We had planned to travel to the USA this summer for two weeks. We hoped to visit friends who had moved from Chicago to St Louis and then do a bit of a road trip to New Orleans. It is our daughter’s last big summer holiday before starting work at the beginning of August. She only gets three weeks holiday this year unlike most of her friends who are going on to further education and get five weeks. The first week she spent in Germany at a sport camp with her best friend.
We thought that as the Covid cases seemed to be stabilized in most of Europe that we would travel abroad from Switzerland to get a ‘proper’ holiday rather than a ‘staycation’. We decided that we didn’t want to fly further than two and a half hours due to the need to wear face masks for the duration. For us this meant mainly the Balearic Islands, mainland Spain or Malta. Our travel agent came up with a hotel with room only in Malta or all inclusive in Majorca. We chose Majorca as it was simpler. We didn’t plan to go outside the hotel much and therefore all meals and drinks included was a great deal.
After booking we got all the information from the travel agent about what we had to do to enter Spain 🇪🇸. This meant that when we had checked in for the flight we had to fill in an online form with our personal details, address of the hotel and then answer a few health related questions. After sending this in we each got a QR code which we would have to show before leaving the airport in Palma. All that was left to do was pack.
This should be the link to the online form to be completed before arrival in Spain.
The only difference with packing for this holiday was the inclusion of extra hand sanitizer and face masks.
We set off from home in the car and parked at Zurich airport. We were surprised how many cars were parked on the ‘holiday parking’ section. Our expectation was that not many people were traveling at the moment and more were driving to neighbouring countries rather than flying.
Check in was very quiet when we dropped our bags off.
We then headed through to security passing under the departure boards.
As my husband is a frequent flyer we headed to the lounge to wait for our gate to come up. In the lounge there were a lot fewer tables than normal and instead of self service food there was a staff member serving. Other staff were constantly cleaning floors and tables. Our gate came up about an hour before the flight and at that point it was the next but one flight due to leave. I think the people living near the airport are perhaps enjoying quieter times at the moment.
We made our way to the gate to wait for boarding and donned our face masks 😷 as required for the flight. The Edelweiss staff announced that they would be boarding business class first, as usual, but afterwards they would be boarding by seat rows starting at the back. This was probably to help reduce people having to stand together in the aisle. Unfortunately it didn’t work as well as expected – we were towards the back and there were still people behind us boarding when the front of the plane had boarded.
The flight wasn’t completely full but there were empty seats dotted throughout the plane. Most passengers appeared to be family groups getting away for a summer break like us. As we boarded we were all given a disinfectant wipe to clean around our seat – arm rests, tray table etc. The staff collected the used wipes before takeoff.
The flight crew started to serve drinks once we reached our cruising altitude. We were surprised to get a ‘butterbrot’ (a small bread roll with a slab of butter in the middle) as well as a drink. Our understanding was that there would be no food served on the flight. This was then also followed by a ‘biberli’ (small sweet roll filled with a fruit jam). We were allowed to remove our masks to eat and drink but were reminded to put them back on straight afterwards. The crew also made an announcement about the landing requirements regarding the information required and gave out forms to people who hadn’t already done it. Until 1st August it is also possible to fill out a paper form and hand it in. After 1st August only forms done in advance will be allowed – either in printed form or shown on a mobile device.
We landed ten minutes early which seemed to confuse the staff at Palma airport as we had to wait five minutes until the plane could pull onto its stand correctly so the air bridge could be connected. As usual everyone jumped to to get ready to leave, meaning there was no social distancing at all.
On leaving the plane, with our masks on, we headed for baggage collection. The rules in Spain are that you need to wear a mask in all public enclosed spaces and also in outdoor spaces where social distancing isn’t possible. Most of the travelators were closed meaning it was easier to stay away from people on the walkways. Palma airport was much busier than Zürich had been and it had lots more departures on the boards. On the way through the airport there were lots of staff asking if we had filled out the landing paperwork. For those who hadn’t done it in advance or on the plane there were tables set out with forms so they could fill it out there.
We were all funneled through four desks to either hand in our paper form or to have our QR code scanned. At this checkpoint there were also heat sensitive cameras set up scanning everyone’s temperature. They were so unobtrusive that my husband said “weren’t we supposed to get our temperature checked?” He hadn’t even noticed the cameras. We were then able to continue to baggage collection.
Because we had flown in from Switzerland we had to go to a separate area in baggage collection in order to go through customs. Unusually people were not crammed together collecting their bags but were maintaining social distance. After collecting our bags we went to look for the TUI rep. There were a few of them waiting in arrivals for us. My husband had booked a private transfer for us which was great. We were met at the exit by our driver and taken to a seven seater car. Having the private transfer reduced out transfer time to fifty minutes instead of the ninety minutes that we had been told – less time wearing our masks. This also meant we managed to get to the hotel, check in, leave our bags in our room and get to the restaurant before it closed.
Getting to the hotel felt safe and everyone was trying to stick to the rules. It would be good if the flights could have more empty seats to help with social distancing but I understand the economics of it all. Airlines don’t want / can’t afford to fly planes that are only 50 – 70% full.
I’m going to cover everything about the hotel’s Covid precautions in my next post.
Crouch Family On Tour 