Tested positive on way home - our experience

[mevelandry]

So that’s good when you travel by car.

Now, when you are travelling by airplane, you are screwed, right?

 

[wdwmom3]

I'll second this. Glad everyone is OK.

I'll add getting quarantine insurance should be something everyone should seriously consider - we just purchased it + additional medical from Manulife for almost nothing and it would cover the cost of being stuck in the US for 14 days (up to $200/head) specifically because we've heard of people getting it and spending a fortune getting home.

We have additional medical insurance (we have an annual plan we just buy every year). But I was thinking about adding quarantine insurance. Any idea how much it costs and how soon before your trip you need to purchase?

 

[Madame]

My honest take-away from this is don't travel with unvaccinated people and you'll be exponentially less likely to need a plan B, C, D.

 

[hdrolfe]

We have additional medical insurance (we have an annual plan we just buy every year). But I was thinking about adding quarantine insurance. Any idea how much it costs and how soon before your trip you need to purchase?

You should look at the Covid-19 Pandemic Travel CoverMe plan from Manulife, I believe it's not too pricey (I think that depends on situation but I've heard $72 for a week) and it also covers cruising.

 

[bsmcneil]

My honest take-away from this is don't vaccinate with unvaccinated people and you'll be exponentially less likely to need a plan B, C, D.

Huh?

 

[DeeBee3]

As an American, I have a quick question - I may have missed in the original report. If you travel by car, are the rules different? I know going back into Canada they only report on the news here that people are sent to quarantine zones or whatever you may like to call them. Is there not the same thing for people in cars?

 

[Madame]

Huh?

Typo - substitue the first "vaccinate" with the word "travel."

The only positive test was an unvaccinated child. After spending DAYS, including 2 days in an enclosed space (the car), the vaccinated adults did not test positive. Self-explanatory really.

 

[hdrolfe]

Huh?

I think she meant Don't vacation with unvaccinated people. typo

 

[Madame]

I think she meant Don't vacation with unvaccinated people. typo

Thx! Yes, I did. I really found the fact that the adults spent that much time with a postive person and *still* came away with a negative test, seriously encouraging. It also makes me personally feel better about traveling now that we're all vaccinated.

 

[Madame]

As an American, I have a quick question - I may have missed in the original report. If you travel by car, are the rules different? I know going back into Canada they only report on the news here that people are sent to quarantine zones or whatever you may like to call them. Is there not the same thing for people in cars?

Yes. As of Tuesday land crossings for trips under 72 hrs meant no testing either way. Anyone of age crossing must be vaccinated - no clue about kids as ours are all vaccinated so I haven't been paying attention.

Land trips over 72 hours don't need a test to enter the US but need a PCR/IDNOW (NAAT I think it's called) administered no more than 72 hours prior to border crossing to return to Canada - if you test positive you'll be given quarantine instructions.

Air travel TO the US might be changing a bit - you need a test (not necessarily CPR) before travel but the timeframe might be changing from administered 3 days prior to administered 1 day prior. Return to Canada has same requirements as land crossing (the 72 hour rule doesn't apply here so you must have a PCR test regardless of trip length).

 

[CaptainCook]

Thanks for sharing your experience. We live close to the border and (if we go - still waiting to see what recommendations are now that Omicron is here) will be driving to Cleveland to fly from there. If we get a positive test while we're gone, we'll plan to rent a car to drive back to Cleveland where our own car will be waiting, and cross back over the land border.

I'm hoping this is quite unlikely since we're going down for 4 park days and so will be testing only a couple of days into our trip - but, you never know.

 

[DisneyAndreaM]

As an American, I have a quick question - I may have missed in the original report. If you travel by car, are the rules different? I know going back into Canada they only report on the news here that people are sent to quarantine zones or whatever you may like to call them. Is there not the same thing for people in cars?

You can quarantine at home and the RCMP will follow up to be sure you are. You cannot board a plane with a positive result, but many of us assumed (hoped) that by car you would not be turned away as was the case for the OP.

 

[CanadaSCM]

Can I ask what company did you use for your one way car rental?

We used Avis

 

[wdwmom3]

As an American, I have a quick question - I may have missed in the original report. If you travel by car, are the rules different? I know going back into Canada they only report on the news here that people are sent to quarantine zones or whatever you may like to call them. Is there not the same thing for people in cars?

They don’t send you to a “quarantine” zone. They only send you to quarantine at a hotel if you don’t have an adequate plan (a place to stay and ability to get food etc).

You can’t board a plane with a positive test. But they can’t refuse entry to a Canadian citizen. So if you test positive and drive to the border they have to let you cross. That’s why they drove home.

 

[CanadaSCM]

You can quarantine at home and the RCMP will follow up to be sure you are. You cannot board a plane with a positive result, but many of us assumed (hoped) that by car you would not be turned away as was the case for the OP.

Exactly. If the question was in regards to an American crossing by land with a positive test then I believe they would be refused entry.

 

[DeeBee3]

Thanks for the info!

 

[bsmcneil]

Thx! Yes, I did. I really found the fact that the adults spent that much time with a postive person and *still* came away with a negative test, seriously encouraging. It also makes me personally feel better about traveling now that we're all vaccinated.

Got it! For some reason, I was pairing it with kids being approved to get vaccinated recently and wasn't thinking clearly!

 

[Madame]

Got it! For some reason, I was pairing it with kids being approved to get vaccinated recently and wasn't thinking clearly!

My fault - the word popped up in "auto-fill" when I was typing and I didn't look at it properly!

 

[CanadaSCM]

Thanks for all the kind words everyone.

Our Day 1 at home tests came back negative for us, positive for daughter and she’s still asymptomatic so we aren’t expecting symptoms to develop. After 2 hours on the phone with public health they eventually gave a shrug regarding how soon after having COVID our daughter can get her first shot. So she’s booked for the day our quarantine ends.

I’ll reply to a bunch of comments in this post instead of quoting each individual.

A few people mentioned travel insurance and I’ve always been the type to never buy extra insurance or extended warranty. 20 years of traveling and I guess all that money I saved just got invested in this trip. I will definitely be looking into it for future trips, at least as long as COVID is a factor. Appreciate the poster bringing up hotel quarantine coverage as I probably wouldn’t have thought of that. Avis’s initial response is that we changed the location so the entire rental agreement is void. So their representative stating there would be an “additional fee”, implying our original agreement was valid, actually meant our agreement was void and they would charge whatever they want. $2900 USD for 5 days/3100 miles.

Now that both our kids will be vaccinated I am much more excited to book travel. We had been hoping the 5-11 vaccine was going to be rolled out before we left but we needed this trip and I’m glad we went anyway. It was a calculated risk considering kids aren’t at a high risk of severe symptoms and Florida has such a low case count. Wasn’t counting on the symptomatic people flocking to crowded theme parks though.

If you have kids that can’t be vaccinated and live close to the border the drive across and fly plan is a no brainer to eliminate stress.

Does anyone else find it annoying we can’t easily pick up rapid tests for at home use? A 2 pack of kits in Orlando was $14 and available everywhere.

Oh, and I posted out trip report in the Trip Reports section if anyone wanted to see it.

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

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).

I hope everyone is now healthy and home.

It is our biggest fear with a London trip that has been pushed back to 2022 when we were supposed to be going in 2020. Every day something changes. It’s scary.