Marathon weekend is usually busy in the morning at Epcot (finishing line) and you may find some roads around the World are single lane traffic. Its usually much better in the afternoon when most of the runners have finished. Tui, Ryanair, Thomas Cook and Jet2holidays also reported a sharp rise in demand. Tui, the world’s largest travel company, said breaks in Greece, Spain and Turkey from July onwards were the most booked overnight, with bookings up 500%. I have no idea what is going on there, as I am not a DVC expert. I am hoping over time things settle down and something does come up that we can use. I am as we speak in “talks” with the folks I have my credit notes with to try and source something suitable. My mind began to do its work, thinking about when we may be able to get over there. I won’t bore you with all the details, but the logistics of getting six of us (at least) away at the same time, balancing everyone’s work, life plans, other commitments and of course finances is on a par with undertaking a moon landing.

The Thomas Cook chief executive, Alan French, said: “The government’s announcement is good news for those of us desperate to get away on holiday. While we await more details, it’s clear that the government’s ambition is to open up international travel in the coming months and hopefully in time for the summer holidays.” It’s funny what seeing one overfilled boot of a car can do to you. Muttering to the Husband that it was a good job we weren’t flying off anywhere because what we do with ALL THAT STUFF?! A short drive and unload to our holiday home 30 minutes later, with further mutterings from the husband on whether we actual needed ALL THAT STUFF, an afternoon of exploring we got the kids to bed, popped the Prosecco, lit the log fire and settled down to play scrabble and chat. My winning scrabble boardAs part of the government’s planned easing of Covid-19 restrictions, Boris Johnson said a travel taskforce would set out plans on 12 April on the return to international travel “so people can plan for the summer”. The ban on international travel will not be lifted until 17 May at the earliest, however, which means Easter breaks are off the table. He has gone on to be a great success with more stand-ups gigs, TV programs including the brilliant ‘Phoenix Nights’, ‘Max & Paddy’s Road to Nowhere’ and ‘That Peter Kay Thing’. And don’t forget to couple of charity songs he has released including Amarillo. Ryanair, Europe’s biggest airline, said there had been a “large surge” in bookings from the UK to holiday destinations in Spain, Greece and Italy since the government’s announcement. “This is an encouraging trend and shows the importance of providing customer confidence,” a spokesperson said. In the flush of post booking excitement I went crazy and bought some new shorts. Madness. as I have several perfectly acceptable pairs that I have only had for 20 years. Thankfully, the box office were able to reprint them and we got in, but it did feel like we had forgotten how to operate in these matters. This does not auger well for the logistical exercise of getting to a different country with everything we need.

Are you there for Presidents Day? We have been and just avoided MK for the weekend (we went to AK and shopping/Outlets instead). Oh, and there used to be a lot of Brazilian schools there – especially in MK and DHS, as it was one of their annual holiday trips in January.) The tour operator Jet2holidays and the Jet2 carrier said summer bookings had leapt 600% since Monday afternoon, compared with this time last week, to mainland Spain and its islands, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus and Turkey.

Memes

Having moved our Florida trip four or five times (I have honestly lost count) when the last cancellation happened I did jettison my toys from the stroller a little and instead of moving it, I cancelled everything. Breaking the habit of a couple of decades, off I went and booked a holiday to another country, crucially nowhere near the US. What could go wrong? This would not be our ideal time of year of course. Temperatures will be much lower than we prefer but at this point that does not matter. Again, for reasons I will not trouble you with, if we were not to take this chance, it would be very unlikely we could fit a trip in during 2022 and having not been since mid 2019 this would be very upsetting indeed, indeed probably totally unacceptable. If you haven’t already got one booked, now’s the time to start thinking about your summer holiday! It’s only a few short months until the school summer holidays, so if you have a family don’t Having ignored most of the Genie+/Lightning Lane stuff, hoping it would go away, I am also hoping that in early January, in what historically has been one of the quietest times in the parks, we will not need them. All bets are off I know, post pandemic, and there could be three hour queues for everything, but I’ll take my chances in a more positive frame of mind on that than if we were going next August. I suspect things will take a couple of years at least for crowds and travel patterns to settle again.

This brilliant comedian first rose to mainstream fame in the year 2000 with his Live at the Top of the Tower tour. It’s done. We are booked for an overseas holiday and surely with just two weeks to go, not even the raging incompetence of our government can scupper those plans now? I mean, according to their latest “dead cat” nonsense leak to the press, I may have to convert my GBP to Pounds, Shillings and Pence before then paying for some Euros if they have their way, but by hook or by crook (and they are all that) we should be on that plane. Andrew Flintham, the managing director of Tui UK and Ireland, said: “The announcement from the prime minister was positive and shows that by working with the travel industry on a risk-based framework our customers will have the opportunity to travel abroad this summer. We will continue to work closely with the government so people can look forward to a well-deserved break away, after what has been a very difficult year for many.” The question is would we drive or would we fly? And if we drove would we get the ferry to France?! Being the son of a pilot the husband is very much a plane geek, something he is passing onto our boys. I thought his choice would always be plane. I mean, a plane gets you there in what seems like a shorter amount of time (when you discount the airport wait!) but as he rightly points out there are all the extra waiting times you need to add in. The wait at the airport. The wait to hire a car. The need to hire (often scummy) car seats. No if we actually bite the bullet and go to France we are going old school. We would be taking the ferry to France, going the way of my childhood, and rather than my rambling on as to why this infographic from Brittany Ferries sums it up rather well.With the changes announced late last week, that test before flying home is now not required and we just need to do the one within two days of arriving home. At least now the risk of being stranded overseas due to a positive test is removed, although of course we would not travel with COVID should we actually have it! Maybe because it is a longer show with a better mix of humour but it is better than his purely observational humour of the other show. Here he draws heavily on real life but he also does it with a real humour and energy that makes it stand out from the loads of comics who do the "isn't it funny when…" stuff. I'm not sure how well it will travel because it is not only very English but it is specifically very Northern observations that those not knowing people similar to his family and friends. However even without this knowledge the show is still funny because he has such energy and his delivery is much better than in the later video from Bolton. Domestic travel has also received a boost. Data from the hotel technology provider Avvio showed a further 38% rise in the value of summer bookings at UK hotels and self-catering accommodation since the announcement, compared with the previous day. It said the high-end UK staycation market was booming, with August revenue for 4- and 5-star hotels up 350% from last year. So having flexed my credit facilities to book the thing, I was hopeful that this time Aer Lingus would be true to their word. We had to get stuff booked as the admin to actually have a holiday now is similar to buying a house and you all know how much we enjoyed that experience. Leaving it any later would add to the not inconsiderable stress that booking it actually was. We have to fill out what looks like a Spanish ESTA, but cannot complete it until we are 48 hours from departure, arrange tests of course and then before returning to the UK, complete a passenger locator form, but not until 48 hours before our return. The latter should be fun on a mobile phone with “free” WiFi in the hotel. Within a few days of doing so, a volcano in The Canaries that has laid dormant for half a century suddenly became active. Sure, it doesn’t currently seem likely to affect our plans but we don’t know for certain and my head shaking was incessant at the “you couldn’t write it” aspect of this.

If you haven’t already got one booked, now’s the time to start thinking about your summer holiday! It’s only a few short months until the school summer holidays, so if you have a family don’t wait any longer to start thinking about booking a break somewhere hot.

See also

It won’t surprise anyone reading this to learn that I have a well developed persecution complex. Most weeks, despite living a largely untroubled and privileged life, I can find something to moan about. I often trot out the phrases “you couldn’t write it” or “you couldn’t make it up” to bemoan whatever the latest minor upset might be. However, after what has been a troubled couple of years holiday wise, the events of the last week or so really have been comedic.