Hey everyone. Have used the boards for years and never registered but wanted to share our experience since everything I had read was hypothetical and the government websites are not clear.
We flew down on the 9th for 2 nights at the Royal Pacific at Universal and then 11 nights at a house in Reunion with 4 park days at Disney. I’ll write a trip report in the appropriate section but our first Universal trip as a family made us big fans. Great attractions and they make it EASY. We will be back and likely at RPR. 3rd trip to DW (on site 2010, off site 2017, off site 2021), always Oct or Nov. Also been to DL once right before Covid shut down travel (Jan 2020). So we’ve had paper FP, FP+, G+ and MP. After Universal, G+ just straight up sucks. MP was also wayyyyyy better. I don’t remember finding FP+ annoying at all but it’s been a while. Paper fast pass I barely remember but I do recall thinking FP+ was better when we went in 2017.
Anyway, onto the main reason for the post.
We booked BeeperMD for the morning of the 20th with our flights leaving on the 22nd. The admin and communication side of things sucked. Had to use online chat to get confirmation and had zero confidence that they were truthful. No contact by the end of our 7-9 time window so fired up the chat again and asked. Got a reply that said, sorry, we only have 11:50 available if you need it today. Uhhhh, ok. Nurse showed up about noon and she was amazing. We had backup tests booked at Walgreens for the next day. I did all the booking for 10 people and it was a huge PITA to book 20 tests and cancel 10. There’s just no shortcuts.
9/10 test results came in around 1 the next day and the 10th didn’t come until about 6 that evening (which was closer to when I expected to get results). Total of 6 vaccinated adults/teens and 4 unvaccinated kids in the group. 1 of the kids tested positive which we thought must be a mistake. Grabbed a Binax test kit from Walgreens and it was also positive. WestJet was great about canceling/rebooking but it took quite a long time as we each used a companion voucher and had to rebook our older daughter to still go home with the rest of the group.
At this point we were in a bit of a panic. We knew in theory we could have a positive test but didn’t expect it or have a plan just in case. Our options as we saw them were move to a smaller Airbnb and wait 2 weeks while hoping we didn’t test positive when we went to fly out then or rent a car and hit the road for the 3000+ mile trip to Alberta. Fortunately we are business owners and didn’t have a 9-5 waiting for us with that pressure. The one thing I’ll say here is the government travel websites do NOT make it clear that you are able to cross the land border with a positive test. We *knew* we are allowed to enter our country but reading all the info online they only refer to “negative PCR test” so we were still nervous. Our initial plan was a one way rental to Great Falls, Montana and then a U-haul to Lethbridge where we could pick up a new rental to get the rest of the way home. Uhaul units were sold out all over Great Falls so we called the rental company and got authorized to drop off in Calgary with a “1 way fee we can’t waive but we don’t know how much it will be”. Currently looks like we’ve been charged $1500 USD in addition to the rental fee although the invoice breakdown doesn’t explain it at all so we’re working on it. Not sure how anyone can agree to an undetermined, unlimited fee but we’ll see what happens.
We had to retest as ours were more than 72 hours and did a drive through Walgreens somewhere along the way. 2/3 results came the same day and mine came the next day. We were both negative still (thank you Pfizer) and daughter still positive (unsurprisingly). The experience at the land crossing was great. Border agent was as friendly as border agents get and asked us to pull into the parking lot when we told him we had a positive test. A public health nurse came out to talk to us and ensure we had and would follow a quarantine plan. She gave us printed information and test kits to perform during on online video chat on day 1 and day 8 and sent us on our way. Super friendly and helpful.
We made the best of the drive (50 hours of seat time) and drove through tourist sites along the way to take pictures. Our daughter was and is asymptomatic so we stayed masked, ate outside or in the SUV and did as much contactless hotel check in’s and outs as possible. If she was symptomatic we likely would have stayed in Florida and locked down in an Airbnb with food delivery services.
Overall we would still have gone on the trip but been more prepared with a real plan for the unlikely scenario we encountered. If we had 9-5 jobs and/or were stretched financially to afford the trip in the first place then I would probably feel differently. I don’t want to dissuade anyone from going and now that kids can get vaccinated I believe this will be more of a moot point in the near future BUT this CAN HAPPEN so HAVE A PLAN.
Oh, final thought is that she almost certainly got it from someone in the parks. The number of symptomatic people walking around coughing in Universal and Disney was outrageous. And there was ZERO enforcement on masks indoors at Universal so if that is something that concerns you I would strongly recommend sticking with Disney for now where it is enforced much more (still lots of people ignoring any time they can get away with it though).
We flew down on the 9th for 2 nights at the Royal Pacific at Universal and then 11 nights at a house in Reunion with 4 park days at Disney. I’ll write a trip report in the appropriate section but our first Universal trip as a family made us big fans. Great attractions and they make it EASY. We will be back and likely at RPR. 3rd trip to DW (on site 2010, off site 2017, off site 2021), always Oct or Nov. Also been to DL once right before Covid shut down travel (Jan 2020). So we’ve had paper FP, FP+, G+ and MP. After Universal, G+ just straight up sucks. MP was also wayyyyyy better. I don’t remember finding FP+ annoying at all but it’s been a while. Paper fast pass I barely remember but I do recall thinking FP+ was better when we went in 2017.
Anyway, onto the main reason for the post.
We booked BeeperMD for the morning of the 20th with our flights leaving on the 22nd. The admin and communication side of things sucked. Had to use online chat to get confirmation and had zero confidence that they were truthful. No contact by the end of our 7-9 time window so fired up the chat again and asked. Got a reply that said, sorry, we only have 11:50 available if you need it today. Uhhhh, ok. Nurse showed up about noon and she was amazing. We had backup tests booked at Walgreens for the next day. I did all the booking for 10 people and it was a huge PITA to book 20 tests and cancel 10. There’s just no shortcuts.
9/10 test results came in around 1 the next day and the 10th didn’t come until about 6 that evening (which was closer to when I expected to get results). Total of 6 vaccinated adults/teens and 4 unvaccinated kids in the group. 1 of the kids tested positive which we thought must be a mistake. Grabbed a Binax test kit from Walgreens and it was also positive. WestJet was great about canceling/rebooking but it took quite a long time as we each used a companion voucher and had to rebook our older daughter to still go home with the rest of the group.
At this point we were in a bit of a panic. We knew in theory we could have a positive test but didn’t expect it or have a plan just in case. Our options as we saw them were move to a smaller Airbnb and wait 2 weeks while hoping we didn’t test positive when we went to fly out then or rent a car and hit the road for the 3000+ mile trip to Alberta. Fortunately we are business owners and didn’t have a 9-5 waiting for us with that pressure. The one thing I’ll say here is the government travel websites do NOT make it clear that you are able to cross the land border with a positive test. We *knew* we are allowed to enter our country but reading all the info online they only refer to “negative PCR test” so we were still nervous. Our initial plan was a one way rental to Great Falls, Montana and then a U-haul to Lethbridge where we could pick up a new rental to get the rest of the way home. Uhaul units were sold out all over Great Falls so we called the rental company and got authorized to drop off in Calgary with a “1 way fee we can’t waive but we don’t know how much it will be”. Currently looks like we’ve been charged $1500 USD in addition to the rental fee although the invoice breakdown doesn’t explain it at all so we’re working on it. Not sure how anyone can agree to an undetermined, unlimited fee but we’ll see what happens.
We had to retest as ours were more than 72 hours and did a drive through Walgreens somewhere along the way. 2/3 results came the same day and mine came the next day. We were both negative still (thank you Pfizer) and daughter still positive (unsurprisingly). The experience at the land crossing was great. Border agent was as friendly as border agents get and asked us to pull into the parking lot when we told him we had a positive test. A public health nurse came out to talk to us and ensure we had and would follow a quarantine plan. She gave us printed information and test kits to perform during on online video chat on day 1 and day 8 and sent us on our way. Super friendly and helpful.
We made the best of the drive (50 hours of seat time) and drove through tourist sites along the way to take pictures. Our daughter was and is asymptomatic so we stayed masked, ate outside or in the SUV and did as much contactless hotel check in’s and outs as possible. If she was symptomatic we likely would have stayed in Florida and locked down in an Airbnb with food delivery services.
Overall we would still have gone on the trip but been more prepared with a real plan for the unlikely scenario we encountered. If we had 9-5 jobs and/or were stretched financially to afford the trip in the first place then I would probably feel differently. I don’t want to dissuade anyone from going and now that kids can get vaccinated I believe this will be more of a moot point in the near future BUT this CAN HAPPEN so HAVE A PLAN.
Oh, final thought is that she almost certainly got it from someone in the parks. The number of symptomatic people walking around coughing in Universal and Disney was outrageous. And there was ZERO enforcement on masks indoors at Universal so if that is something that concerns you I would strongly recommend sticking with Disney for now where it is enforced much more (still lots of people ignoring any time they can get away with it though).
