I'm quite positive we will never forget our first international vacation thanks to Coronavirus. Although our trip to Jamaica was booked months before we had ever heard of this monster, things definitely started escalating about the time we needed to start packing for our trip. Because I'm a bit anxious leading up to any sort of travel regardless of a global pandemic, I was on high alert and did my very best to make an informative decision as to whether we would travel or not. I booked doctors appointments for the kids to get checked and cleared for takeoff ahead of time, spoke with our travel agent (thank God we had went through a travel agency this time) several times to get her perspective, and stayed well informed about all the things on the never-ending news cycle. But things took a wild turn in a new direction the day before we left. President Trump closed U.S. borders to Europe, UNI announced campus closure and online learning through the rest of the month, and talks of toilet paper extinction started circulating. And the virus was spreading in China, Iran, South Korea, and Italy at alarming rates. There was a lot of fear of similar stories and numbers in the U.S., but things didn't look bad yet. Our church mission trips were still planned to take several students to Haiti and Jamaica, and most of our friends were still planning to travel. Beau and I went back and forth a hundred times and finally decided to go for it. There was no Coronavirus in the Caribbean, our airline assured us they would get us there and get us home, and our doctor and travel agent recommended we go. So on the Thursday before Spring Break, we sent the kids on a little scavenger hunt to surprise them with our trip. They were completely oblivious to the worries and fears we were carrying that week and their excitement helped settle us and energize us to go for it.
So ready or not, JAMAICA HERE WE COME!
The kids had no idea what was in store for them! Beau and I have been on all-inclusive vacations before and always talked about taking our kids on one once they reached an age where they could be independent enough to hang at the pool and enjoy the many amenities of resort life. On every vacation we've ever taken, their favorite part is always the pool and the hotel. It doesn't matter where we are or what we're doing, they just want to be in our hotel room or playing at the pool. So a vacation that pretty much involved eating, relaxing, sitting by a pool and not leaving our place for a few days, especially when we were all in the middle of a world crisis, sounded like a pretty great idea to all four of us.
Beau always tries to get me to go to Mexico the same week open-enrollment ends at his work. It's also always the week before Christmas, aka, one of my favorite weeks of the year. A few years ago he almost had me, so much so that I went ahead and ordered the kids' passports. I've been saving them ever since and surprised them literally an hour before we left. They didn't really understand what it meant to have a passport, but when I explained that they could now travel outside the USA, Cruz's response was, "Does that mean we're going to China?!" Not this time, buddy... ;)
What's funny is that all news took a turn for the worse the same day we arrived in sunny Jamaica. Public schools closed for at least three weeks, travel restrictions widened, airlines started cancelling flights, and "social distancing" became a thing, impacting business owners everywhere. Our friends from BASIC cancelled their big trip to Jamaica which left us feeling a little vulnerable. But we were there, safe, healthy, and surrounded by warmth and sunshine and lots of social distance. And it ended up being such a gift to get away before we returned home to weeks of quarantine. So we stayed put and made the very most of our time together at Jewel Runaway Bay.
More to come!
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