holidays anyone?

[chippie]

Prior to covid in 2019, we booked to go to Canada in 2020, on a self drive for 14 days taking in the scenery of the North East coast.....

Then comes Covid, it got cancelled! Pushed back to 2021....

2021 came, and guess what? it got binned again....Travel agent advised pushing it back to 2022 but the sting in the tail was that it was going to cost a further £700 on top of the £3200 we already paid...

We were due to pay the extra £700 by 1st March, but after a lot of soulsearching, I rang them this morning to cancel, at a cost of £600....

Why? because Canada needs travellers to have been fully vaccinated prior to entry, a negative test 3 days before departure and the icing on the cake, you could be singled out for a further random test at the airport on arrival! Imagine getting all the way there, no symptoms, a neg test result, then only to find a test over there proves you have it! Then what?

Well a requirement to self isolate for 10 days..........Great, I'm on a self drive with hotels booked all over...

So there we go, no holiday, £600 down on the deal and really pi$$ed off about it all because the world leaders (fecking ar%eholes ) cant make their minds up and agree on Covid.....


Sorry for the rant!....Someone gimme a beer!

[rhyds]

Unfortunately the COVID situation in North America is still pretty bad for a combination of reasons (vaccine hesitancy fed by conspiracy theories for example). Hopefully things will settle soon and you can try again.

[chippie]

We considered going to the States for a fortnight, the weeks we had set aside, but again, Covid being a hindrance has sort of put a dampener on things.
I guess with it just being me and ‘er-indoors it makes easy work of sorting out a last minute holiday….don’t fancy Spain or the likes…always fancied riding the Orient Express to Venice…..maybe one day…😟

[studabear]

We are just looking for a holiday for June. Painful searching for one that fits the bill. Fancied Cyprus but the flight times are garbage for us with a youngster.

[valhalla]

Feb 10, 2022 15:12:39 GMT 1 chippie said:

So there we go, no holiday, £600 down on the deal and really pi$$ed off about it all because the world leaders (fecking ar%eholes ) cant make their minds up and agree on Covid.....


Sorry for the rant!....Someone gimme a beer!

I feel bad for you - I was very surprised at the time that Canada took the approach to Covid restrictions the way it did; it didn't seem like the Canada I knew a little about, laid-back, libertarian people, just good, honest folks.

It seems that Canada is suffering from the same problems that many other (seemingly liberal) countries have experienced of-recent. One such issue appears to be a growing divide between large-scale rural populations, and "metropolitan elite" pockets of so-called leaders. I think we suffer this problem as acutely as anywhere in the UK, but we don't seem to have yielded to the same riots and demonstrations as is happening in many countries right now.

The chickens appear to be coming home to roost, and I'm not sure if some of this is intended/manufactured as a divisive weapon by totalitarian regimes elsewhere in the world, where they may not appreciate "The West" enjoying the sort of liberties and freedoms that are denied of their own citizens. It appears that too many of the so-called leaders of the Free World are in-thrall to the same totalitarian ideals of population control, irrespective of their publicised political leanings. Or they are under some sort of "compromat" to twist their arms to that end.

We (nominally) have a Prime Minister of Conservative colours nailed to his pole, with a Russian name, doing very un-Conservative things for the last two years. Hmmm......

[wheelnut]

Feb 10, 2022 15:12:39 GMT 1 chippie said:

We were due to pay the extra £700 by 1st March, but after a lot of soulsearching, I rang them this morning to cancel, at a cost of £600....

Why? because Canada needs travellers to have been fully vaccinated prior to entry, a negative test 3 days before departure and the icing on the cake, you could be singled out for a further random test at the airport on arrival! Imagine getting all the way there, no symptoms, a neg test result, then only to find a test over there proves you have it! Then what?

Why have you to pay,you did nothing wrong? When you signed up for the package there were none of these tests requirements. You signed up for a nice touring holiday and the travel company are not now in a position to give you exactly what you paid for, so the problem is theirs.