After moving back to Ontario, we decided we were long overdue for a vacation and settled on the Caribbean. Our friends Andi and Dave were in, using the trip as a chance to stop over for a few days at our new Prince Edward County house. We all eventually picked Barbados because of Covid safety protocols and direct flight access from Toronto. Two months ago, we booked the trip, which was non-refundable – judge all you want but the travel insurance to cover the refundable cost of the trip in the event of a Covid cancellation was prohibitively expensive. It really just came down to Dirty Harry: Did we feel lucky? We did, but that didn’t lessen the pre-travel stress and in the few weeks leading up to the trip, our home life became constant with “do you think I have the Covid” anxiety.
And then there were the hoops you have to jump through to travel these days. Here are a few of our highlights of traveling in the Time of Covid.
- At the time of booking, Canada required an audited antigen test to return home so I purchased two from Aeroplan that use Telemed video doctoring for the auditing. The antigen test is no longer needed, of course, but I brought the tests with me just in case rules change (again).
- 3 days prior to travelling we needed to complete the on-line Barbados customs form, and upload our proof of up-to-date Covid vaccines. Relatively easy.
- We also needed to install some kind of Bardados Covid tracker app called BIMSafe. The app made it sound like only people from high risk countries needed to install it, but actually everyone apparently does. Once installed, we had to provide BIMSafe with our vaccine proof and, eventually, our pre-travel Covid test results.
- Speaking of Apps, we pre-downloaded the ArriveCan app, which I guess is Canada’s version of BIMSafe. Residents must fill in some details on the app 3 days before arrival back in Canada. Our respective Apps are all downloaded and prepped with our travel details – passports, vaccine status, and the like.
- We needed to complete a wonky form for our Fast Track booking (a way to skip the line at customs) which also included our proof of Covid vaccine as well as answering questions like “what are the birthdates of all travelers” and “what are the ages of all travelers” and “where are you staying” (from a drop down list of resorts that may or may not include the one you are staying at, depending on which company you choose to book through). It also stated we needed a PCR test even though Barbados now only needs a rapid antigen test for entry.
- We had to arrange for the Covid antigen test, which had to be administered less than 24 hours before arrival in Barbados. Since we spent the night in Toronto before our early morning flight we booked the test at the long-term airport parking lot. Very sophisticated.
- The Air Canada check-in process required us to upload proof of vaccination as well as proof of a negative Covid test. Which brings me to ….
The final hurdle: The Covid Antigen test
- In order to take the Covid antigen test, which we booked with Switch Health, we needed to create an “ASMO” account where the test results would be sent within 15-30 mins. This was not perfectly smooth. Jeff, who has an android phone, couldn’t get past the boxes you had to check off to agree to their crazy privacy terms and after trying 4-5 times, finally had to use my iPhone to create his account.
- The antigen test has a choice of testing method – deep nasal test (unpleasant) or just inside the nostrils (less unpleasant). Just before opting for the less unpleasant test, Dave notice the fine print in the Barbados entry requirements, which mandated the deep nasal option. Dave became our hero of the day!
- After testing, we all headed to a bar to order drinks and wait for our results. STRESSSSSSSFUL. Fortunately, one by one, they all came back negative and we cheered! All that was left to do was upload the results to our Air Canada checkin and we were 100% ready to go. Well, this also did not go as planned. I uploaded mine and was rejected with the message “this does not meet the requirements for your travel destination”. That feeling of your heart dropping into your stomach? Yes, that. OMG. And everyone got the same result … WHAAAAAAT???? After trying a few more times, Dave finally got his accepted, which at least meant that the entry criteria for the rest of us should be ok. By now, we had also noticed some extra fine print that said we could leave this step until in-person pre-flight check-in at the airport. But, we all wanted to sleep well, so we kept at it until mine worked, and then after 7-8 more tries Jeff’s did as well. But Andi … oh my goodness. We tried at least 45-50 times (I only wish I was exaggerating). Andi was sure it was because she had a prior positive Covid test but I was certain it was just a shit website. We tried uploading the results in PDF, we tried a screen shot, we tried cropping all the white space, we tried scanning the QR code. We were finally ready to just walk over to the airport and get it sorted and Dave decided on a whim to take a picture of Andi’s phone with the form open on it, a terrible picture that was crooked and included part of the table and probably part of his drink. And … IT WORKED. Tears of relief. This was literally the most stressful part of the pre-trip preparations.
But with all that done and dusted, tomorrow, we will be in Barbados!
As an side: It strikes me how much we are willing to (and required to) upload a myriad of personal information about ourselves and our Covid test/vaccine details to websites and Apps about which we know very little. I certainly was more interested in passing the requisite tests to go to Barbados than reading the fine print about how my personal health information is now going to be used by Canada, Barbados, Fast Track, Switch, ASMO ….