Fingers crossed for May trip
Hello everyone!
First, let me wish everyone safe and healthy travels, or as is more likely, healthy “re-bookings”. Our Christmas present to our two granddaughters of a first plane ride and first Broadway show got postponed today as Broadway went dark😢 and all of our NYC tourist plans got cancelled. Disappointing of course but certainly not the end of the world, especially in light of what others are facing. I’m sorry; I digress. We are booked on Essence of Japan for May11th and although I’m hopeful, I’m losing confidence fast, especially when I hear rumors of the Olympics being postponed. Does anyone have a useful website where I could check on current events and maybe get a sense of what Tauck might do with this trip?
Thank you all and good luck with your travels.
Comments
Have you read the new statement from Dan Mahar, CEO? https://www.tauck.com/travel-alert
He lays out in general terms what the company has done and is doing. Also, I talked with a Tauck phone agent today who said there was an all-day staff meeting today to look at the way ahead for tours between now through June. Sometime tomorrow we might have more specific information, so stand by.
Hi Exlandlubber, my husband and I are on Essence of Japan May 7, 2020. I read in the Japan News that schools were closed thru March and that included their Spring Break. Japan also closed many attractions and stores were also closed. There was a list of closures and there were many. I read a a few days ago that they were extending the closing of attractions for another week, or more. However, I read yesterday that they had more cases. I do not have the website that I found the info. ..just Japan News. Sounds like we might have some info coming from Tauck soon. Things change everyday. They postponed our Final Payment to give us more time to make an informed decision. We were looking forward to the trip since it’s an easy trip for us compared to other Tauck tours we have taken. We live on Maui so easy to get non-stop flight from Honolulu. However, when we do Europe we stop in So CA where we retired from and we have a son and his family living there. And we also have a son in FL so will stop and see him and his family and fly to Europe from Miami. Our back-up plan will go visit our sons and see their wives and of course our granddaughters. That is if flying within the USA is still happening. From reading the Japan News, as far as the Olympics, sounds like Japan is waiting as long as they can to make a decision.
Register with the Smart Traveler program. STEP .gov. That will give you updates . I received an up date yesterday about a level 3 alert concerning areas we were suppose to visit in a couple weeks. Fortunately, we were able to postpone. The US embassy in Japan could also have updates.
Thank you, all. Yes, I read the CEO’s message and realize that this is both a very difficult and extremely fluid situation for the travel industry. This ordeal is teaching me patience (not my best feature) but is frustrating the daylights out of me as I’m a SERIOUS planner and can’t really do that anymore till we know what’s up. But hey, we’re healthy and happy and it’s a beautiful day in sunny Florida so I need to just count my blessings and pray for those who are facing real hardships right now.