@oldfort Of course they could Uber to a hotel if needed, but would prefer not to stay in a hotel with a toddler without access to a kitchen. Their daughter has severe food allergies, so they prepare all her meals. As far as the FIL, he will be taking them to the airport 4 hours before the flight, so he would have to hang around the area until they take off. Testing earlier is not an option as there were no available appointments for the toddler.
@1NJParent They have no awards travel miles to use and would not want to shell out the money for 3 more tickets at the current rate of a one way ticket.
Yes! This is part of our worse case scenario, not going to any ports! It may be a cruise to nowhere! Of course D21 goes to school in NH- so just the ability to see the sun past 4:15pm on a boat is attractive to her!
We had a trip to Europe where all of our luggage was lost- all of it. After that, you kind of learn to roll with the punches.
I’m leaning toward postponing my trip to MN. I don’t think it’s prudent to travel now. I also don’t have the time to be stuck out there if I test positive or if my flights are cancelled, because I need to return for classes the second week of Jan.
I’ll plan a trip in March and if things worsen with my dad’s health and I have to go out there in a crisis, I’ll just cancel some classes and go. I’ve taught for over twenty years and hardly ever missed a class but these are unusual times.
D1 made it back home to San Diego last night from visiting Connecticut with her bf to see his family for Christmas. She had a very short connection and her plane was running late, but she luckily made it. I had to pick up her pup from boarding yesterday since she arrived back later in the evening and didn’t want him to have to stay another night there.
We just got back from a wonderful 8 days on the Big Island. We cooked far less than we thought we would. There were many great restaurants with outdoor dining, so we ate out mostly. Lots of mask wearing indoors and when social distancing outdoors was not possible. We did several tours, which were at capacity. Everyone wore masks for the indoor ones (including covered parts of boats). The luau we went to (we always do one) used much smaller tables than usual so no two families shared a table.
The worst part of the trip was the few still inconsiderate travelers at airports. I was surprised airports are still allowing travelers to wear handkerchiefs and gaiters. We stayed away from those people.
SIL is here in the DC area from Seattle with her young son. After the snowstorm in Seattle canceled the same flight on Sunday that she was scheduled to take back tonight, I’ve been keeping an eye on the flights (only one per day from here to Seattle on Alaska Air). Last night’s flight took off, albeit nearly two hours late. Checked this morning to find out her flight tonight is canceled. There is nothing available on any airline from any DC area airport to Seattle until Friday. She booked on a United flight Friday just to have something but has been on hold with Alaska Air all morning. She was going to try going to the airport ticket counter but they don’t even open until 2pm. So it looks like she will be staying an extra three days.
So thankful D and her BF managed to get back to San Diego without any issues on Sunday morning.
With the flight problems and omicron, I have no plans or desire to travel anywhere right now.
Puerto Rico is now having a massive spike in new cases. I can’t help but wonder if that will affect son and DIL’s plans to move there mid Jan. What’s the likelihood they’ll suspend flights for a period of time?
Then a couple of weeks later we’re planning on our USVI trip. They’re not nearly as bad as Puerto Rico yet, but what did the holiday travelers bring with them?
Travel is risky because you can’t trust people to take care of themselves, let alone others.
Summit County, Colorado, which includes Breckenridge and a couple other mountain resorts, has no mask mandate. As usual, Summit County is a very popular tourist destination this time of year.
The county sent out a message to residents and tourists on Monday warning of the rapid increase in testing and urging precautions and vaccination, but they aren’t ready to issue a mask mandate because they don’t want to make frontline workers act as police officers to out-of-towners (especially those who come from places where mask wearing is lax) who would balk at the idea and cause trouble. The next few weeks are going to be terrible and just when Colorado had finally seen a downward trend in positive cases and hospitalizations.
you don’t need COVID to randomly and at the last minute not be able to enter a cruise port…all you need is ports in France or Italy. There is ALWAYS a strike
True too- we had strikes mess up our travels as well on different trips. Maybe it’s us!!! All though our mishaps make the best stories later on. They are not funny when it’s happening.
Just got a text from my friend who is on her cruise-all good so far.
My brother spent a couple of days in Nashville. On his return, he took my 97 yo mother out for Chinese food for Jewish Christmas. He began to have cold symptoms and is getting tested today. I tried to get him to go to the drugstore yesterday and get a rapid antigen test but could not get him to understand as he only could focus on in-store tests. I suspect they are taking the rapid tests and then creating a document with the results (for which they charge him $150 rather than the $24 the test costs) that he does not need. But, I couldn’t figure out how to get through. Fortunately, he is vaxxed and boosted (as is my mother, with Moderna).
We are cutting back all travel (I sent an email pushing back a week business trip to the UK in mid-January) and lots of non-travel interaction. Five days ago, we had dinner in our house with a couple that is pretty careful. We had dinner on Christmas with a couple who are very careful (and their medical student son). We had our cleaning lady and our trainer in. None wore masks. We know so many people who have COVID or have family members with it so we are going back to masking indoors. Told the cleaning lady and will tell the trainer. Canceled a dinner tonight – we would have had everyone test an hour or less before, but decided instead just to cancel for now.
Our only remaining travel: We are scheduled to drive to Florida in late January and stay there with 90 yo MIL for 5-6 weeks. She is not very careful (a bit of a “What me worry?” attitude that was tempered by her long-time partner who was a cautious physician but unfortunately he died in the summer).
This is so odd for me. I am elite for life on a couple of airlines because I used to travel so much. Not dealing with domestic travel is not a problem, but in some years I could do 12+ transatlantic flights plus a few to South America and Asia. The travel is important for my work. I think we can live with less leisure travel, but do want to visit our parents and our kids.
D1 used to travel a lot for work - west coast and Europe. She would do an overnight trip to Europe for a meeting. She is thankful that her clients do not want to see her even if she is willing to travel.
I started a new job in Sep. I haven’t met my manager in Europe or NY. I haven’t even been in the office yet. It is a new world.
Honestly I’m glad many of these things are in the past and hope they stay that way. They’re so bad for the planet. I feel the same way about daily lengthy commutes into an office.
At least when one travels for pleasure they tend to stay places for a period of time.
Uh oh, Holiday Bowl here in San Diego cancelled hours before game time due to COVID issues with UCLA. They say it was due to protocols, so likely positive asymptomatic tests.
At least they were able to have the Big Balloon Parade this morning - which we safely watched on tv this year.
After all the time and money they spent fixing up Petco Park for football! At least the UCLA contingent can just drive home, but North Carolina State is stuck here with nothing to do LOL. There is a lot of rain in the forecast unfortunately.
With the bitter taste of the cancellation, the travel expenses, and the cold, rainy weather we’ve had, the NC State fans probably have no desire to travel to SD again. The traditional trips to the zoo and Sea World for the participating teams now seems like a bad idea, especially with video of some players with masks down around the chin. Bummer, I was looking forward to watching the game. They spent over $2 million on Petco Park to configure it for football. Oh well, hopefully next year.
We had something similar happen here - the Military Bowl yesterday b/w Boston College and ECU was canceled the day before b/c of Covid issues and injuries on BC’s team. They didn’t have enough players to field a team. Just as well b/c we did not need a flood of tourists coming to town and adding to our already surging case rate here. Unlike San Diego, no current indoor mask mandate here and we are a small historic tourist town with plenty of idiots already filling the bars and restaurants downtown.
It was a scramble to get my marching band Bruin to San Diego and now it’ll be a scramble to get her back to the Bay Area. They are all gutted. This was an expensive time sink for our family. I feel for the NC players, musicians, fans and families. I’ve always enjoyed a rainy walk on the beach so I hope they can make some lemonade out of all the lemons.
