Anyone actually gone on holiday?

[Gem8701]

Look at booking a green list holiday!

I went on holiday a couple of weeks ago. I arrived in Madeira the day after it was demoted from green to amber, the day I finished isolating it was back as a green list country again 🙄

I have a friend who went to Portugal for half-term. She said it was lovely to get away and they had a surprisingly normal week. The only thing that was annoying was the rule in Portugal that everyone must wear a mask outdoors and I think that's something that is worth considering - how normal is life going to be when you get to your destination? If you're going to face more onerous regulations than at home, are they ones you can easily cope with?

Yes, we've been away. It was so lovely. Being on the plane felt no 'riskier' than being in a cafe or restaurant. The restrictions in the place we went were similar to at home so all felt very normal.

We went to Turkey last September and had a lovely relaxing week. Currently booked for Turkey again although highly likely we will need to change. Plan is to go somewhere though!

Turkey last year. Hoping for Greece in July.

Only issue for me is i cant isolate on return :(

Booked to Portugal when it was green, changed to amber just before we left.

Things change so quickly, with very little warning, it’s risky.

@zafferana I also went to Portugal in May half term. No one wore a mask outside…? It was the exact same as here - in shops and whilst walking around restaurants

We're driving to Italy this weekend. We live abroad, are all vaccinated and have an EU Green pass. I can;'t wait.

@TheresWaldo ooh how do you get a green pass if from the U.K.? I assume we can’t thanks to brexit!

@Roselilly36 yeah you have to be sure you can cope with the costs and isolation if it changes. I’m going with my partner. If I had little kids etc I wouldn’t bother but there’s just the two of us.

I’d love to go abroad but I cancelled Spain in august regardless of green /amber rules. Basically boiled down to given how many cases there are the chances of having to self isolate before travel (in either direction) too high and also changes of being a close contact on the plane far too high. All sounds like far too much stress. I’d be travelling with kids though, more likely to “risk it” if just the two of us.

[quote Medstudent12]@TheresWaldo ooh how do you get a green pass if from the U.K.? I assume we can’t thanks to brexit![/quote]
I'm an EU resident. It's where you travel from that's important. I can go to Italy with no tests/no quarantine at the moment. Annoyingly if I wanted to come back to UK I would have to test and quarantine in both directions. So much as I would love to see my family I am not prepared to spend my 2 weeks holiday in isolation.

@Lalliebelle

Yes, we've been away. It was so lovely. Being on the plane felt no 'riskier' than being in a cafe or restaurant. The restrictions in the place we went were similar to at home so all felt very normal.

Does anyone know whether the air is purified in a plane, or just circulated?

Everyone on the plane has tested negative in a PCR test within 48 hours of boarding.

If you're in a closed environment with people who have tested negative it's surely pretty safe

Does anyone know whether the air is purified in a plane, or just circulated?

It is cleaned every 2-3 minutes using HEPA filters, which makes it considerably cleaner than the air in any other enclosed environment.

@Gem8701 If you can’t isolate on your return, then you simply can’t go. Sorry but there’s not really a decision to make if you can’t accommodate the likely possibility of quarantine.

We went abroad last summer. It was much simpler than this year.

Dd has recently been to,Portugal. She arrived home about 6 hours before it went Amber (on preplanned flight, we didn't have to change it)

To be honest through sorting out the tests was stressful and expensive. £120 on tests here, another test had to be done and paid for over there. Faulty test for day 2 meant paying for a repeat test, albeit done late by then - previous company wouldn't help so lost money. Then the government deciding to change Portugal to Amber in day she was going and spent a full day trying to work out what was happening, what day/time it would kick in, whether we needed to change flights or cancel, or not. All fine in the end by another stressful day.

It put us off booking a holiday abroad for the summer.

Hopefully we can go on our Florida holiday in October, already booked, but we shall see.

Dd said no one was wearing masks outside when she was there last month either. Only inside like here. They did have a curfew of 10:30pm though.

@ThinkAboutItTomorrow

Everyone on the plane has tested negative in a PCR test within 48 hours of boarding.

If you're in a closed environment with people who have tested negative it's surely pretty safe

Yes but that hasn’t stopped whole plane loads of people being contact traced and told to isolate. Lots of examples of this happening

We're hopefully going to Majorca in just over 2 weeks time. Unless it goes red or Spain bans us completely or requires quarantine despite Vax/neg test I am absolutely determined and prepared to jump through all the hoops necessary.

I've got a spreadsheet! Needs updating every 5 minutes!

I

@Frazzled2207 I don’t think it’s the entire plane except for that case of loads of young people coming back from I think zante who were wondering around the plane.

I am hearing that if you book with Tui you just need to take a rapid test on the way back with a photo of the result and that 'some' people are using just one person to take the test (who is negative) in the group.

Absolutely disgraceful behaviour and if we all did this the plane would be full of false test results.

BTW - if you cannot self isolate them realistically you cannot go...

Return from much of Europe is just an LFT, not PCR.
The pre departure from uk and the ones on arrival here have to be pcr.

The one done before returning doesn't need to be - was same for dd coming home from Portugal last month. Can't be a free nhs one though. And it needs an email or letter confirming the result, in English French or Spanish, for each person.

DD's was checked before she got on the plane. Those with cases also had their's checked when doing bag drop.

Obviously some flight attendants at check in may be my lax than others.