What's it like to travel in 2021?
i'm going to portugal hello i'm chelsea and in this video i'm showing you what it's actually like to travel at the moment from the forms you have to fill in to the tests you have to do too now this was filmed back when portugal was a green country and there were no perks for vaccinated travellers but the rules can change a lot and so before you travel anywhere make sure you check your destinations fcdo page and the dot gov site for the rules for getting back to the uk but i'm getting ahead of myself let's start at the beginning i cannot believe i am packing to go on a plane in just a few hours speaking of which um yeah i've gotta leave in like 25 minutes i haven't packed yet but first of all let's go through the first thing on that checklist which was book a flight i got the flights from absolute bargain nine pound 99 each way and that's one of my top tips throughout all of this i've always said if you can book a super cheap flight even if your plans go awry you know i'm not going to be super sad about losing 20 pounds but it looks like in this instance it's going ahead and i'm gonna jump ahead a little bit on the checklist now and talk you through the fact that i bought a hotel and i booked it with free cancellation i actually could cancel that hotel until last night at 11 59 pm and i'll pay at the hotel itself so the money never left my account i.e if my trip didn't go ahead i was totally covered but i'm glad it's done i've got somewhere to check into tonight but speaking of which i should probably pack the final thing that needs to be packed is bloody you my love you're coming with me it's time to go the next thing on my checklist was making sure that portugal were actually going to accept taurus which it was looking a little dicey for a while but last friday they did confirm it and they also confirmed that they would need you to take a pcr test 72 hours before your departure and obviously it needed to show that it was negative by the way every country will have a different policy so just because portugal's is a pcr it doesn't mean that the country you're going to will be the same also some will let vaccinated taurus in without having to do a test but again you need to check the best way to do this is go to the fcdo page find the country that you're after and click on entry requirements oh i don't miss this always cutting it fine it's good to know that something's never changed there's no one around me all right let me just explain about the pcr tests i took mine with a company called certificate it cost 72 pounds now my god you need to see the inside of look if you're a woman you understand all right i did also order a randox test which comes to your house was only 60 pounds it didn't turn up that is worth checking out if you've got time to order it ahead because you could order it like two three four weeks in advance now today is a tuesday my flight is at quarter past four and therefore i took my test on saturday just after that time so i was in the 72 hour window i went i sent it off it was with the lab by quarter past seven and i had my results the next day by 3 30. so all in all a really really good method of doing it other options include walk-in centers to send it off for you or once we do it literally there and then for you for what i've seem to found is the quicker the service the more expensive it's going to cost you and so there's ones that they mail to you and then you mail back are always going to be your cheapest option for me they worked but they definitely come with more stress i'll list all the details of everything i've mentioned down in the description airport right another really important part of your checklist is checking that the country you're going to is approved by the fcdo that is the foreign office the long name of it is the foreign commonwealth and development office oh nailed it now this is important because if it isn't advised for you to go to that country it may invalidate your travel insurance which is a massive checklist that you want to be taking off if you're traveling at the moment i'm very lucky my annual policy covers me if i get covered before i go on holiday and if i get covered whilst i'm there it doesn't cover me for cancellations um if i decide to not go because the restrictions have changed and you're going to be hard-pressed to find anything that does that but you should be able to find the former now this is how you can see if the country you're going to is approved by the fcdo it's a bit confusing but this is how so here's the fcto page for canada and if you scroll down in bold here you will see that the fcdo advises against all but essential travel to canada now here's portugal's page and if we scroll down you will see that there isn't that paragraph anywhere and that's how i knew that my insurance was absolutely fine for portugal now i am very uncharacteristically early at the airport i'm here two whole hours before my flight this is not like me i'm normally like a dash and get here 40 minutes before but i thought i needed to give myself time so i could capture for you what it's actually like and just in case there's big keys for anything so that's what we're gonna check out now you know what the moment i go into that airport i'm gonna have to be wearing my mask all the time and this way you can actually see what i'm saying a little bit better um i'm in the i'm in the train station now there's nobody about and it's semi outside so forgive me if i'm breaking rules but i'll do this really quickly the final thing you have to do on your checklist for getting to a country is checking to see if you need to fill in a certain form now portugal have got a passenger locator form i have filled this in i actually had to wait until i checked in with ryan x you need to know your seat number um but it was super easy to do took me two minutes really easy and if you're looking to see if there is a form for the country you're after again go on the fcdo website literally search for where you're off to so greece fcdo germany fcdo it will be the first thing that comes up on google and you want to be clicking on entry requirements and on there it will tell you absolutely everything now this does give you a qr code which it will also email to you so when you get it just screenshot it and save it somewhere so it's easy to access and you're not panicking when you get to the country and when there's probably going to be a lot of queues let's go and check out what the airport's like i can't believe i'm at the airport oh my god oh it is so quiet it's dead this is the quietest i've ever seen it cheers now i feel like i'm going away okay so as i walked up to my gate there was several ryanair staff going have you got your sleep i was like what's the slip and basically i had to show them that i had soreness to mentally probably hear them drying their hands and i had to show them that i had my negative pcr test and on the test they were specifically looking for my name my date of birth when i got the test done and also that it was an rt pcr so make sure you're checking you're getting the right pcr test but once that was done she filled in my little slip i'm not going to show you what it says because genie and i it'd be very easy to duplicate i don't know if this is going to stay the same uh forever i hope not it's not it's tough isn't it they uh they need to have some kind of system at least this means that in the queue they're not checking i'll be in the queue with my slip hand over and get straight on board so it makes sense well that took two minutes but i am very very very glad i paid extra for the seats because they were asking me a few questions i would say that every single person will take about two minutes they had four people on the counters and that adds up across a whole flight so i was fourth in the queue smashed it worth paying a bit more i think oh do you know what i just thought i offered forward my passenger locator qr code but she didn't scan it and she didn't ask me for it so i don't know if that was enough for her whether or not i'm going to be asked for it again before i leave okay now outside the reason why lisbon is the perfect getaway destination for the weekend is because the airport is super close to the city takes you about 15 minutes and what's more taxis are so cheap big question is where do i get picked up from there is of course the metro station there but since it's covered and since it's so cheap i'm gonna get an uber okay what you haven't seen is i spent the last 10 minutes wandering around trying to get to the point on uber p8 that's what was on uber that's what you're looking for guys let's find ourselves an uber okay if you decide that you want an uber it's complicated because everyone at the airport told me to go to where the taxis are but that is not where you get an uber from you need to be looking for parking eight which actually you come out you have to keep walking and get to a place like this and the taxis pull up here okay it's confusing i wish it hadn't taken me 25 minutes to work it out this is fun ah he was so nice so helpful and he gave me a gin we like thomas ooh oh this is a nice room it's nice right moxie is a chain i think it's owned by marriott um and it is a really good go-to like three star but trendy and quite cool option if you are staying in a city and you're not sure where to go and he did say that he had upgraded me whoa um oh jesus sorry mr lamp um i didn't actually email ahead i do have a template on my website that helps people get upgrades but i didn't email ahead because this is really really sad i'm a total scaredy cat so when i go away on my own and travel i actually want this monster room because there's less places to look to see if a man is hiding in a cupboard i can't believe i've just admitted that um but that's the reason why i don't ever email this is perfect i think i can coach just fine mostly because there's no cupboards oh let's take a look at the bathroom oh this is so nice like three star hotels have got fancy god i'm hungry here i am with half a litre of sparkling wine that i accidentally ordered and not too unhappy about it and here's my food oh my god it looks so good right i'm gonna enjoy this i'm on my own talking to my camera looking like a [ __ ] weirdo so i'm gonna sign off here and i'll see you tomorrow good morning so i've got 24 hours in portugal which i'm very excited about but this one is one that i bought at home from company called cured i have scheduled an appointment to be online with a health advisor who's going to double check i do it right when my test comes back as negative they'll email me the email confirmation i need to get back on my flight next door it's very early i had an absolutely lovely day yesterday um but oh my god my voice but i'm up very very early to go to the airport because i'm doing another lateral flow test why i've already got one um because i wanted to test out another option for you um so lots of airports will offer this as well in portugal it seems um and so i wanted to show you that too but it involves having to get to the airport 45 minutes for my check-in time which for me is so early to have to get to the airport um but my appointment's at 6 55. it's now 20 past
six thank god portugal's airport is close and easy to get to but i need to get changed so let's go it's 6 35 i better get cracking let's go okay we love him because i'm pretty sure he only had to drop me off where i got the uber from he dropped me off right at the airport god love you gonna tip you but um i'm already two minutes late my appointment so let's get a move on what i wish i had taken the time when i went in um that was the quickest thing i've ever done in my life all right let me sit down and i'll explain to you so let me explain that test mad i walked in hello i'm here for my test what's your name paid goes straight in there's three people working all in four ppe i sit down at the chair she says okay put your mask down to here so put my mask she came straight in up each nostril thought she was gonna poke my [ __ ] brain out please wait coffee break i've just i've said chelsea like the football team it's [ __ ] close ladies it's close anyway she went straight in both nostrils no mouth which i'm glad for because when she went straight for nostrils i was like am i supposed to put that in my mouth now and that was literally it i was in for 30 seconds she said well email you bye offer went and i have had my email in fact the email came through i got out five past seven my email was with me by i got email by 7 23 so very very quick turnaround oh it was negative by the way can you imagine if it was positive after yesterday as well a big thing that you need to double check with wherever you go is that your results there will be they'll be in english i believe they can be in two other languages too i'm gonna put on the screen basically all the information you need is on the government page which i will link below i didn't have to be at the airport so pretty early especially considering i already have a test but i'm here now i've got my starbucks i've got a croissant ham and cheese which they call a croissant misto i'm gonna enjoy this and in two hours and five minutes i'll board my plane [ __ ] sake i'm back because i'm such an idiot i've done this whole checklist and i nearly missed the last one which is doing a passenger locator form to get back into the uk can you imagine if i'd done everything about that and then got fined 500 pounds right doing it now you can submit the form anytime in the 48 hours before you arrive in the uk so i'm i'm so fine i just had to do it before i actually got into england i actually can't believe i know this thought okay so this is the bit i think everyone wants to know which is testing after you arrive in the uk ask me are you required to book coronavirus tests for when you arrive in the uk yes now listen if you've only been in low risk slashing green list countries or islands in the last 10 days uh you must book a day to test package now i do have a bucking reference and it's at home waiting for me so i need to pop that in so i'm putting in the test booking reference i got when i ordered my randox kit um i haven't personally seen it yet james has received for me so i really hope that this is enough god fingers crossed great let me put in the booking reference so that's a good thing for you to know as long as you ordered it your the test booking reference that you get through on your email is enough i.e if you've totally forgotten you can buy your day two tests at the airport for that reference code in okay good but try and remember it i'm gonna submit this and go and get on my flight here over two hours early and still only gets my flight for final call so as i got to my ryanair gate they did ask for my uk passenger locator form thank god can you imagine if they asked me there and then i would have been in such a panic um and i shared my negative lateral flow test too so so far everyone is checking and also they're not scanning but they are double checking to see that you've actually done it now let the race begin the moment of truth how busy is it going to be oh well that was the quickest standstill experience i've ever had in my life but again i will say that it took me about 30 seconds to go through that guy and i had my documents ready i imagine some people won't not um i was not expecting them to ask for proof of my day too but they did fortunately or on email really quick for me to find it but get it prepped but for a whole big busy flight if you're at the back it's going to slow you down isn't it so i was lucky because there were no other flights there and i was off first but otherwise that's it right i'm gonna get myself home i've got one last thing to do my day two test and then we'll be done i'll spare you the faff but i got home i did my day two test which confusingly if you're coming back from a green list country you actually can do the test on day two or before so it was fine i did it on this day basically i used randox for this and then i spent a horrible amount of time trying to find their dropbox in london but the test did come back negative the next day so i was pretty happy with the service i hope you liked this video i have literally just finished editing it right now and doing the last bit here please do give it a thumbs up leave me a comment and if you're not already why not subscribe for more cheap travel videos the next video will be all about that test i did from my hotel room because i get a lot of questions about that over on my instagram but in the interim you can go ahead and watch one of these videos i think you'll like them thanks a lot and see you in the next video bye
2021-08-02 13:49
