Not that I'm shaming anyone for going but I don't understand why any one would want to travel to a hot spot. While it may you may be safe at Disney you still have to travel to get there. Why not take a vacation near home.
Possibly because "near home" often doesn't feel like a vacation. Depending on where you live, you might have to travel quite a distance to get to anything that doesn't look like home. With the stay-at-home orders that started back in March in some areas, many of us have had lots of time at home. In my state, we had a bad COVID surge in the spring, but parks and nature preserves remained open, even while just about everything else shut down. We were hiking and biking within driving distance of our home for months because it was really the only available amusement. We've found a lot fo great walks we never knew existed, but the truth is that with three kids home all day for the last five months, the prospect of a staycation has lost its appeal. I proposed renting an AirBnB up in northern New England, and bringing the bikes and the dogs, but DH vetoed that, saying we have a house in the woods with bikes and a dog right here - going to a place that looks like home isn't a vacation.
We traveled to a "hot spot" in July, partly because we had booked a non-refundable trip prior to it becoming a hot spot, partially because we were going to see family there, but mostly because we believed we could take steps to mitigate our risk. The flight was sparsely populated, and everyone wore masks. We immediately went to our rental car, got groceries, and went to the ferry, where the ferries were capping ridership at 75 people (so we waited 2 hours for a ferry). From there, we stayed in our rental house for a week where we were joined by the family members we'd gone to see, and who had been social distancing in their house prior to our arrival. That week, we went to the beach where it was easy to stay a good distance from others. We rode bikes, toured the island on golf carts, and took nature walks. We did not interact with anyone outside our family. We didn't do any tours or group activities. We didn't go to the pools. We didn't eat in a restaurant. When we traveled home on the plane, we wore our n95 masks, and everyone around us remained masked for the whole flight. We all tested negative for COVID on our return.
Would I go to Disney or Universal right now? Nope. I had Universal booked for next week, but decided against going when Florida's numbers surged and our governor mandated a quarantine. We planned to move the trip to Washington state, but then WA's virus rates went up, and that state was added to the list. Then we planned a trip to St John, and had everything set, until this Tuesday when the US Virgin Islands were added to the quarantine list. Fortunately, we only lost the $250 service fee for the rental. Now we're scrambling to find something in a "green" state, both for our own health and because we don't have two weeks to quarantine before school starts. DH's anxiety is high regarding hotel stays and cities/crowds, so we're going to make it a shorter trip than originally planned. We'll figure something out, but it's hard trying to find fun activities close to home that we haven't already done.
