Has anyone yet changed or cancelled planned vacations, or are you taking a “wait and see” attitude?
I’m retired, so Masha and I generally take three trips a year. In January, before this thing hit the West, we went to Mexico for 12 days.
Our big trip was going to be May 1 through July 31. We rented an apartment in Barcelona on AirBNB for the entire three months and had planned on using it as the base for a series of trips. Of course, now Spain is the second hardest hit country in Europe and is on lockdown. Our primary trip from Barcelona in May was going to be to southern Tuscany. We rented a villa for a week and my brother and sister-in-law were going to fly from Atlanta to Barcelona for a couple of days and then go to Tuscany with us. My brother is a big wine aficionado and the villa is in the country near Montepulciano which happens to be his favorite Italian wine. The villa also is located on a vineyard.
So, I picked not only the second hardest hit country as our base but the hardest hit country for our first major trip from there. We already cancelled the villa. Fortunately, we hadn’t made plane reservations because we were debating flying to Rome versus Florence when the virus hit.
On March 14, AirBNB offered full refunds to anyone with an existing reservation which included any date up through April 14. They are expected to update that policy in a week or two. I am assuming our reservation in Barcelona will be eligible for a full refund but I would prefer to cancel one month at a time just in case the danger passes by the end of May or June.
We have a 9 day trip to Crete and Santorini scheduled in late June. The hotel reservations have free cancellations. The airfare is non-refundable, but many airlines are waiving that during the pandemic. We are taking a wait and see approach to that. We are traveling from Crete to Santorini by ferry (less than 2 hours) and I have no idea what that cancellation policy is.
Our biggest scheduled trip from Barcelona is to East Africa for 17 days in July. We went on safari to South Africa last year, thinking it would be a once in a lifetime thing. We both got hooked and decided to travel to Kenya and Tanzania this year to see, among other things, The Great Migration. (If you aren’t familiar, do a You Tube search; it is unbelievable.) 12 days in 5 tented safari camps in the bush and then 4 days on the beach in Zanzibar to recuperate. We both are really hoping to be able to go.
There aren’t a lot of confirmed cases in Kenya or Tanzania and both countries intend to keep it that way. They essentially have closed their borders. The travel agent who booked the trip for us still expects it to go forward. But she did offer to rebook it for the same approximate dates in 2021 if we prefer. The problem with that for me is that I will be 74 then. I know I can handle the trip now but I don’t know about a year from now. It’s the most expensive trip we have ever booked, and the big payment is due on May 7. I don’t expect things to be under control by then, and I already told her that if they aren’t I am not making that payment. I am hoping the agency will delay the due date.
We have travel insurance for that trip, but the insurer sent an email to everyone who purchased travel insurance stating that no decision has been made as to whether they will cover “voluntary” cancellations due to the virus.
If I were 10 years younger, I would just cancel everything and reschedule for 2021, but at my age “wait till next year” might mean never.
As an aside, if you ever get a chance to go on a photo safari in Africa, don’t miss out. It was the most extraordinary trip we ever have taken. To have a family of rhinos walk right past your Land Rover; to park 10 meters from a lion pride while they devour a waterbuck (antelope) one killed minutes earlier; to park under a tree where a pregnant female leopard is with her impala kill (to keep it away from lions or hyenas); to see that same leopard later that day, now having finished her meal and lounging on top of a large termite mound, staring at us just like our cat stares at us; to watch a mama warthog, who usually would be prey for a leopard, charge a leopard who had snatched her baby, scaring the leopard into dropping the baby unharmed, and then chasing the leopard another 50 meters; to see baby hyena cubs peering out from their den, waiting for their mother to return from her hunt; these are absolutely unforgettable experiences — and we saw many more equally incredible things every day.
I’m retired, so Masha and I generally take three trips a year. In January, before this thing hit the West, we went to Mexico for 12 days.
Our big trip was going to be May 1 through July 31. We rented an apartment in Barcelona on AirBNB for the entire three months and had planned on using it as the base for a series of trips. Of course, now Spain is the second hardest hit country in Europe and is on lockdown. Our primary trip from Barcelona in May was going to be to southern Tuscany. We rented a villa for a week and my brother and sister-in-law were going to fly from Atlanta to Barcelona for a couple of days and then go to Tuscany with us. My brother is a big wine aficionado and the villa is in the country near Montepulciano which happens to be his favorite Italian wine. The villa also is located on a vineyard.
So, I picked not only the second hardest hit country as our base but the hardest hit country for our first major trip from there. We already cancelled the villa. Fortunately, we hadn’t made plane reservations because we were debating flying to Rome versus Florence when the virus hit.
On March 14, AirBNB offered full refunds to anyone with an existing reservation which included any date up through April 14. They are expected to update that policy in a week or two. I am assuming our reservation in Barcelona will be eligible for a full refund but I would prefer to cancel one month at a time just in case the danger passes by the end of May or June.
We have a 9 day trip to Crete and Santorini scheduled in late June. The hotel reservations have free cancellations. The airfare is non-refundable, but many airlines are waiving that during the pandemic. We are taking a wait and see approach to that. We are traveling from Crete to Santorini by ferry (less than 2 hours) and I have no idea what that cancellation policy is.
Our biggest scheduled trip from Barcelona is to East Africa for 17 days in July. We went on safari to South Africa last year, thinking it would be a once in a lifetime thing. We both got hooked and decided to travel to Kenya and Tanzania this year to see, among other things, The Great Migration. (If you aren’t familiar, do a You Tube search; it is unbelievable.) 12 days in 5 tented safari camps in the bush and then 4 days on the beach in Zanzibar to recuperate. We both are really hoping to be able to go.
There aren’t a lot of confirmed cases in Kenya or Tanzania and both countries intend to keep it that way. They essentially have closed their borders. The travel agent who booked the trip for us still expects it to go forward. But she did offer to rebook it for the same approximate dates in 2021 if we prefer. The problem with that for me is that I will be 74 then. I know I can handle the trip now but I don’t know about a year from now. It’s the most expensive trip we have ever booked, and the big payment is due on May 7. I don’t expect things to be under control by then, and I already told her that if they aren’t I am not making that payment. I am hoping the agency will delay the due date.
We have travel insurance for that trip, but the insurer sent an email to everyone who purchased travel insurance stating that no decision has been made as to whether they will cover “voluntary” cancellations due to the virus.
If I were 10 years younger, I would just cancel everything and reschedule for 2021, but at my age “wait till next year” might mean never.
As an aside, if you ever get a chance to go on a photo safari in Africa, don’t miss out. It was the most extraordinary trip we ever have taken. To have a family of rhinos walk right past your Land Rover; to park 10 meters from a lion pride while they devour a waterbuck (antelope) one killed minutes earlier; to park under a tree where a pregnant female leopard is with her impala kill (to keep it away from lions or hyenas); to see that same leopard later that day, now having finished her meal and lounging on top of a large termite mound, staring at us just like our cat stares at us; to watch a mama warthog, who usually would be prey for a leopard, charge a leopard who had snatched her baby, scaring the leopard into dropping the baby unharmed, and then chasing the leopard another 50 meters; to see baby hyena cubs peering out from their den, waiting for their mother to return from her hunt; these are absolutely unforgettable experiences — and we saw many more equally incredible things every day.
