Travel hopes 2021

fh2000 said:
Some countries require PCR negative test to enter. Does US require PCR to enter or antigen test is fine?
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Either is fine for entry to the US. It’s also not 72 hours, but 3 days before. That makes it more flexible. It’s also only required for air travel.

I was talking about the 72 hour test requirement for non-US countries, such as Canada. That’s an inconvenience and it’ll be nice when it’s not necessary.
 
We are heading out to Switzerland (GVA) tomorrow via CDG. My MIL went into surgery today and is recovering in the ICU. She is in stable condition. I booked the tickets on yesterday after my wife had a zoom call with the doctors in Switzerland and my SIL and they decided to proceed with the surgery. For those considering travel to Switzerland these are steps you need to follow to gain entry.

1. Complete the entry form online for each person:

https://swissplf.admin.ch/formular

You will then receive a and entry form with a QR code that you must present upon entry. This form can only be completed within 48 hours before entry.

2. You need to obtain a COVID certificate to visit public places.

https://www.covidcertificate-form.admin.ch/foreign

It cost 30 CHF per person and takes up tot 5 days to process. We submitted the documents they requested (vaccine record, ID, travel itinerary) last night and my wife received her pass this morning. You should do this as early as possible to ensure that the certificate is ready when you arrive. You also need to download the Swiss Certificate App for your mobile device or carry a printed copy with you. This pass will also work in the EU countries.

3. You need a PCR or antigen test within 72 hours of your return to the U.S.
 
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Our London-Paris trip is still on. All the deets handled. Sat down a couple days ago & went through each step of the trip together. SO insisted on printing everything out. I LOL'd as I thought of the Progressive commercial...becoming your parents. Dr Rick.....Tickets everyone? Crowd holds up tickets. Dr Rick....We are off to a horrible start

https://youtu.be/_D6SU0HONSw

Then today.....Virgin emails & says they are overbooked & looking for people willing to change to LAX-LHR. Took us a few hours to get together to talk about it but looks like we could make that happen. So we emailed (it was 2:00 am in London) So we wait. They want to offer 2 RT tickets in Upper Class (business) usable in next 3 years. Hold the phone
 
Scrapr said:
Our London-Paris trip is still on. All the deets handled. Sat down a couple days ago & went through each step of the trip together. SO insisted on printing everything out. I LOL'd as I thought of the Progressive commercial...becoming your parents. Dr Rick.....Tickets everyone? Crowd holds up tickets. Dr Rick....We are off to a horrible start

https://youtu.be/_D6SU0HONSw

Then today.....Virgin emails & says they are overbooked & looking for people willing to change to LAX-LHR. Took us a few hours to get together to talk about it but looks like we could make that happen. So we emailed (it was 2:00 am in London) So we wait. They want to offer 2 RT tickets in Upper Class (business) usable in next 3 years. Hold the phone
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I guess my concern would be that any particular air carrier would be around as much as 3 years from now, but maybe I'm just remembering the halcyon days of Pan Am and TWA (etc., etc.). So YMMV.
 
Koolau said:
I guess my concern would be that any particular air carrier would be around as much as 3 years from now, but maybe I'm just remembering the halcyon days of Pan Am and TWA (etc., etc.). So YMMV.
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IMO, playing with house money. Maybe Sir Richard Branson will let us stay on his island for a few weeks instead?
 
Passed our antigen tests in Puerto Vallarta and headed home tomorrow. Having to take the test one day before departure adds a new wrinkle of anxiety. It’s been a blast but I’m ready to be back home.
 
Just got back from Panama Canal cruise and won't go anywhere until Apr 23, 2022. Delta surged after I got back from Alaska, Omicron is supposed to surge after this cruise, wonder what will be after Apr trip?
 
We flew into and out of Berlin thru Amsterdam, and we returned 10/9/2021.

A Covid test was 20 Euros in Germany, and they had public labs setup in the center city and at the airport in the departure area. 20 minutes and we were clean.

In Germany, anyone inside was to wear a mask, even in the train station. I forget a couple of times to put my mask on, and was quickly told by other travelers to put the mask on. Anytime we went into a sit down restaurant, our vaccination cards were checked.

Getting back into Schiphol and Atlanta, not a single soul checked our Covid Test in customs. I almost felt shortchanged.

3 weeks later, my wife and our granddaughter tested positive, and we were all just a little lethargic for about a week. We came out of Covid well--not too bad due to having the jab.

We still plan to take a Baltic Cruise to Scandinavia & St. Petersburg on 5/29/2022--that is if there are no fireworks going off in Ukraine. Every day is a different day throughout the world, and we're not booking anything that we cannot cancel. Travel insurance is also a must with my wife's medical issues right now.
 
For those travelling outside the country, in addition to the one calendar day negative COVID test, you need to sign and date an attestation.

The form can be found here:

https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/pdf/NCEZID_FRM_ENG_Disclosure_Dec2021_508.pdf

The airlines collect those on your return flight to the US. Unless you have access to a printer where you are travelling, you should print those before you leave.

If your airline has a "Ready2fly" or equivalent program, you can upload your vaccine information, passport, and COVID test results prior to your flight and you will be cleared to fly without showing those documents again (assuming your vaccination status is valid and you have a negative COVID test). Your "Ready2fly" status is then indicated on your boarding pass and it simplifies the boarding process.
 
Bamaman said:
We flew into and out of Berlin thru Amsterdam, and we returned 10/9/2021.


Getting back into Schiphol and Atlanta, not a single soul checked our Covid Test in customs. I almost felt shortchanged.
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When we landed at LAX on the 9th of December, nobody asked for our COVID test at customs. They were doing random checks after we cleared customs. They did warn us on the plane before we landed that there would be these random checks for vaccination and negative COVID test. The governments are counting on the airlines to perform all verifications before you check in and prior to boarding.
 
Freedom56 said:
For those travelling outside the country, in addition to the one calendar day negative COVID test, you need to sign and date an attestation.

The form can be found here:

https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/pdf/NCEZID_FRM_ENG_Disclosure_Dec2021_508.pdf

The airlines collect those on your return flight to the US. Unless you have access to a printer where you are travelling, you should print those before you leave.

If your airline has a "Ready2fly" or equivalent program, you can upload your vaccine information, passport, and COVID test results prior to your flight and you will be cleared to fly without showing those documents again (assuming your vaccination status is valid and you have a negative COVID test). Your "Ready2fly" status is then indicated on your boarding pass and it simplifies the boarding process.
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Such rigamarole AND the chance any one country (OUS) could suddenly decide it was "locked down" due to Omicron would prevent me from even considering international travel. Just returning from Mainland to the Islands was a real hassle.

I know lots of folks here take such issues in stride. The older I get the less I will tolerate hassle - especially when it comes to optional travel. YMMV as always.
 
Curently (still!) in England. Our trip was scheduled 1 week London & 2 weeks France. France decided to close the border to UK tourists on last Saturday. We were scheduled to Eurostar London-Paris-Strasbourg on Sunday. Rather than try to beat the deadline we decided to play by the spirit of the policy & saty. We booked a couple extra days in London to get our bearing and decided Bath, Cotswalds & Edinburgh would do. Arrived Bath today. Day trip tomorrow to Stonehenge & also see the Magna Carta in a church nearby. Then roman baths on Christmas eve.

Some reports of trouble staffing trains recently. So we will see what comes

*Christmas dinner & NYE in Paris will have to wait
 
Sorry for the disappointment, Scrapr, but if I had to choose a country to be "stuck" in, the UK would be right up there at the top of my list.

Enjoy it!
 
Arrived in Portugal in early mid-November (Pre-Omicron). We originally planned to fly to Spain in Dec to see relatives, but canceled that plan after Portugal declared a “state of calamity” because we couldn’t be sure of getting back in to Portugal. Went to Nazare instead and by dumb luck got to watch some world class surfers compete in the Tudor Nazare challenge. Rented a car instead of traveling via train to explore smaller towns. Rebooked longer stays at self catering apartments instead of many brief stays at different hotels.

Currently in Lisbon, which is very walkable if you don’t mind hills. We are spending most of our time outdoors when it’s not raining—this is a great place for mid-winter outdoor dining (for lunch at least!) The virus is throwing some major curveballs at us, but we are doing our best to roll with it and stay safe (and keep others safe by being vaxxed/boostered, masking,etc). Overall, we have been very impressed by the way the country and its people are handling things. It’s our first trip here but I can already tell we will definitely return.
 
braumeister said:
Sorry for the disappointment, Scrapr, but if I had to choose a country to be "stuck" in, the UK would be right up there at the top of my list.

Enjoy it!
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Yeah, they (sort of) speak the same language. So there's that.:angel:
 
Koolau said:
Yeah, they (sort of) speak the same language. So there's that.:angel:
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You didn't hear our bus driver announce the stops. We had our maps app up to see which town we were entering. It's going to be much worse when we get to Edinburgh. LOL I'm not sure Google translate can decipher a good Scottish brogue
 
Scrapr said:
You didn't hear our bus driver announce the stops. We had our maps app up to see which town we were entering. It's going to be much worse when we get to Edinburgh. LOL I'm not sure Google translate can decipher a good Scottish brogue
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Maybe it's just me, but I've never had any trouble understanding people in and around Edinburgh. Yorkshire accents utterly defeat me though.
 
braumeister said:
Maybe it's just me, but I've never had any trouble understanding people in and around Edinburgh. Yorkshire accents utterly defeat me though.
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Glasgow accents are hard for me to understand. And the Scottish Isles. I am watching a very good and funny Scottish TV show set it the highlands (Monarch of the Glen about a family trying to save their Scottish estate) and it really helps to have the captions on.
 
Northern England accents can be a nightmare for Americans. I watched a British murder mystery show that took place up North. I had to turn on the captions when the coppers interviewed the locals.

I don't travel far during the holidays. The last time I did it snowed back home and we were lucky to get back as scheduled. After our plane took off from LA, we learned that all flights not already in the air were cancelled. It still took over 3 hours to get home after landing at the local airport (normally under 40 minutes). I dodged a bullet that time. Lesson learned.
 
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All over the news today: Covid infections have apparently hit many airline crews hard and many flights were cancelled. Not fun to be far from home, spending Christmas in an airport. Hope everyone gets where they are going.
 
Koolau said:
Such rigamarole AND the chance any one country (OUS) could suddenly decide it was "locked down" due to Omicron would prevent me from even considering international travel. Just returning from Mainland to the Islands was a real hassle.



I know lots of folks here take such issues in stride. The older I get the less I will tolerate hassle - especially when it comes to optional travel. YMMV as always.
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100%. We visited France and Spain this fall and somehow, luckily threaded the needle between variants enough to get around and make it worthwhile. But getting the Pass Sanitaire, getting the tests to come home, and wearing masks everywhere, was a stressful PITA. It satisfied our international wander lust until something major improves. I realize it is different for people who have family and jobs overseas.
 
Freedom56 said:
For those travelling outside the country, in addition to the one calendar day negative COVID test, you need to sign and date an attestation.

The form can be found here:

https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/pdf/NCEZID_FRM_ENG_Disclosure_Dec2021_508.pdf

The airlines collect those on your return flight to the US. Unless you have access to a printer where you are travelling, you should print those before you leave.

If your airline has a "Ready2fly" or equivalent program, you can upload your vaccine information, passport, and COVID test results prior to your flight and you will be cleared to fly without showing those documents again (assuming your vaccination status is valid and you have a negative COVID test). Your "Ready2fly" status is then indicated on your boarding pass and it simplifies the boarding process.
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So who witnesses the test??
 
gayl said:
So who witnesses the test??
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You pay a service and someone on a video chat observes you taking the swab out of the test kit and collecting the sample.

The service is bundled with the Binax Now rapid tests, either 2 for $75 or 6 for $150 at eMed.
 
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