Traveling during a Pandemic - never thought I would write a blog with that title!

April 16, 2022

Wow! It's been so long since I've thought about blogging for a trip as we've been housebound since March of 2020 navigating this pandemic; however, through it all, life has continued. We are now learning what we are comfortable with and how we want to live our lives going forward! 

That being said, Ed and I booked this trip the end of September 2020. Back then, 2022 seemed very far away and we couldn't imagine we'd still be in the thick of restrictions and masking and testing - guess we were wrong! So we've (or maybe I should say I've) wrestled with this upcoming trip for the last three months. But the time is here and we are going forward - I need to step out of my comfort zone - Ed gave me a little push!

Our trip is a cruise on the Viking Sea cruise ship. We will fly to (April 23) and return home from (May 4) Athens, Greece. In between we will sail around the Greek islands visiting Volos, Thessaloniki, Ephesus (Turkey), Rhodes, Santorini, Crete, and Nafplio. I plan to be able to pronounce some of these names by the time we return! We were originally going to travel with friends from Monmouth County (and they were traveling with a bunch of friends - perhaps 12-14 of us) - but the majority of that group now has Covid and has had to cancel :-(

So we are packing, paying bills ahead, sharing our itinerary with family, and staying healthy! We must have a negative PCR test within 72 hours of flying - we test this Thursday morning. THEN - when we board the ship we will be tested again and need to be negative to stay onboard. And THEN, we will be tested daily as we cruise - so the way to win this game is to NOT test positive! We are planning to be very cautious, wearing N95 masks, keeping to ourselves, being out on deck, and the list goes on - you all know the drill.

Writing this blog is helping me be more positive about the trip. Sometimes I think I am a frustrated writer (even if I'm the only one who reads this). I've really enjoyed writing about our previous trips - it has proved to be such a great way to revisit them years later.

SO - stay tuned and let's hope we win this game of chance! Happy Easter!

An update since I last wrote: It's Saturday, April 23rd and we are waiting to leave for the airport. It's been a nutty week getting all the correct papers in order (or the pieces of the puzzle to fit together). The last piece was our Covid test, which we did Thursday morning. We sweated it out all day Friday and into Friday evening as to when we would receive notification. Great - another thing to worry about as I'm trying to sleep. The results came in around midnight (while we were sleeping) so we did wake up to good news and we are now set to go. Stay tuned as the next blog should be from beautiful Greece!