It was going to be a nice relaxing voyage across the Atlantic to Tarragona, Spain. From there a second cruise would have taken us to Venice and some day trips to Vicenza and Verona. All changed, changed utterly.
We’ve canceled everything as of last Friday. We just must admit that it isn’t worth the risk. We are getting on in age; we are in one of the higher risk groups for serious illness (or worse.) We were heading to one of the worst hotspots in a country that has been closed down.
And our choice of transportation has been acting more like a Petrie dish than a cruise ship lately. There’s no guarantee we wouldn’t be quarantined at our port of destination. Even if we were not, we couldn’t be sure whether any restaurants would be open or ground transportation options would be available while we were there. Not to mention flying back and getting quarantined in Canada. It would be a cruise from hell.
The cruise company has been good about it. We were able to cancel and get credit for a future cruise when things settle down. British Airways canceled our flight from Venice back to Montreal with minimum penalty. I doubt that they’ll be flying from Venice anyway when we were due to return.
There’s no escaping it though – we did lose money. Air Canada wouldn’t refund us anything beyond some air terminal taxes. That’s the risk you take with non-refundable flights. But there were far greater risks to going ahead with our plans.
I am at the depression stage of grief by now. No point in anger at the morons who caused this by wanting to eat bats or armadillos in Wuhan. It is what it is.
This is one time where planning well ahead for a holiday came back to bite us. But I don’t think a last-minute cruise or beach holiday would suit us either right now. I guess our long-running staycation called retirement will have to do as the weather improves.
At least I heard the robins singing when I put out the trash this morning.
