Anyone else now going to France?

[Ridingthecrestofawave]

Just wanting a quick poll on what people's thoughts are about going to France with current lockdown relaxations? - Euro tunnel, caravan 2 x hotel stop offs en route with 2 DC's .....All facilities on sites open apparently but gel, masks etc needed. Wondering will it be empty? Hard work and weird to follow rules? What would you do? x

More info here:

www.sortiraparis.com/news/coronavirus/articles/217313-deconfinement-map-in-france-indicators-evolution-as-of-august-6-2020/lang/en

It might be worth bearing in mind that two of the three departments considered as "highly vulnerable" are DOM-TOMs. As a general point their COVID figures/statistics are often contained in the French figures seen in the press but they are thousands of kilometres from Europe..

Thanks for that @notimagain useful to see that our bit now seems to be green. For the time being at least.

Argh - just to add to the stress, DD has developed a temp this afternoon. Have done the drive-through test and hoping for a negative result before we're supposed to leave on Sunday

@CityDweller we had results in less than 24 hours when we did the drive through. Hopefully you get it quickly and it’s all negative.

That is interesting @notimagain about the two highly vulnerable areas. I hope the UK government take this into consideration when imposing travel restrictions. It surely skews figures for mainland France massively?

Thanks @zippyswife. The testing centre said within 48hrs, we're leaving in about 38hrs . Poor little thing is asleep on the sofa now, so it's clearly something. But hopefully not Covid...

@CityDweller I bet it's not. I expect most of us have temps today. I was convinced I wouldn't pass the temp test at my waxing appt just now. Hope she starts to feel better v soon.

@smogsville fingers crossed. Also, we're all pretty sure we had it back in early March (but isn't everyone?), so I'd be surprised if she had it (the rest of us are fine). But she does have the symptoms (temp, bit of a cough - but she has that all the time due to allergies anyway, headache, achey limbs, bit of a sore throat). Hopefully it's just a cold/ another virus.

@citydweller We had two tests within 7 days last week (both kids separately had temps). The first came back within 24 hours and the 2nd even quicker - we went at 6.30pm and had the results by 9am the next day. Hopefully you won't have to wait too long.
Arrgh I hate the waiting to find out what is going to happen. We are supposed to leave on Fri 14th.

I hate it too @Greenbeanie88

Do they make the announcement / review weekly? If so and it's next Thursday we'll potentially have packed ready to leave on Friday and then might not be going!! I think you leave the day before us @zippyswife don't you?

I think they are monitoring the situation and can make an announcement at any time. I hope you’re right though and I’m wrong.
They have given nearly 48 hours notice re Belgium Andorra Bahamas though so hopefully that’s setting a precedent?

@Greenbeanie88 and yes we leave the day before you, however our main holiday (which was booked pre Covid and so covered by our insurance) is from Friday. We are leaving the Thursday and staying overnight as a stop over as we’re driving to Dordogne. So I don’t know what this means re our insurance.
.... sorry that I was a boring ramble and I don’t even think it made much sense

I'm in Belgium and we spent last week in Nord Pas De Calais. masks needed everywhere in public places and museums but you can remove them once sat at a table in a bar or restaurant. Lots of hand sanitiser everywhere. We did a boat drip and they disinfected the life jackets and bits you touched between trips. As pp said the beaches in northern France are massive and there was no issue to social distance in most places. All waiting staff wore masks. Gap between tables. This region is now orange for Belgium though (it wasn't when we left home) and we have to quarantine for 14 days and had to fill in an online form before returning. I'll post a link if anyone needs it. I don't think you need it if passing through, only if you stayed 48 hours. How anyone would know the difference I don't know.

I just want to be put out of my misery now. Meant to be going next Friday - if they impose quarantine now at least we will know before I’ve packed and have time to try and sort some UK break somewhere (as well as being covered on insurance).

My actual worst case scenario (holiday wise obvs) is it being imposed whilst we are away, ferry back being cancelled and kids missing first two weeks of school after all this time.

We have holiday home in Brittany and won't be going this summer. Even though house is 2 km outside of town and green route into town. Instead going to spend 5 days in Bridlington in East Yorkshire staying with parents in law. Fil has been shielding and we have not seen him for ages. If we don't go in summer afraid virus will be worse in winter and he is old and wants to see us.

I think it would be awful to get on holiday and then find beaches, swimming pools, bowling, restaurants all closed.dont know how we could entertain kids if that happened. Bike rides and Scrabble with a few DVDs thrown in. Decided to reluctantly not go to France this summer. I usually take kids for 6 weeks and DH comes for 4 weeks. Hope there is no second wave or lockdown imposed at short notice.

I suspect there's as much chance of a local lockdown at a holiday destination in the UK as there is in France...

Quarantine is of course another matter.

I think it would be awful to get on holiday and then find beaches, swimming pools, bowling, restaurants all closed.dont know how we could entertain kids if that happened. Bike rides and Scrabble with a few DVDs thrown in. Decided to reluctantly not go to France this summer. I usually take kids for 6 weeks and DH comes for 4 weeks. Hope there is no second wave or lockdown imposed at short notice.

I think it depends on where you're staying. I'd be fine being stuck in the holiday rental (there's a pool) with the kids for 10 days if stuff shuts down in France (which I don't think it will - just because the UK govt imposes quarantine doesn't mean that anything will change in France itself). Having spent most of the past 5 months in our house in the UK it's a risk we're willing to take.

@CityDweller ditto, that's exactly the view we are taking.

We've been monitoring everything and have decided we are still going (leaving in 2 hours ). We are driving so no airport or other passengers to worry about and then have an air bnb with its own pool etc to ourselves. We are taking bikes and plan on mainly staying at the house and - other than going to the supermarket and on bike rides - don't expect many excursions. We have masks for us and the children.

If we have to quarantine that's fine for me as I've been WFH with the children and hardly been going anywhere since March anyway. They will miss first 2 days of school but they are staying in the same classes and have already been back in bubbles before the end of term.

Slightly more tricky for DH but his hospital have told him to take his holiday as planned and they will cross the bridge of him having to quarantine if/when it comes.

He's been a bit stressed over it all over the past few days as the government removed the quarantine exemption for NHS staff. So I'm glad he has run it past work and he can relax a bit more about it, although he still talking about coming home early if necessary in order to minimise any additional (unpaid) time off he may otherwise have to take - sometimes he is too conscientious

We'll be exiting Chunnel in just over five mins. Things running a bit behind at Folkestone, it was v busy but we ended up getting the one we'd originally booked ourselves onto before we moved to an earlier one to accommodate our bikes. Will let you all know how we get on in Brittany. Good luck everyone whatever decisions you've gone with.

Btw the Starbucks is only place selling croissants at the Chunnel terminal and doesn't open until 6am so if you're travelling early and have obnoxious children, bring your own croissants from
home to give them and avoid having a massive row in the car park and wondering why you're on this holiday at all!

@smogsville and @TheWayOfTheWorld you made it!!! (Albeit with croissant issues!) have a brilliant holiday.

We're due to go to a campsite on Brittany next week. Does anyone know if the pools are open on the sites and are there any restrictions?

Hello everyone! I’ve found this thread reassuring so thanks for all of the helpful info. We were originally going to Spain. We booked the Eurostar just before the gov announced that travel was ok and we moved the camp booking from Spain to France when the lockdown in Catalonia crept too close (and ahead of the gov decision). We had a week booked initially and waited to book the second week until we were about ten days from departure. Two days later the French covid levels were in the news. It’s been crappy year (as it has for everyone). We’ve all had suspected covid and I’ve now been unwell for 20 weeks as the virus turned into post-covid syndrome. I really really want to go on holiday and just recuperate! The tension of hoping that there will be no announcement before we leave is killing me! We were originally due to travel on Wednesday but are bringing it forward to Monday in the hopes of getting out before FOC advise changes.

Fingers crossed for everyone!

The pools are all open on the sites that we are booked in to. You could call them and check?