The British are not coming.
I have now irreversibly cancelled — not even rescheduled, this time — my August 2021 trip to WDW.
I was listening to a discussion on The Times podcast over the weekend that suggested that most British people have now resigned themselves to not travelling abroad for a second summer in a row.
A couple of weeks ago, the UK government drew up a very short list of countries that UK citizens could travel to (and, crucially, return unencumbered from). The list included Portugal and many Brits jetted off there almost immediately. At the end of last week, Portugal was taken off the now even shorter list and so began a mass panic to cut short vacations and return home before the quarantine requirements kick in.
At this point many of us realised the game was up for this summer.
The most likely date of my next attempt to return to Orlando is August 2022. So my April 2020 trip will have been postponed for almost two and a half years. I still find that boggling.
I’m not as bummed about this as I was as I’m genuinely excited about my alternative plans. But it has meant that I’ve been winding down my interest in all things Orlando. I’ve stopped following WDW- and UOR-based pages on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. I’ve even stopped watching the DFB YouTube channel, which I’ve hitherto always regarded as essential viewing.
I won’t be visiting these forums much, either, until early next year. I’ll (eventually!) finish my trip report of my visit to UK theme parks in April, and I’ll write a report of my two cruises (assuming — ha! — that they go ahead).
But I have no interest in reading other people’s perky WDW trip reports. Nor catching up on the latest WDW news, which will quite likely be entirely out of date by the time I get to return. In over a year.
Two summer’s worth of vacation plans taken away from us. Who saw that coming? Not Paul Revere.
