My last overseas trip was to Oxford UK in Sep 2021 amidst the pandemic. It was to accompany my son to the beginning of his new school term. The trip was memorable for the many solo runs I had along the canals in order to minimize human contact. I also avoided London as the virus was spreading. Plus the 14 days hotel quarantine back in S’pore was a life-changing experience too.
We are almost a year into the vaccination drive and countries are reopening again. Not by choice as a zero Covid strategy is almost impossible. Too much money has been given out to support the sudden lockdowns and economies have to function again. We make do with living in an endemic world and try to bravely move on.
Newer oral drugs from Merck and Pfizer that aims to cut down severe Covid looks promising. They may be what Tamiflu is to H1N1 soon. With this and the vaccines, humankind will stand a better chance of fighting against the virus and what future variants can throw up. The 3rd booster shot is being rolled out and vaccine mandates for work are becoming a norm everywhere. The light at the end of this long tunnel appears to be approaching…
We will never return back to the old normal (pre-Dec’19) again. Technology has shown us that the new normal is possible and even more efficient. Zoom calls and QR quotes with cashless payments have opened up our eyes to a quantum leap in productivity. Who needs to spend hours and days on a business trip to meet a client who now probably don’t want to see you in person and prefer a video call instead? It is one productive meeting versus being stuck in traffic going to and from the airport and staying in crappy hotels.
The world did not collapse at the height of Covid. It evolved and transformed into a newer and stronger version of its old self. We humans adapt and WFH. Staying at home for days on end now seems perfectly normal. Being locked in your own little room, which used to be maddeningly frustrating, is now just another day in your life.
One positive thing that is trying to make a slow comeback? Going for overseas vacations. It started with my younger son. When the VTL (Vaccinated Travel Lanes) was announced, he was the first in the family to book a Germany/Amsterdam trip with a group of friends. Then older son decided to go for a school ski trip to France in Dec after his term ends. That left my wife and me with nowhere to go next month even though both boys will be back in S’pore by late Dec.
Then the most exciting thing happened this week. My wife suggested on Sunday to have a South Spain vacation. The weather is supposed to be cool and nice this time of the year. Another couple we were close to then decided to join us. Then yet another couple agreed. Soon there were 6 of us who were good to go. The flight bookings took the better half of earlier this week to finalize.
A Whatsapp chat group was formed and multiple discussions happened. I am glad to say that the itinerary by today had been firmed and a majority of our accommodations booked. Not bad for 5 days of group project work. It feels good to be alive again, planning for an overseas trip. The pandemic has done strange things to our way of life for the past 21 months…
We will land in Madrid in early Dec, stay there for 3 nights. Then it’s off to Seville for another 3 nights before we do one night each at Cordoba and Granada. Finally to Marbella for 4 nights and then to head back to Madrid for our Covid test before boarding the flights home.
Marriott Marbella was the dream vacation home destination sold to us in 2006 in Phuket when we were “conned” to buy the package. It cost us USD 26k. While we had had lots of great vacations over the years, the emergence of Airbnb in 2008 really destroyed this vacation concept. We would not have bought it if we knew that Airbnb would revolutionize the vacation industry. Who would have wanted to stay at the same place more than 2 times?
The promise of multiple Asian vacation homes did not materialize as they concentrated more on opening new ones in America and Europe. With a yearly maintenance fee of USD 1k and the introduction of a competing points system plus little choice of Asian locations, we eventually called it quits. With hardly any secondary market even for a premium vacation home package like ours, we finally decided to sell it back to the company for just USD 4k. It was a costly lesson for us to understand how the power of technology can be unleased into an inefficient industry.
Anyway, we had also converted some of the vacation weeks into Marriott Bonvoy points previously. We still have them till today and we could utilize them for this upcoming trip. The planning is made easier with interactive live chats and brainstorming sessions on Whatsapp. Consensus team decisions are made quickly as we move on to the next topic to resolve.
It has been a long time since we are able to plan for a big group vacation less than a month before the departure date. In the old days, it was virtually impossible. You can forget about getting the flights if it was less than 3 months to travel in a peak season like year-end. Times have changed with Covid. We had stared at the edge of the cliff and hopefully, we have moved away from it and turned around to face the new future. Hola!!
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