Traveling in Covid Time

Today started with sort of a down morning. A little less than 13 years ago I bought a Wii and, after using it for awhile, set up a program of exercises and yoga poses to do in the mornings. After using it on and off for many years, I started doing them every morning after I was diagnosed with prostate cancer about a year and a half ago. That and daily walking has been shown to help our bodies keep cancers (and other ailments) under control, so while I was waiting to get vaccinated, I helped by doing the exercises, yoga, healthful diet, and walking. 

As a passing note, I don't know why it's so hard for me to follow through on doing what I know is best for my own health. Well, because exercise takes more effort than couch sitting, that might be part of it. And things that taste good are probably not so good at helping my body be at top fighting form in its battle against the bad guys. As my brother said his heart doctor once told him, "If it tastes good, spit it out."

Night before last, I stubbed a toe during a nocturnal trip to the bathroom, so had a good excuse yesterday to skip the exercises because of a sore toe. Had to remind myself that the exercises were more important than a little pain and went ahead with the exercises.

Today, the toe is feeling better so that excuse wouldn't work, but I still tried to come up with an excuse not to exercise. Again had to remind myself that I was rewarding my body for its efforts to defeat cancer, so hopped onto the Wii balance board and worked out for 45 minutes. Once started, the routine kicked in and I could think of other things while exercising and posing. Felt much better for the effort!  

Part of the time was spent mentally reviewing the checklist of things to do before we leave Thursday for a Mediterranean cruise. We've been on several cruises before, but this one has been complicated by the virus and now the Delta variant.

We start and end in Greece, so we need to meet their travel requirements and complete their Passenger Locator Form. That form consists of two pages of personal information, transportation info, permanent address, temporary address, emergency contact info, travel companions and, most importantly, your digital vaccination record.

Holland America Cruise Lines has their forms and travel restrictions. Everyone on the cruise (pax and crew) must be vaccinated and have a negative test just before boarding. They emailed boarding passes about two weeks ago and have updated them four times as the itinerary changed because of shifting restrictions. We were originally scheduled to start the trip today (8/30), but that was changed early on and now we leave Thursday. The latest change dropped Albania from the itinerary and informed us of the new restrictions on cruise ships in Venice.

Our air travel is via British Airways with stopovers in London Heathrow both ways. Britain requires a negative test taken within three days of travel and a Passenger Locator Form completed no more than 48 hours prior to arrival. We finally found an opening and got tested today. Test results came back a little while ago with negative tests for both of us, so now we can get on the plane.

8/31/21

Ran out of time yesterday, so will finish this morning.

Yesterday, I saw that the EU recommended its member states impose more restrictions on Americans traveling to European countries. So far we haven't been notified of a cancellation, but there are still 50 hours before we actually board the plane. 

Cancellation, like many things, has its advantages and disadvantages, depending on who does what. It's clear that if I cancel at this time, I don't get any refunds from the travel agency, cruise line or airline. We have travel insurance, but it would only cover some of the costs. If the travel agency or Holland America cancel, I'm not sure what happens. As a minimum, I'd expect some refunds or future travel credits, even as close as it is to travel date. Since the air travel was booked by Holland America, I expect their policy would be to give future travel credit. No matter what, it would be a big headache, so I'm rooting for no cancellation. We'll see as the next day or two progress.

Meanwhile, we relax, pack our bags, and go with the flow. In a way, it adds to the travel excitement to have the possibility of changes at points along the way. We'll just need to be flexible.

This probably has limited interest to most people, but I'll keep you posted if you're interested. Otherwise, you can rejoin the blog when we board the ship on Sunday. (How's that for optimism?)