Holidays in Lockdown
We haven’t been particularly fortunate with our holidays this year. Such is 2020 for everyone I think. It’s such a shame though as we actually had some plans this year.
As mentioned earlier in the year, lockdown and Coronvirus put an end to our planned adventure along the Caladonian Canal. We simply couldn’t go so there was no holiday there.
We had also planned to go to Malta during the October Half Term so that Morgan could get his Open Water Diver certification. As that came closer it was clear that the Government restrictions on travel would put an end to those plans as well. As I write this we are in the middle of that half-term week and we are most definitely still at home and not in Malta. As it happens, the 2nd full on lockdown here in Wales meant that we certainly couldn’t have gone.
Refunds
We were quite fortunate in one respect. A few weeks before we were due to travel Ryanair who our flights were with emailed us to say that they were re-scheduling our flights. We had by now pretty much made up our minds that we wouldn’t be able to go. Fortunately the fact that Ryanair were making changes to the flights meant that we had a few options. We could go along with the changes, transfer to a different flight or get a refund.
We opted for the latter as it was a bit of a get out clause for us on the cost of the flights that we weren’t going to be able to take anyway. It did mean that we wouldn’t have to claim for them through the travel insurance which would save some hassle. It did mean however that we might have to take a hit on some of the other components of the holiday.
We had already paid for parking at the airport, but we were able to cancel that and get a full refund. The same couldn’t be said for the hotel that we had booked at the airport. Our flight was originally due to leave early on Saturday morning so we had booked into a Travel Lodge at the airport for the night before. We couldn’t get a refund on this so had to lose the money. In fact, when we did try to cancel it Travel Lodge wanted us to pay a admin fee to do so. We therefore just left it booked and never turned up. It seems a little silly on their part to charge us to cancel it – surely it would have been better for them to now we weren’t going to be there so that they could give the room to someone else.
Everlasting Deposit
The other thing we had paid for was the accommodation and diving itself in Malta. We had only paid a deposit for this though. The deposit was non-refundable but the company that we were staying with have said that they’ll keep the deposit and we can use it towards the cost of a holiday with them at sometime in the future. Hopefully the COVID lockdown will be over with soon and we’ll be able to travel next year. Fingers crossed.
Ever Decreasing Travels
With our half-term holiday to Malta out of the questions we had planned to spend it out and about in Wales. We still had annual leave booked from work and Morgan was off school so a ‘staycation’ was the next best thing. We didn’t have anything specific planned but I was hoping to get to South Wales for a day or two to continue with my Coast Path Run. That project has been put on hold since Coronavirus reared it’s ugly head so it would have been nice to get it back on track.
Wales however went into full lockdown again for two weeks. It’s what they are calling a Fire-Break Lockdown to try to get on top of the increasing cases here. This meant that we were all told to stay at home and only go out if essential or for exercise. So much for our staycation then! We were now going to be confined to home with maybe some exercise starting and ending at home.
This restriction on our holiday was taken up a notch on Thursday last week when I injured my ribs when I sneezed! Following that I was unable to move from the sofa. So, things were downgraded from Malta to Wales, then from Wales to Ynyslas and finally from Ynyslas to the sofa – not quite what we had in mind for our annual holiday!!
I am a little more mobile now though so some DIY and bathroom refurbishment is in order.
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