And then there was the Delta Variant of Covid 19……
We have been continuing to put the final details on our planning effort for the various places we are scheduled to visit.
We purchased seat reservations for the Glacier Express Train from Zermatt to Pontresina a few weeks ago, and yesterday, were inside the 60 day window to be able to purchase “Supersaver” train tickets in First Class (to match our first class seat reservations) for that same journey, saving quite a lot of money. However, all of these pre-purchases are non-refundable, which may come into play with the new Delta variant of Covid 19 that is starting to take hold both in the USA and in Europe.
Those train tickets will probably be the last non-refundable items we purchase It is just starting to be too much risk to purchase anything more with the increase in Covid 19 cases across the unvaccinated population. I feel that it may just be a matter of time before we come to the conclusion that this trip will not happen due to Delta Covid 19 concerns.
Although we are both vaccinated with the Moderna vaccine, we can still get Covid, and with what we are hearing, the Delta variant is much more transmissible. It is not just our health we are concerned with, but also for the possibility we may bring it back and expose our family. Or, even worse, get caught in a situation where we can’t get home due to travel restrictions. Or, taking the required PCR Covid test to fly home and finding out we are positive and have to stay in Europe and quarantine or even be hospitalized away from home.
We certainly will wait until the last minute to make our decision on going or staying home. However, there are a couple of accommodations that require payment before we depart as part of their cancellation policy, so we may have to cancel those reservations now, and then re-book them or another accommodation with a more favorable cancellation schedule.
We do have the benefit of travel insurance, which we also added the CFAR, Cancel For Any Reason provision to just for this trip. We will only be able to collect 75% of any non-refundable charges, that is the limit of the policy. At least we get the majority of the charges back if we need to cancel last minute. Fortunately, we have not spent that much to date that is non-refundable, probably less than $300 total.
We have three reservations that require us to cancel before we depart to avoid cancellation charges
- Pontresina – Cancel Before August 17, 2021 to avoid 100% payment
- Zermatt – Cancel Before August 31, 2021 to avoid 100% payment
- Lucerne – Cancel Before September 1, 2021 to avoid 100% Payment
We decided to make a change to the Pontresina reservation and now have switched to the Hotel Rosatsch, which will allow cancellation before September 14, 2021, so that alleviates the cancellation before we leave issue for that location. We still have some concern for the other two reservations, but hopefully, we should have a good idea by the end of August about the trip We may look for alternate accommodations for these locations just in case.
It is becoming a little discouraging to realize that after vaccinations were released that we still would have an issue going on this trip. Timing is everything, if it had been a few weeks earlier, we would not have had an issue at all, everything was open and cases were down everywhere. We will keep our fingers crossed, but recent history has shown that increases in Covid cases anywhere is not a good thing, and may result in another cancellation of this trip.
Only time will tell, but this certainly takes a lot of the excitement out of the trip, and makes the completion of our final planning much harder, we may be doing a lot of work for naught.
Having to cancel a third major vacation because there are a lot of idiots in the world that won’t get vaccinated is discouraging, especially here at home where the vaccine is so widely available. There is the possibility that we will loose a lot of these idiots to Covid, making the world a smarter place in the end.
I do appreciate that both the UK and the European Union are developing vaccine passport apps. Most everywhere we are going requires proof of vaccination at attractions such as scenic cable cars and entry to museums. Also, there are vaccine requirements, as well as negative Covid testing, or proof of Covid recovery to travel from one country to another. All of these are tracked through the various country’s Covid Passport Apps via QCR Code. Hopefully, if we do get to go on this trip, they will have allowed US Citizens to participate in their Vaccine Passport program, making our travel easier.
I do not see why we can’t at least develop that type of program here in the US for those of us that want to participate and take advantage of our vaccine status. There is no personal information passed on through the European vaccine passport programs, only your vaccine status. If a business wants only vaccinated patrons, they should have that right and so should I!
Believe it our not, Europe has a much tighter privacy regulation than we do here in the USA. Apparently Congress has been working on our privacy regulation for years, and we all know how much gets done in Congress. That is why we have so much phone and email spam, there is no regulation in place to control it. Every website in Europe provides you with options to control their browser “Cookies”, you have options to accept all, none or only required cookies to make the website function properly.