We Went To Mexico During Covid

hey hey hey

Last week me and the wife went to Mexico by ourselves. We were fortunate to have family stay at our house with the kids and dog, so they could continue school and their activities. It was a great time and was overdue to get away. This was the first time we went on vacation just the 2 of us since our son was born almost 9 years ago and also first time since covid began.

I have decided to write a post about it because basically everyone I run into asks how was it. Did we have to do tests? How was the border? Was the resort doing their due diligence etc etc.

Why Mexico?

Right off the bat the wife wanted to go to Mexico, but I remember going as a kid and not being a huge fan. We looked into a lot of the Caribbean islands and even Costa Rica. After speaking to our travel agent they highly advised against Costa Rica due to high covid numbers, so we scratched that. A lot of the islands had lots of covid restrictions and required a pcr test before even flying to them. Mexico was really simple. They want tourists and lets be honest due to their simplicity we decided to go there.

We decided to go to the Riu palace costa Mujeres an all inclusive resort with lots of amenities. Everything was basically open like normal other than the disco club and night life was quiet. All the bars were closed at 11pm, I asked and they said this was due to covid. (This was fine because when we really decided to party it up poolside, the tequila was flowing and I passed out by 8pm anyways!)

Hand sanitizer was everywhere and highly encouraged, masks must be worn indoors. The pool deck would get scrubbed everyday by ppl dumping the pool water all over the floors and then squeegeeing the floors. I don’t think chairs got disinfected though if that’s something that would concern you.

The employees were extremely friendly and go out of the way to keep your drinks full and a table for dining available all the time. I asked one employee about covid and he said the resort was closed for 7 months. That’s crazy they employ so much people there, so they are thankful to be busy once again. The place as well as the food was fantastic, I would highly recommend it.

We basically were beach side most of the time reading. I finished 10x by Grant Cardone, Rise and Grind by Daymond John and half of Dale Carnegies How to make friends and influence people and how to skip worrying and start living. Great books. Carnegie’s book is one everyone should read. 10x had a lot of great info. In general society thinks to small, doesn’t dream big enough and really doesn’t want to take big risks. How true is that right?

Anyways it was a great trip, we are both super dark and was great to spend time just the 2 of us once again. But 1 week away from the kids is a long time, we were definitely happy to come home and see them.

The Process

As I stated earlier we decided to book with a travel agent, with all the stuff going on these days its nice to deal with someone who knows the ins and outs of whats happening in the travel world. I highly recommend this right now.

One thing that has changed dramatically since the last time we went away is the dependence on your phone. Its actually kinda scary, you would be absolutely screwed if it died or you lost it on your trip! This was something I was most worried about to be honest, not covid.

Going to Mexico

You get your digital boarding passes now via email and should check in on the airlines app before your trip to speed things up. (we flew sunwing) We arrived at Pearson airport at about 6am and probably went through all the security/bag drops in like 15 minutes. Going there was easy. Show your boarding tickets, and your double vax proof and your on the plane. On the flight they give you a piece of paper to fill out saying you have no symptoms etc to give to Mexico upon entry plus your declarations.

The flight was super smooth and once we arrived to Mexico a new line opened up and we flew through. It was really lucky timing because the line behind us was extremely long. You have to press a button for random luggage checks – of course it went off on us right! Guy went through all our bags, but of course we had nothing to hide. No big deal. They didn’t check our vaccinations there, hop on the bus and check into the resort.

Coming back to Canada

You have to do a pcr test to come back to Canada within 72 hours of your flight. The test cost us 100 usd each and was done right in the hotel. My first time doing one – a slight tickle, but really not that bad. If you test positive for covid you have to stay at the hotel (only in your room) for 10 more days and get another test. This is covered with a 50 dollar each insurance plan.

The next day hopefully you get a negative test result in your email. Now you have to download an app called arrivecan for flights back to Canada. This was extremely frustrating! Scan your passport, vax certificates enter all your flight info and declare if you have symptoms etc. Once done you submit it and then you will get a email with another qr code to show at the airport.

Mine worked the first time, but the wife’s just kept crashing or saying she had no internet when she tried to submit it. (This seems to be a pretty common error based on internet search’s, but if you don’t do it there’s a lot of fines that you could come across) Anyways we spent an hour re-scanning and inputting everything about 10-15 times until it finally went through! I can’t stress how frustrating this was, what can you do if it doesn’t work?

Now you have to do a Mexico declaration form/covid symptoms form in which you get another qr code to show at the airport.

The line ups at Mexico airport were very long and hand sanitizer was basically nowhere to be found until you get to duty free stores. (Bring your own) Show your arrivecan qr code, negative pcr tests, Mexico declaration and boarding passes and you can now go on to a plane. Notice all of those are on your phone. Make sure you have battery. There’s wifi at the Mexican airport.

Pearson Airport

So we arrive in Toronto at 7.50 pm. Then a flight attendant comes on the intercom saying we will be getting out in stages to limit the people in the lineups at Pearson. Eventually we go out and everything is dead, wow we are going to fly out of here, we thought. Then you go downstairs to massive amount of people lined up back to back. There are no social distancing stickers on the floors. (I don’t care but find it funny that businesses need to have these in lines)

Eventually you get to these machines that scan your passport and change heights to take a pic to see if its really you. This was actually really cool but man oh man AI is going to eliminate a lot of jobs in the coming years. You do your declaration on these touch screens as well and then get a printout to go wait in the next huge line. Now you see an actual agent and they ask you the normal questions and put a sticker on your passport. Blue and red if I recall.

Go get your luggage, no waiting for that though. Its on the floor waiting for everyone! Now you leave and people check your passport. You either go left or right. They sent us left. Little did we know that meant we didn’t get selected to do a random antigen test at the airport too. Supposedly that is what those stickers on your passport were for.

We got out of the airport in 1.45 hours. It was long but we heard from people at the resort that their friends took 4 hours at the airport. Not doing the antigen test definitely saved us some time.

We get on the park and fly bus to go to our car and there was probably 10 other people on it. I asked if anyone did the antigen test. They all did, boy did we get lucky. They all have to quarantine until they get a negative test, while we were free to go back to work.

We are required to track close contacts and where we go for 14 days though, I guess health Canada can call us at anytime to check. If we develop any symptoms we gotta get checked.

Conclusion

Well there you have it. Everything we had to do to travel internationally. Covid is real and I will probably get people saying that we shouldn’t travel now or whatnot. We even see talk of eliminating non essential travel once again to limit the spread. Omicron is already here. The last couple years has shown us this does nothing to limit the spread but kills industry’s and peoples livelihoods.

It doesn’t seem like media or politicians will let covid lose its fear factor. Why would they? Blank cheques, blank cheques, blank cheques, control, control, control.

Omicron is less deadly.. oh but it spreads way faster! Stay at home, its not worth the risk. Case numbers are rising, we will have like 10,000 cases a day in January the modelling projects! (has modelling in the past been right?)

As I’ve stated on twitter shouldn’t we be focusing on hospitalizations? This is what we were told right away got to stop hospitalizations. 2 weeks to flatten the curve right? We know you can get covid even if your double vaxxed hey even tripled vaxxed right? Its about staying out of the hospitals. More testing and winter months always increases cases, we have seen it for 2 years now

“This time last year, we were experiencing double the number of daily cases and more than double the number of people with COVID-19 being treated in hospitals and in intensive care daily. Most importantly, daily reported deaths are 82 per cent lower than this time last year,” Tam said.

I can go on and on. At the end of the day you got one life, go out there and live it! Invest your money, but spend it as well. Wash your hands, wear a mask and get vaxxed if you want.

This was our experience. While the changes and precautions put in place are costly and frustrating, it was well worth it! Are you planning on going away this winter?

(p.s out of everyone we met from our flight no one tested positive for covid)

Cheers!