with a napkin.
San Diego is a perfectly fine place to hunker down, very relieved to live here, but someday I really want to snorkel in Hawaii again.
@thumper1 , you might want to check into stuff you want to do to make sure restaurants/tours, etc. are running. We were just about to hit the GO button, before I decided to google things we want to do. Several restaurants not open.
The weather is turning cooler here, which gets my travel bug activated. Living at the beach, I’m perfectly happy going nowhere from May-October, but staring down the barrel of a long winter with nothing planned to look forward to…ugh.
Thinking about renting a condo near one of the ski mountains in VT or NH for a few days after xmas, but I’m sort of waiting to see how the fall plays out as far as a surge in cases. I’m sure by the time I feel comfortable enough to pull the trigger, it will be impossible to find a place.
@thumper1 - H was just asking me today if we should do a 2-3 week trip to Hawaii. We love it there - and wouldn’t be bothered by tours or restaurants being closed. We typically end up at the beach or hiking. I am very tempted, especially if we could do this sometime Jan/Feb 2021. But still a bit nervous…
I think anyone contemplating travel has to go into it from the start knowing there is a risk. Seriously, let’s not try and candy coat it. Whether a state provides testing or not upon arrival is no guarantee.
I guess I feel like if you are not totally comfortable doing everything (dining out, being around other groups of people, etc.) in your own town why would it become magical out of town?! (unless you are in a very high cases area going to a very low cases area).
You should of course make your own decision…but unless you’re really limiting activities don’t expect that your experience is going to be what it was/is when there is not a pandemic in our midst. If that works for you, don’t apologize, go ahead and book!
That’s an excellent point @abasket. We canceled our “big” island trip (after rescheduling once) because even though we could have traveled, the worry was too much and we didn’t want to chance being that far from home if one of us got sick. The experience was just not going to be the same and we decided to pull the plug.
However, our secondary summer trip to Wyoming (fly then drive) was something we were willing to chance. The flight was fine (no middle seats booked) and the rent car situation worked well. We knew how to get our food from past trips and safety compliance in the area was good. The things we liked to do we could still do, and once we got settled in, our anxiety abated.
Yes, I will not pretend it was risk-free. Whenever you are around anyone, there is a risk, and we were counting on food preparation sanitation to be good. We didn’t get sick and, overall, the benefit of having the relaxation and change of location was worth it.
Someone who had been told to isolate ignored the order. Somehow authorities found out the person and a close contact intended to fly to Florida. The positive individual agreed to leave the airport, but they had to remove the friend off the airplane. Ugh, such selfish behavior…
@conmama we are looking at a possible Hawaii trip about a year from now. Can’t imagine we can look now to see what will be open in a year, right?
Believe it or not, we want to take the Norwegian Cruise Line trip around the islands. I believe it’s an 8 day cruise and they are taking reservations. Food would be served on the ship.
To whomever asked…I’m not at all interested in seeing whales.
We would be spending extra days in Honolulu to do the things we want to do there…tour Pearl Harbor, go to luau, drink some fruity drink out of a coconut or pineapple. Plus we have a cemetery visit to make that for DHs godfather.
Just weighing whether October 2021 will be OK…guess it’s a crap shoot. Costs look to be fully refundable.
We just decided we will NOT be going to a “big” family wedding in SC this November.
We have canceled many trips, but this one makes us the saddest. It’s the first of the “next generation” of the family to get married, and it would be a great time. BUT, we are just not ready to attend a large event, and be in close contact with several people from different households in different states.
We are clearly much more risk averse than other family members attending.
We just won a public TV auction for two weeks in a favorite cabin directly waterfront on the St Lawrence River in NY in 2021. We went there each year with my mom. I’m really looking forward to it, and if, for whatever reason we can’t go, at least it was a donation to her public TV station.
But there should be no more danger in going there than to any AirBnB that’s a stand alone cabin. We’re quite content being on the porch and enjoying the view of the prettiest river in the world so even if everything around is closed, we’re fine. (Cabin has a kitchen.)