Summer Holidays 2021 - Who is hopeful?

[Lexmerrie]

Hi,

I am just wondering who is remaining hopeful after the news hot off the press in regards to foreign travel this summer?

Have people been booking holidays for Summer 2021 or are people pushing their plans of a enjoying a lovely margarita on a hot beach somewhere until 2022?

Thanks! xo

I find it very hard to believe that with no vaccines people got to go on holiday last year but that this year with at least 3 approved vaccines and the vulnerable groups all vaccinated that it will be more of a risk this year

Government talk complete bullshit

@Thewiseoneincognito

Well so far I’ve cancelled four holidays from last year up until Feb this year. I’ve got four booked rest of this year, I would absolutely LOVE to go away this year at least once, who knows. Fingers crossed but realistic at the same time, the only shred of hope is we played safe and booked UK trips this year.

🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Dare I suggest that you've been booking slightly too many holidays thewise?😁

@Oaktree55 I really hope you’re right 🙏
On the thread I made, the majority of posters seem to think this will continue like this for years

I would wait until the EU ban on non-EU citizens is lifted before even thinking about a European holiday.

@eastegg I live in hope!!! 🤣

Uk breaks yeah not abroad

Friends in the UK sent this to me. They're gutted.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-56008363

echt It is a little late! Everyone I know has already booked (UK) holiday from Easter onwards.

I think what they really mean is don't book mixed household bookings, but it has got lost in translation. We will be opening for holidays I am a 100% sure, although I think overseas trips are unlikely.

Most places are already booked and full as far as I am aware.

Oh gosh this won’t continue for years (although Covid will). The mRNA vaccines are highly effective and they’re already predicting how the spike will mutate to preempt likely further mutations. I think there will be changes eg testing or vaccine docs for travel and yes we’ll need revax this Autumn so that might be bumpy. There will also v likely be drug discoveries which prevent hospitalisation (yesterday promising trial data from small trial using a particular type of asthma inhaler).

I’m very much a realist but the data is all starting to show that we’re at the beginning of the end. Government spent all last year over promising and under delivering. They’ve swapped comms strategy that’s all!

We’ve got a break booked in June & one at the end of august. Both in England so relatively hopeful.

I'm optimistic that UK holidays will be possible, and that the old Victorian seaside resort towns will have a bumper year.

And the old-fashioned bucket and spade holiday will be just as much fun for this generation as it has been for many beforehand (though there will be many who post as if they were the first ever to like it)

@snowydaysandholidays

echt It is a little late! Everyone I know has already booked (UK) holiday from Easter onwards.

I think what they really mean is don't book mixed household bookings, but it has got lost in translation. We will be opening for holidays I am a 100% sure, although I think overseas trips are unlikely.

Most places are already booked and full as far as I am aware.

It's not late. That's the point, and why the holiday firms are very annoyed:

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/10/too-early-to-book-summer-holidays-even-in-uk-says-boris-johnson

Just been visiting a forum mostly frequently by the retired or older persons.

So many of them saying how selfish and mad you would be to take a holiday this year even if you decide to stay in the UK.

I can't understand the negativity around UK holidays this year when we are supposed to be better off because of the vaccinations when we all know that there were plenty of people who holidayed both here and abroad last year when a vaccine was just a pipe dream.

These are people who will mostly have had their two jabs anyway by the time the summer comes.

Stockholm syndrome kicking in I suppose.

I can’t see any reason at all why we wouldn’t be allowed to go on a UK break over the summer.

@CarlaH last summer people holidayed around the UK and it didn't seem to increase the numbers as they were so low to begin with.
I think what did make them rise was people coming back from abroad and not quarantining and schools going back and many more things opening.
If we are not allowed to holiday in the UK by summer then that's different- and if that's genuinely the case then something will have gone disastrously wrong with the vaccination program or a new variant will have arrived - but if it's deemed safe to go, then what's selfish about it ?

I think last year while it was scary, it seemed contained and that there would be an end. That this year we would be back to normal.

But this year, with the variants, the relative slowness of the reality of getting everyone vaccinated, and how badly it lurched out of control in the late autumn, how slow it is going back down to what we had accepted as "normal" in the summer from the last wave.....there is a lot less hope around. Added to that the exhortations not to travel at all this year, no decisions around exams, looks like reopening will be delayed, increasing restrictions on travel happening just this week....

Last year as a temporary thing, missing our main holiday seemed do-able.

This year, we have been stuck working from home for a year. Haven't seen friends for a year (or maybe seen a couple once or twice). Haven't been out for a datenight dinner with DH all year, and the one family dinner we had was stressful. Haven't been able to go to a coffee shop with a book to get away from the house. Haven't seen my parents since July. I have not even been able to go food shopping, even with the stresses which that entails, on my own. I had so much work to do and so little other option for time off (especially with DD lurking all the time and making so many demands if I am not occupied with work - she will accept work as a way to not be available, but sleep is something that apparently I don't need, or peace in a bath, or even to sit and watch the main tv because that is the Xbox screen.....) that I am currently carrying 12 days leave over into this year.

DH is starting to crack up with everything too. And DD is withdrawing from life.

And there is no clear pathway to all of that ending.

So this year I absolutely need to take more time off, pressures of work notwithstanding. And pressures of DD...

But I think that there is unlikely to be that chance of peace. We won't be able to go away as we are used to. And if we do get to go on a break like last year, there are likely to be most of the extended family there this year.

So I will dream...but know that I am likely to just have some time off work but with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

UK, yes, hopeful. Foreign, definitely not.

We’ve booked a week in Cornwall in July, and are also investing in some nice garden furniture and an outdoor pizza oven, as anticipating a lot of time in the garden this summer so may as well make the most of it!

[quote rookiemere]@CarlaH last summer people holidayed around the UK and it didn't seem to increase the numbers as they were so low to begin with.
I think what did make them rise was people coming back from abroad and not quarantining and schools going back and many more things opening.
If we are not allowed to holiday in the UK by summer then that's different- and if that's genuinely the case then something will have gone disastrously wrong with the vaccination program or a new variant will have arrived - but if it's deemed safe to go, then what's selfish about it ?[/quote]
Well exactly that is my point. Why are all these old(ish) people so vocal about people who have decided to book a holiday in the hope they can go.

I suppose I could ask them but I am not a member I just read the posts.

Seems bonkers to me.

I am not sure why the holiday firms are annoyed, it is not as if anyone is actually listening to Grant echt
Most of us are fully aware that the economy in coastal resorts depend entirely on the summer season. Boris himself has a jolly booked in St Ives in June with his G7 buddies. I think we are pretty much on for a Great British Summer. I actually can't wait to leave this town, and go anywhere, anywhere at all so feeling optimistic. If the weather is as beautiful as it was last year we will have another great summer.

Oh please let the weather be good!

I've got a holiday in France booked from before the Pandemic began, I'm hopeful we can still go. If it doesn't I suppose we may go camping last minute as long as the weather is dry. I can't imagine there we wont be able to holiday in this country - nothing open and still locked down in the summer. seriously I can't see that. Restriction on numbers and households maybe but lockdown - no!

They're now debating whether we should be able to take our children to the park, or whether our own gardens should do. If we have one of course. Honestly, it's control freakery of the highest level, about time it stopped.

I’m not sure why the MSM are making such a big deal of the holiday situation and why people are so confused.....

Obviously the government aren’t in a position to know for definite how things will be in the summer. If they make guesses (like with Christmas) something could change nearer the time and then they are blamed for giving false hope when people have made plans.

Obviously you can choose to take the risk and book a holiday, but there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to go. ( Many of us have chosen to take the chance).

If you can’t go, you may or may not get a refund or be able to rebook depending on the terms of your contract. You may lose your money.

If you book to go abroad, there is a high chance you will have to pay for tests before you go and on return. There is also a high chance you will need to quarantine for 10 days on return, possibly in a quarantine hotel. There is a likelihood that the list of quarantine hotel countries will change, and that you need to be prepared to fund a stay in a quarantine hotel at short notice. (Even if your destination wasn’t on the list when you booked).

If you want to book a cottage or similar with a group of people who are not in your household (uk or abroad) there is a high chance you will have to cancel. You may or may not get a refund depending on the contract terms.

If you are aware of the above and happy to accept the possible consequences then of course it is ok to book a holiday!

However, if the government say this, they will still be blamed by people if the plans have to be cancelled or changed. Like the people who blame the government for the deaths of their relatives after Christmas Day mixing, like the government forced them to meet indoors....

I’m not sure why the MSM are making such a big deal of the holiday situation and why people are so confused.....

Nice put down from which ever minister it was to Beeb presenter this morning "I don't think the public are confused, but realise that what we are saying doesn't make a neat headline'

Reason it's getting airtime because Labour is calling for clarity, so presumably there is some swell of opinion that would like to see a prediction (based on entrails?) as opposed to all those who just accept that it's book early at your own risk, or some other stage that suits your attitude to risk (the other risk being that there will be nothing left to book if you leave it too long no)