Travelling during a pandemic is weird. There is a lot of information from a lot of sources and a lot of those sources are very reliable but the information is outdated, incomplete, or irrelevant. It's hard to sort through things like vaccine and quarantine requirements, mask mandates, COVID testing, pre-entry requirements, visa requirements, and so forth. Some of the information is very easy to find for Americans but I'm not American.
It took a lot of searching but I found out that all travellers to Mexico needed to fill in a pre-entry questionnaire no more than 12 hours before departure. I have no issue doing this. I have issue with the fact it is a requirement and it is nowhere to be found on the Mexican government's site, nor Air Canada Vacations' site. Ultimately I completed it and got my QR code. This was scanned on arrival at Cancun Airport. I also had to fill in a landing card and keep a portion of it as well under threat of heavy fine. This is why my passport holder has another pocket!
I also needed a QR code from the Alberta government as proof of vaccination. Easy peasy! What was less easy was the nosy woman at the Air Canada check in desk who looked in my passport holder while I searched for the QR code on my phone and tried to accuse me of faking my vaccine record because I have a yellow Health Canada Record of Prophylaxis. Apparently there is "no such thing as a Health Canada Record for COVID-19 and you will face serious jail time and a huge fine for faking such a document." I was too busy making sure I found the right QR code on my phone to understand what she was saying so I asked her to please repeat herself. She did, in a very testy manner. I showed her the code on my phone for COVID-19 and asked if I needed to show my yellow fever for Mexico as well. She looked at me very cross and said that no, but fake vaccine passports aren't accepted and I clearly had a fake vaccine passport. Minor panic! I asked her if there was a problem with the scan and she said no but there was with the yellow paper in my passport. I took it out and showed her it was a yellow fever vaccine record from seven years ago and she didn't have a lot more to say.
Travelling during a pandemic is weird.
After all of this, I get to Mexico!
Cancun airport is chaos. More than any airport I've been to, people are trying to sell you things. It is loud and confusing and growing ever muggier the closer I get to outside. (That? That's called foreshadowing.) When I was a travel agent and we booked people for transfers we told them to look for people in bright orange shirts. I saw those people! They were not the people I needed.
Nowhere on my information from Air Canada Vacations does it mention my transfer to the resort. I eventually find what I thought was the transport, given that it said AMResorts but was informed it was not. Thankfully the man I spoke with walked me over to where I needed to be.
I get to the resort and get checked in. I'm greeted warmly with a glass of prosseco. It is lovely. I get to my room and change into shorts. It's dark now but that's alright. I check out my options for dinner and one of the restaurants has barbecue. That sounds like a great plan! I go down to the restaurant and wait in line for the barbecue. And then there is thunder.
The skies unleashed a walloping of rain. Sheets and sheets poured down for about an hour. Thankfully we were under a glass canopy! Less thankful that every walking surface of the resort (except near the pools) was made of marble or tile of some sort and I was in my Havianas. The barbecue was great!
It has been two years since I've travelled. I don't like that.
There's been a few reasons why - primarily a global pandemic. Don't get me wrong, we're not out of the pandemic yet but there is a vaccine and enough safety measures in place to make travel possible again. These didn't happen over night and didn't come a moment too soon.
The plan was to go on a small trip to Mexico for my actual 40th and then my "birthday trip" in February - a cruise to Antarctica. This plan was cancelled and refunded (the cruise portion - the Mexico portion wasn't anything more than an idea) thanks to the pandemic.
All things considered, it's probably better that I didn't travel for my 40th birthday. Even without the pandemic it would have felt more like running away. There would have been very little draw to return. Shortly before my birthday last year, my best friend died. Then on my birthday, Alex Trebek died. I didn't have any personal attachment to Alex Trebek but it didn't help the grief.
So now it is 2021, we can move a little freer, nobody important has died in the last two weeks. Things are looking up in my world! I booked a trip to Dreams Natura. I've sold AM Resorts a lot as a travel agent and figured this is the right time to check them out. I book through Air Canada Vacations which may have been my folly; there is limited to zero communication when I need it, including things like transfers.
The day of travel, I actually got some sleep! This is rare but it happened. It wasn't a lot of sleep but it was sleep none the less. The plan was to be on a bus at 0549. For a multitude of reasons this plan did not go through. I did not panic because I also had an alternate plan and an emergency back up plan. I ended up at the airport half an hour later than I planned.
YYC is generally a good airport. You can navigate it quickly, the people are friendly, things make sense, security is speedy. This is not pre-pandemic YYC. Pandemic-YYC is a shit show. The domestic terminals are empty. Yes, it is early in the morning, but there should be at least business travellers. There is no one. It is eerie. As with all things airports, there is a reason for this; the airport will tell you they're streaming everyone through the international terminal to reduce exposure. The airlines will tell you it's because people quit due to the vaccine mandates and there isn't enough staff. I don't think either is true.
There was a bear at the Banff Springs Hotel!
At check-in, I managed to get an upgrade to business class just by asking. This sounds pretty excellent! I get lounge access and meals on board (as opposed to my plan of getting Subway and eating it halfway through the flight). And then......security.
Usually at YYC - especially in the morning - security is a breeze. 20 minutes to half an hour in line, done. No big deal. This time? Over an hour. Both domestic and international travel was all filtered through the same security check point. Add in people who don't know how/forgot how to travel, and it was a nightmare. If this was for reduced COVID exposure, they are doing it wrong: hundreds of people crammed in an area with little to no social distancing. Someone at the front is upset they have to dig through their carry-on to pull out their laptop. Someone else is upset they have to take off their belt and jacket. These are not new requirements! They have been around since the dawn of man! There are even signs! I feel bad for the CATSA people working and having to put up with these idiots.
Eventually I got through and had about 10 minutes in the lounge. It is a hike from the gate to the lounge but damn if I wasn't going to do it.
I got on the plane and settled in. The woman who sat beside me had the absolute audacity to ask if I'd consider moving back to coach. Apparently, her and her husband always have these seats but Air Canada said their dog-in-a-carry-on wouldn't fit between them (but would fit in coach), so her husband had to give up the seat. When she sat down, her husband made a comment about the dog absolutely being able to fit but if coach is the answer he'd sit in coach. The dog probably could have fit between the seats but I wasn't giving it up. The woman was not happy and made a terrible seat mate. I was watching Canada's Drag Race and she asked me not to as it offended her. I smiled behind my Pride mask and asked if she had a problem with gays. She stumbled over her answer and I suggested that if she did, maybe she should watch something straight on her own screen because mine was going to be be gay as hell. When breakfast came, she asked if I could please not eat my maple butter pancakes while she was there because the smell was too sweet for her. I told her I can't eat omelettes so I didn't have any other choice. The Baileys on ice I ordered was "so cheap looking, not what she was paying for in business class." I told it was a good thing she wasn't drinking it or paying for it. Everything I did she had an issue with. I didn't care! I was in business class and she wasn't going to take that away from me.
The flight was bumpy almost the whole time. The combination of this and me forgetting my sunglasses (yup - go to a sun destination and forget your sunglasses!!!) lead to a massive headache on my part. The service in business class was reduced and the seats were not lay flats. Overall it was a meh experience. Glad it didn't cost me more than asking a simple question.
