Month: April 2021

Mow, Mow, Mow

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

Another week drifts by and it had been largely filled with more nothingness, rumour and confusion. It’s almost as if the government don’t want anyone going abroad and giving those nasty foreigners our money this summer.

I know this next statement makes me an absolute whopper, in light of the horrific scenes out of India at the hands of this virus, and of course when compared to those anywhere in the world suffering financially and with their health but as ever the ramblings here are my own little world and mostly holiday and travel related so please accept the large grain of salt provided to you free of charge. At least I am not gathering with thousands of other dickheads on the streets of London to protest that I cannot do the very thing I am actually doing.

I am getting annoyed and frustrated at the eternal state of limbo now with this trip.

There I said it. My own little temper tantrum and foot stamping written down for all to see.

I know no updates were promised or expected specifically last week but all this vaguery cannot be good for the industry, never mind my inner two year old. They are going to need notice to recruit or rehire staff, put petrol in the aircraft and other such vital safety measures.

Update wise, there was a little kerfuffle in the land of Disney Facebook groups on Thursday driven by an article in some newspaper about the US putting the UK on some do not travel list. My understanding is that’s where we’ve been for the best part of a year and nothing has changed, but crucially needs to if we are to go.

Then an article from the chap who had been my beacon of hope until now suggested that the US would open up around the 28th of June.

We are due to go on the 14th.

A few quotes from the article….

“I understand the Government will reveal which countries are in the new traffic light colours of red, amber and green on either 6th or 7th May“

“The USA will go green before 4th July Independence Day, as Biden re-opens borders to the British as part of a reciprocal deal.”

“So, this suggests 28th June would see the US opened up.”

As I’ve said in previous posts, I’m at a point of not being arsed either way, I just wanna know.

Should that prophecy come true then we are back to rearranging again and all the faff goes with it but, if he is right we should know on or around May 10th if the US is not open for our dates, from a UK perspective anyway.

My plan B, if rearranging again is my fate is September. Why?

  1. Our current theme park tickets are valid until the 26th of September
  2. Our borrowed DVC points used to book Vero have to be used by October 1st
  3. Mask requirements may be less than they are now by late summer
  4. I don’t want to wait until January

With that in mind and in light of the article above I once again contacted Virgin during the week. Once through to someone (via text) I asked about our options and it does seem the rules change every time you speak to them. This time it turns out –

  1. As I have made two changes already any further ones would incur amendment fees and price difference
  2. When they actually went to price up the new dates I was told that my fare didn’t actually incur any amendment fees. I have no clue why.
  3. The price difference was £2500 on top of what I paid for June
  4. I had priced up the new dates on their web site and got a price that was about £900 more, but I couldn’t have that apparently as when moving dates I had to retain the same cabins, Economy Delight and Premium and with those in place the price was silly.

So we are trapped in the current dates until it is known that travel will not be allowed on the 14th of June as seems more likely now, or it is and we get to go.

I suppose if the US does not make it onto the green list for the 17th of May then that would at least allow us to move forward and do something. Maybe. Would Virgin take that as enough to allow me to cancel, as is now my wish? I will explain why shortly. My worry is that the US is on our green list, but the US don’t respond and we are waiting who knows how long to know whether we can travel or not.

Should we ever know that the 14th of June is not allowed, my current plan is to cancel my Virgin flight and book instead with Aer Lingus who have much more acceptable prices for our September dates, but of course over time that may change if and when demand increases and this frustrates me greatly.

Not really feeling motivated to do so, I had dipped my toe half-heartedly intro the ADR pool in the early part of last week only to be met with disappointment and dull dining options. I get it. Most eateries are not yet open in WDW, but all our dining plans are in the bin it seems should we be able to travel. We won’t starve of course, but much of the fun of these trips is the build up and planning of such things. All of which have not applied so far. I have made one ADR for House of Blues. None of our other planned options have been available and this popped up and seemed OK and somewhere we should have tried by now, so it is in the bag for now.

I never thought I could feel so underwhelmed less than 60 days out from a (potential) trip but these are not normal times. It’s the mixed messaging which is the most frustrating. One minute it’s all dangerous variants and the next it’s the vaccine is doing its job and the stats are incredible. I’m just venting frustration here at not being able to move on with life never mind the holiday. I know these are unchartered waters and all that, but doing our trip or not alters our cash flow significantly and not going means we move ahead with some house stuff whilst going means that waits.

How many more weeks are you going to be subjected to this self-obsessed whinge fest about visiting some theme parks?

Right, on a change of subject, and in better news, we have taken advantage of the less strict rules to spend some time in the garden. We have equipped said garden with all manner of things that a three year old would approve of as you can see.

It’s been lovely to see a bit of sunshine and family members in our new garden. This was a large part of why we moved house and we are very glad we did.

However that theory was tested yesterday when, having spent about 100% more than I ever wished to on a lawn mower I had to tackle the meadow/field thing that came with our new place. Still, judging by the lockdown paunch sported here, a few mo’ mowings wouldn’t hurt me for sure.

Apologies for the horrific quality. Louise posted it on Facebook and the only way I could include it here was to video the video.

This was about half an hour into what turned out to be around three hours of mowing. With about 5% of the field remaining the mower gave up, presumably overheated, much like the idiot pushing it.

So my endless torment linked to a simple holiday abroad continues. I’m at the point where I can’t watch vlogs currently as I get annoyed about that uncertainty and not knowing when we will return and it takes away from my usual enjoyment of vicarious visits.

I wear my tantrumming tit badge with pride.

Till the next time……

Feast and Famine

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

After a busy and confusing blog last week, documenting the all you can eat buffet of news and announcements about international travel, this week has seen us stricken with a famine of facts. Having hyped ourselves up to think we may get to go away in June, for whatever kind of trip that may be, now we seem to be in a vacuum of updates, without even a firm timeline for when we may know more.

The death of Price Phillip probably hasn’t helped as the country has been consigned to a six month mourning period it seems and nothing can happen until that is over.

So what are we waiting for now?

  1. The US to be added to the green list for UK travellers. The timeline here is “early May”.
  2. The US to confirm they will accept UK travellers. No timeline here, only rumours. I’d hope it coincides with the UK’s publishing of the green list of course.
  3. Confirmation and clarity on what type of tests will be needed to travel.

We only need the first two in order to know if we can go or not, but the third would be nice. Much is said on the news and by politicians about whether or not folks could and should book a summer holiday this year, but the many people like us who have had a trip booked since 2019 that still hasn’t happened, despite shifting it multiple times, seem to be ignored. Our money is spent (to some extent) and sunk into a trip that never seems to happen. It’s hard to cancel and often costly and any rebooking after that sees prices sky rocket compared to what we booked at. It’s a shitty situation.

As time pushes on, balances become due, employers need to know if we’re going and generally the whole pandemic is becoming an inconvenience to my ability to undertake a holiday. If that isn’t the real cost of this virus I don’t know what is! I joke of course, but for the likes of us, it has been an 18 month exercise in planning and logistics, just trying to lose as little money as possible in the whole debacle.

Due to the lack of clarity and a timeline my confidence of going in June has dipped a little from last week, but I suspect nothing has fundamentally changed it is just phycological. We are fast approaching critical timelines though. By the middle of May our balances for the Hard Rock Hotel, villa, car hire and our stay at the Beach Club will all have been due and it is fairly likely we still won’t know for sure if we can go.

If us travellers are feeling like this imagine the boardrooms of airlines and other travel related companies right now. How will they cope with another summer of lost revenues?

Speaking of which, one confusing and surprising piece of news came out of Virgin yesterday.

As I saw on the Brit’s Guide to Florida Facebook group, oddly, Virgin have chosen to push back the resumption date of flights to MCO to the 1st of June from Manchester and Heathrow. With travel possibly being allowed again from May 17th that seems an odd move, unless of course they know something the rest of us don’t? I can’t imagine these huge companies with thousands of staff on furlough won’t be in regular contact with the government, but I am as ever just guessing.

What this means for us I don’t know. That new date is still two weeks before we are due to go, but it may just be now that Virgin are moving their dates back by smaller margins now as we hopefully start to approach some form of normality.

Should we get to go, and mask policy becomes something we need to be aware of, there were further murmurings of relaxation in Florida “towards the summer”. I guess at some point, the vaccine has to be trusted to do its work and maybe a move towards masks being optional outdoors or something similar could happen. I don’t know but the Mayor of Orange County, interviewed again this week, was suggesting a phased approach over the coming months. It will all depend on the stats of course and I guess we have to assume that it will be what it is now and anything better will be a bonus.

I’m at a point of being fine with going or not, but I just need to know one way or another. It is impossible to plan life, never mind the holiday, with all this up in the air with around 60 days to departure.

On that note, tomorrow we can book ADRs for our first day at Disney. My plans there too lie in ruins as the first one on my plan was O’hana which, as yet, is not open. It’s the ultimate first world problem I know, but I live in a first world country and I have problems!

I suspect it may be open by the time we are there but with all the pent up demand, for this and other eateries it could literally be like The Hunger Games trying to get reservations.

All we can do is hope that the data remains good, and the roadmap can be adhered to. I do worry what may happen after May 17th when indoor hospitality opens, based solely on the number of images I’ve seen of people shivering to death around a drink they have been able to have at home for a quarter of the price. With many of those who will want to go drinking not yet being eligible for a jab, case numbers will surely surge at that point? Perhaps it is then that herd immunity can be obtained, with the younger ones getting it and not dying and the ones who may be most severely affected having been jabbed. Alas, my O Level in Biology does not equip me with the required expertise to know.

In my own little coming out of lockdown, later today we are once again able to rehearse and so Mustard will reconvene this afternoon to see if we can still play things. With most of us being very old, we are jabbed up and to facilitate social distancing we have chosen a rehearsal space so large we may not be able to hear each other. Baby steps.

The road back to normality may well be as long as the one we’ve been on trying to get to WDW, but as a wise man once said…

“Stop papping on about your holiday you middle aged, middle class arse biscuit”. And I think we can all get on board with that sentiment.

Till the next time…..

The King Of Wishful Thinking

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

Right, if you are busy today and want a summarised version of the next few hundred words in a handy gif, to save you the trouble of wading through them, here you go.

The Hangover GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

Usually when it comes to writing these posts, I rock up the laptop at some point on a Sunday morning and spew out whatever word salad comes to mind. You can’t tell can you?

This week, with so much happening in the world of travel I thought I would get ahead of the game and jot some thoughts down during the week. Now, as I sit here on Sunday, most of those thoughts have been overtaken by events, so what follows is a mish mash of old and new news and it all leads to a mass jumble of confusion. Enjoy!

Things are changing quickly and this last week has seen significant news. The general mood still feels a bit, two steps forward and one step back, but, and this may shock you, as things stand right now, I am probably in a confident state of mind that we will be able to go on June 14th.

The key word is able. Whether we will or not is still slightly debateable, but I think if we can go it will be a case of…..

Me Leaving The Bar GIF - Scrubs AllAboard ChooChoo GIFs

Anyway, having suggested travel may be possible, allow me now to argue the case, proving that I really do know nothing.

Why do I now think we will be allowed to fly by mid-June? Well, as expected Johnson’s “update” on international travel last Monday was another masterclass in a lack of detail and information. However, and bear with me as this is a bit of a stretch, my first step in the “convince myself we will get a holiday trail” was this.

Three times in his ramble he made a very obvious point of saying something like, “I see nothing in the data to make us deviate from the roadmap”. With this mind, and with the 17th of May being outlined as the date from which international travel may be possible, politically he needs to have some travel start on that date. If we know one thing it is that his actions are always driven by his own needs and desires so this encourages me a little.

The traffic light system has since been announced but with little detail (the story of the pandemic so far for this shower in power) but what is clear is that the destination country needs to be green and travellers need to tested negative before they can travel.

So assuming some travel is to be allowed on that date, which countries could be green if not the US? Only Israel and the UK have vaccination rates and improving stats similar to the US and there have been rumours about a mid-May opening of borders by Biden for a while. I suspect this has already been discussed and negotiated and assuming the data does not change significantly in the meantime I would guess that the US will be technically and legally do-able on May 17th.

Airlines do seem to be planning for travel to resume, as my reading between the lines (or reading into things what I want to) of their activity and tweets from travel industry folks indicates. One such pundit confirmed a while ago that one key US airline plans to have all its fleet operational by the end of May including its long haul jumbos.

He also seems very confident that some travel to a growing number of “green” countries will be confirmed for May 17th.

More recently he is more bullish.

If you want to follow him he is https://twitter.com/PPaulCharles

So all those factors and thoughts led us this week to begin facing the decision of what we should do. We know from my chat with Virgin that if travel is permitted, our options are very limited. Indeed all we can do is change the dates, paying all the fees and price differences (and My God the prices are high for late summer/early 2022) if we do not want to go in June.

One other small factor is our Vero booking, made with DVC points via a broker. If we can travel and don’t, it is very likely we will just lose that cash. It’s not the end of the world, but I’d rather not if we can help it.

As we all chatted about this, watching the snow tumbling in April, freezing our arses off, I suspect the lack of any sun or holiday since September 2019 really started to hit home and despite us all dreading the prospect of masks everywhere, and knowing that going on holiday would mean the most serious dieting effort ever known to man, we started to come up with ways to convince ourselves that it might be OK.

Option 1 would be to go and not do any parks. Now, that looked favourite at the start of the week, and it would be OK. Sun, food and not being at work or in lockdown all sound pretty good but it would be tough to know the parks are “right there” and we can’t go to them.

Then, out of the blue, two significant pieces of news came out. Firstly (and I caveat all this with it being almost certainly just wishful thinking) the Mayor of Orange County suggested in an interview that he thought it would be possible to look to reduce or remove the mask mandate as they got to 50% vaccination rates. This, he said, should be possible by June or July. Just too late for us possibly, but a move in the right direction nonetheless. I did think that whatever he might do, Disney would ignore it and stick to their policy of masks being enforced until 2022, but then, a bombshell. An out of the blue change to WDW mask policy, that guests can remove masks for photos. A small change of course, but the first sign that things are getting better.

A cynic may just think that they want to flog more Memory Makers of course, but I read that they are also in the process of rehiring a large number of cast members which also suggests they are planning to open more stuff and increase capacity for the summer, and maybe that is because they are hoping for the return of international visitors. Added to that Disney also announced a large programme of extended park hours through to mid June. So I do think they are expecting international guests to return and are gearing up for that.

This gives a glimmer of hope that within the next two months they could move again on masks. Perhaps only mandating them indoors or for adults only. Who knows? Certainly not me. Baby steps and each one is welcome.

So assuming my guess is correct and travel is allowed. What hoops will we need to jump through? Some travel experts had been predicting that everyone, vaccine or not, will need to do a full blown test both ways (not just the lateral flow things that the government are happy to trust a 12 year old to do themselves to prove schools are safe) and this could add a big chunk to the costs. This seemed to be confirmed by the government later in the week, but there is still, just for a novelty factor, a lack of clarity, as far as I can make out anyway, about which tests may be needed and that will massively impact the costs.

So with all this going on, I think, right now we are at the collective head space of thinking that if we are allowed to go, we will (despite the testing hoops potentially being onerous and costly). On balance, the cost of any tests is less than the costs and losses of moving the trip to new dates.

We would even try the parks. Freddie is being introduced to masks, gently and in small doses, just to get him familiar, but we would make of it what we could and if anyone is uncomfortable we would retreat from the parks and do something else. With nine weeks still to go till we travel we suspect other things will change, and hopefully improve in that time.

On that note, another area of slight concern is the flight. Current Virgin policy is masks for everyone over two. This seems to me that it may change too in the coming weeks. Why? (Inserts usual caveat of wishful thinking and not having a clue what will happen).

Well, if leisure travel is allowed on May 17th, to even get on the plane you need to be in possession of a negative test and of course large numbers of customers will be vaccinated. You have to de-mask to eat and drink anyway (that is maybe 25% of the flight?) and Virgin reassure their passengers that…

“You can breathe easy with our onboard HEPA filters, which use a vertical airflow and extract more than 99.999% of particles from the air, including bacteria and viruses.”

Now, if everyone has tested negative and/or is vaccinated and with the above filters in mind, why insist on masks for just 75% of the flight? I know that I know nothing. I am no expert, but perhaps with May 17th and new travel rules they may change that?” Who knows? I’m old enough to remember there being smoking sections on a plane with a curtain being the only thing stopping the clouds of smoke forcing their way into the non-smoking section!

In the end, I suspect our desperation for some sun, fun and food may see us overcome the large number of worries and obstacles we still see. We will make the call when we have all the information I guess. The complexities and mess around getting on a plane may just be too onerous but we can only wait to see what is announced.

We recognise that this trip, if it happens, will come with challenges –

  1. It will be hot – Having been in August for decades, we know and like hot. Masks may make it harder, but it’s not like we are first timers. We can do less parks if we need to.
  2. It will be busy – I refer you to point 1.
  3. It won’t be the full experience with no fireworks and shows – Agreed. Although let’s see what happens between now and then, but we’ve seen them before and we’ll see them again.

The thing playing on my mind most right now is that I am at this stage lacking all the details I crave about the testing requirements and the logistics of it all. It seems unavoidable that we will need to do a test 48 hours before leaving the UK and if I understand it correctly, do the same 48 hours before leaving the US. If that is the case I really hope that the likes of Virgin will partner with some US tester and offer appointments somewhere (maybe Disney Springs like their luggage drop) where their passengers can get their tests. Otherwise there will be lots of Brits googling testing providers in Florida and trying to source their own.

In truth, I hope the moans of the travel industry and the clamour to allow lateral flow tests instead of the full blown and costly PCR test come to fruition before the 14th of June as that would just make things a lot easier. A country being “green” by definition means it has low COVID rates and no real variant concerns and the reasoning for a PCR test is to track new variants. By next year of course it will be full on vaccine passports I think and these tests may not be required. Yes, of course I am simultaneously already planning next year’s trip. I don’t know why anyone might be shocked by that!

Having been all bullish up to now, of course the glass half full part of my brain has something to say about that and it needs to add some balance. As we open up more from next week and again in May, our case numbers will inevitably rise. It will be critical to not see deaths and hospitalisations also rise for all and any travel plans to be potentially scuppered. Having the US accept UK visitors, regardless of our own government’s policy of course is key and whilst they are delivering incredible numbers in terms of jabs into arms, the vast, diverse and in some cases stupid nature of the population means anything could yet happen there and their numbers could of course still worsen.

Looking at Florida’s numbers, taking into account the lunacy seen over Spring Break and knowing that the state has been fully open for some time now, their case rates are steady, if not rising a little. At this point their death rate is actually falling, but it could just be that the lag between new cases turning into deaths means that will come or, of course it means the vaccine is doing its job.

Since when did statistical analysis become part of holiday planning? I probably need to get out more, but can’t yet.

If, in the end, all my stabs in the dark do not come to pass and it turns out we cannot fly on June 14th then I think plan B is to move the whole thing to either later in the year, if we can find flights that do not double the amount we have already paid, or into 2022.

It all remains a mess, but as we edge closer to our booking’s date, it is forcing our hand to at least decide what we might do in each scenario. The people most pleased about all this coming to end one way or another will be you dear readers.

Much like Johnson and his infamous writing of two articles on either side of the Remain or Leave debate, I could easily have published a post today outlining why travel to the US for a holiday in June is less likely than flying to the moon, but I chose to be positive and I will almost certainly be proved very wrong.

By next week everything may have changed again, and that will only mean more of this guff for you to read. Sorry.

Till the next time…….

How To Sweep Her Off Her Feet

by mkingdon, posted in Walt Disney World

Happy Easter all. This may be a brief one as I have a few things to get done today.

So let’s address last week’s cliff hanger regarding Louise’s present. I appreciate cliff hanger may be a little strong as I doubt anybody lost sleep, but I’m going to tell you anyway. It didn’t arrive until Tuesday but when it did it was received very well.

Now, having been married for a long time now I am more than aware that you should never, ever, buy domestic appliances for your wife on her birthday. However, as an exception that proves the rule, this year I did and I lived to tell the tale.

So what was it? Meet Trevor, our new robot hoover.

To understand why I broke the unbreakable law of not buying your wife a hoover for her birthday, we have to go back to just after we moved in and Louise suggested, several times, that we should get one as it would be ideal to keep our kitchen floor clean without us having to hoover every day manually.

So after all that kerfuffle, late it might have been, but it did the trick.

On Monday of last week, not able to wait any longer to do something about the holiday, I contacted Virgin. I don’t know if I was just lucky or if they have finally managed to sort out their wait times over 12 months into the pandemic, but my message was answered very quickly.

I just wanted to assess my options really. Of course, as right now our flight on the 14th of June is running, they are limited. I can cancel and get about £7.50 refunded to me or as I have now had my two free changes, if we move it again, it will incur change fees and price differences. I tried new dates in January. That resulted in me having to pay the price I had already paid again unless we dropped Premium on the way back in which case it was just £30 each to move it.

I didn’t, which was an amazing show of self-restraint for me as I need to let things play out a bit yet. Who knows if masks will be gone even by January anyway.

We have been chatting about our options and a lot depends on what is decided for May 17th by the governments involved. It is being suggested that the US may be on a “green list” by May 17th allowing travel, probably with proof of vaccine or a negative test going out and coming back in for those not yet able to get one. If so, of course our options with Virgin come down to either going or moving it to a set of dates like January where the financial pain of doing so is not too high.

We aren’t too keen to go in June I have to say. As amazing as that sounds, it would no doubt entail masks for the nine hour flight and at the airports. We probably wouldn’t do the parks for that reason too and so it would be a chance to relax, eat, recharge and just be there. I’m sure we’d enjoy that but it isn’t the holiday we have planned.

If we move, then when do we move it to? Masks may be a thing at WDW for a long time yet. Maybe January would be more tolerable in the cooler temperatures, but who knows if the winter might bring a rise in COVID rates and new restrictions anyway.

All the while, what really upsets me is the time that is passing and the lost opportunities to have Freddie experience what we have all known and loved for so long. It’s a mess really.

I guess there is one last option of, if allowed, going in June, doing the parks, sucking up the mask thing and doing the best we can. The worst that could happen is that the parks become no fun and we end up only doing them a little bit and wasting the money on our park tickets. Also, with the lack of shows, fireworks and all that jazz, Freddie’s memories of the first trip he will probably remember would be a shadow of what they should be.

Sigh.

We may know more tomorrow as the PM is due to give another of his clear, concise and enjoyable briefings and it is rumoured to cover international travel. The US did 4.1 million vaccines yesterday which is just mind blowing. It is amazing what can be done when you don’t have an idiot in charge.

Who knew that going on holiday could ever be so hard?

OK, I did warn this may be brief. I can feel the weight of my outstanding chores on my shoulders so I need to crack on. More unhelpful waffle about US travel options next week no doubt.

Till the next time……