CDC and State Department have raised Portugal and Spain to level 4 do not travel
Does anyone know if the August 25th trip to Portugal and Spain is still on? This departure is sold out. Since the CDC and State Department have raised Portugal and Spain to level 4 do not travel is this trip still scheduled to go? Would like to hear from anyone taking the trip.
0
Comments
You should have received your travel e-documents and the tour is still listed in the Open for Travel category and Travel Updates which are updated daily. So unless some new info is published, it looks you are a go. Be sure you read, understand, and follow all COVID policy and vaccination/testing requirements, and have a great trip!!
Treasures of Spain and Portugal Tour has been underway despite the State Department's warning at a red "Do Not Travel" level. They started in Barcelona and are currently (August 12) in Málaga. My Tauck tour starts Saturday 14th in Lisbon.
Patrice let us know how your tour goes. What type of tests and vaccinations are required as you move from country to country. Is everyone wearing masks? Have they changed any of the itinerary? Thx. Don
Heading to the airport in 6 hours. Just realized yesterday that while my (free) PCR test was timed well within the 72 hours before this evening's flight... it was administered only 69 hours from my direct flight from Paris to Lisbon! Had it been just 3 hours earlier my test would be outside the allotted time. So... anyone with a long layover or perhaps making 2 connections must take care when scheduling their PCR test. And an Antigen test must be within only 48 hours of departure of the direct (final/last) flight to Portugal.
Regarding the title of this thread...Spain and Portugal are now (August 13) both in better shape compared to the US regarding Covid case numbers and far better for fully vaccinated population. The percent of vaccinations continues to increase at a better daily/weekly pace compared to the US.
Have a glorious trip, Patrice!
A friend asked me the other day if I was nervous about traveling to Spain and Portugal. I told her I was more afraid of staying in the United States given the dismal state of affairs here.
The CDC is the classic, “Pot calling the kettle black.”. That is now probably considered an ‘anti-woke’ phrase. (;-)
From a Liberal Snowflake I kind of agree on this one. Hard to take the CDC seriously when we have parts of our country in pretty bad shape. And that's not even counting western wild fires, ridiculous heat in the NW, etc. Had several friends wonder if we felt safe traveling to Europe and I'm like - yep, about as safe as I feel here. At this point we are minimizing errands, wearing masks in indoor setting again and basically doing what we can to avoid even an asymptomatic case of covid.
I only got two flags, and you got only one.
The night's young.
So, we've got fires, floods, plague/pestilence, and earthquakes. What is next? It is getting to sound a bit biblical!
I think I said it elsewhere, but last month we spent two weeks on a ship where everyone was vaccinated. At home 60% are vaccinated. We were covid tested five times during the trip. Where are we safer … at home or on that boat. That being said I read that Carnival has had a covid problem. I don’t know the details nor their protocols.
The Carnival ship with the COVID issue had 26 crew members and one passenger test positive for COVID. They didn’t provide details w/r to vaccination status of the 27.
Maybe they all had those fake Covid cards that people are talking about on another thread 🤪
The question I have: did the Carnival crew and/or passengers leave ‘their bubble’ and interact with others whose Covid-status was unknown?? What happened when they were disembarked at the various ports????
Yesterday, The Points Guy newsletter had an article about the outbreak. Here is an excerpt of what they knew as of a couple days ago.
"At least 27 people on a Carnival Cruise Line ship sailing in the Caribbean have tested positive for COVID-19 — the biggest recorded outbreak of the illness on a cruise vessel in the region since Caribbean cruising resumed in June.
The Galveston, Texas-based Carnival Vista arrived in Belize on Wednesday with 26 crew members and one passenger on board who had tested positive for COVID-19, according to a statement from the Belize Tourism Board.
All the crew and the passenger who tested positive were vaccinated, the tourism board said, and are experiencing either mild symptoms or no symptoms at all.
The statement from the Belize Tourism Board put a concrete number on a COVID-19 outbreak that has been simmering for several days and that Carnival appears to have tried to downplay. Carnival in recent days only has said that it is “managing a small number of positive [COVID-19] cases” on board Carnival Vista — a phrase the line used again Friday in a statement sent to TPG.
In theory, there could be additional cases on board Carnival Vista that have gone undetected, as Carnival has not been regularly testing most passengers on the ship. The line only is regularly testing crew on the ship on a rotating basis every few days.
Still, the Belize Tourism Board said Carnival did contact tracing for all 27 crew and passengers who tested positive, testing all “close contacts” of the 27 people, and found no additional COVID-19 cases. More than 900 people on the ship were tested for COVID-19 as part of this contact tracing process, the tourism board said.
Carnival Vista is sailing with more than 4,000 people on board — 1,441 crew members and 2,895 passengers.
All the crew and passengers who have tested positive have been quarantined on the ship, in keeping with the latest COVID-19 guidelines for cruise ships issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)."
A different logistical problem … on “Star Breeze” we only had around 300 people total. We gave up ‘big boat’ cruising about ten years ago. We went on a big boat with the grandkids for the ‘kid’ facilities, but we only go on small boats for our own pleasure. We go primarily on Windstar and Ponant, and we did one Silversea.