International travel

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Bird on a Fire
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Re: International travel

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri May 07, 2021 9:30 am

Plus dumping raw sewage and garbage into the sea. (I don't mean dead folks)

f.ck cruises. (I'd quite like to go on one, though, if I were mega rich)
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.

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Re: International travel

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri May 07, 2021 9:36 am

Martin_B wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 11:56 pm
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 12:56 pm
It's interesting that, while many cruise ships have flags of convenience in places like Liberia or Bahamas, most of their (racialised) staff are from Asia or Latin America.

I guess having a bunch of ocean-going white folk being served by black folk from the bilge hold would make the neocolonial exploitation a little too obvious to stomach.

Seeing as active euthanasia is only legal in the Netherlands, Belgium, Colombia, Luxembourg, Western Australia, Canada and Spain I propose that lpm's cruises only employ folks from those jurisdictions.
Oi! Victoria, too. Although I can understand cruise ships not wanting to go to Melbourne. :)
My apologies! I just copied that list off Wikipedia, so they must be out of date.
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Re: International travel

Post by lpm » Fri May 07, 2021 5:08 pm

All of the UK is going on holiday to Portugal. Flight prices are now £60,000 return and every hotel is sold out. BoaF, get airbeds on your floor because we're all coming to stay.
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Re: International travel

Post by lpm » Fri May 07, 2021 5:16 pm

No, wait, we're all going to Tristan de Cuhna instead. I won't bother googling before booking, I'll just assume it's somewhere near Torremolinos.
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Re: International travel

Post by Herainestold » Fri May 07, 2021 5:54 pm

JQH wrote:
Fri May 07, 2021 8:21 am
Herainestold wrote:
Fri May 07, 2021 12:07 am
Martin_B wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 11:56 pm


Oi! Victoria, too. Although I can understand cruise ships not wanting to go to Melbourne. :)
Cruise ships are inhertently racist and white supremacist. Maybe one very small minor benefit of this pandemic would be the end of cruising
Huge carbon foot print too.
All leisure travel has an un necessary carbon footprint. One positive legacy of the pandemic might be reduced international travel which would be good for the climate emergency
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Re: International travel

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri May 07, 2021 7:19 pm

Herainestold wrote:
Fri May 07, 2021 5:54 pm
JQH wrote:
Fri May 07, 2021 8:21 am
Herainestold wrote:
Fri May 07, 2021 12:07 am


Cruise ships are inhertently racist and white supremacist. Maybe one very small minor benefit of this pandemic would be the end of cruising
Huge carbon foot print too.
All leisure travel has an un necessary carbon footprint. One positive legacy of the pandemic might be reduced international travel which would be good for the climate emergency
That's not looking likely, unfortunately - plans for the recovery so far are looking decidedly bad environmentally, including several new international airports (at least 2 in EU, in Portugal and Croatia).
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.

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Re: International travel

Post by Millennie Al » Sat May 08, 2021 2:14 am

Herainestold wrote:
Fri May 07, 2021 5:54 pm
All leisure travel has an un necessary carbon footprint.
Surely the carbon footprint of all leisure is unnecessary - what's special about travel?

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Re: International travel

Post by Herainestold » Sat May 08, 2021 3:01 am

Millennie Al wrote:
Sat May 08, 2021 2:14 am
Herainestold wrote:
Fri May 07, 2021 5:54 pm
All leisure travel has an un necessary carbon footprint.
Surely the carbon footprint of all leisure is unnecessary - what's special about travel?
Its just bigger.
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Re: International travel

Post by Herainestold » Sat May 08, 2021 3:03 am

lpm wrote:
Fri May 07, 2021 5:16 pm
No, wait, we're all going to Tristan de Cuhna instead. I won't bother googling before booking, I'll just assume it's somewhere near Torremolinos.
Somebody got their signals crossed. Tristan da Cunha is not accepting visitors at this time. probably not until 2022.
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Re: International travel

Post by Squeak » Sat May 08, 2021 9:39 am

Cruise ships are also a way to extract money from rich westerners and funnel it to people whose employment prospects at home are pretty rubbish.

I've used cruise ships as transport and I'm no fan of them but I suspect daily tips to cabin crew, especially, become decidedly lucrative. I'd be interested to see a breakdown of wage remittances to countries like the Philippines from cruising.

But yes, they're big polluting things that don't do a lot for the economies of the ports they visit and I'm sure are paying crews as little as possible.

Also, there is a very definite caste difference between the "expedition team" (white, educated, run the daily activities) and the crew who make the ship work (Filipino, Russian, Chinese, somewhere else with low wages). I have friends who do expedition work and they're definitely not being paid at developing world rates.

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Re: International travel

Post by shpalman » Sat May 08, 2021 9:56 am

industry which makes its money from travel says actually you know what it's fine if there's less travel no of course it doesn't

Also: airline which flies around Europe wants to be allowed to fly people around Europe, for some weird reason? But an airline which flies people across the Atlantic wants to be able to fly people across the Atlantic!?
The change in travel rules applies to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have not said when they might ease their strict travel rules.
Who would have guessed that people in the tourism sector in countries where British people will be allowed to go and do a tourism are happy about it!

Fake balance comes from "the UK consumer body Which?" and not any epidemiologists pointing out that most other countries are a lot less vaccinated than the UK is.
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Re: International travel

Post by shpalman » Sun May 09, 2021 5:25 pm

shpalman wrote:
Sat May 08, 2021 9:56 am
industry which makes its money from travel says actually you know what it's fine if there's less travel no of course it doesn't

Also: airline which flies around Europe wants to be allowed to fly people around Europe, for some weird reason? But an airline which flies people across the Atlantic wants to be able to fly people across the Atlantic!?
The change in travel rules applies to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have not said when they might ease their strict travel rules.
Who would have guessed that people in the tourism sector in countries where British people will be allowed to go and do a tourism are happy about it!

Fake balance comes from "the UK consumer body Which?" and not any epidemiologists pointing out that most other countries are a lot less vaccinated than the UK is.
Counterpoint: letting people who might have covid into the country might bring covid into the country say people who's job it is for there to be less covid in the country.
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Re: International travel

Post by sTeamTraen » Sun May 16, 2021 10:20 pm

There is much excitement at the moment in Spain at the prospect that UK tourists might be allowed in without a test from Friday of the coming week. This made the expat, UK, and Spanish press over the past few days, following statements (which may have been more hope than intent) from the Minister for Tourism (comments from the Minister for Health were notably absent from the hype).

Spain currently follows the EU recommendations on how to regulate the arrival of non-EU citizens into the country. (The EU cannot impose this because member states have sovrintee over their immigration policy for non-EU citizens; a fact that I have taken great delight in pointing out to a couple of Brexiteers who complain that the EU should have a coordinated policy on this.) At the moment this means that only people coming from "safe" countries are allowed in without an urgent reason, such as a family emergency (that means "someone is dying" or "gran needs 24-hour care", not "our daughter had a baby and we want to see it"). "Safe" is defined as less than 25 cases per 100k people in the last 14 days. These rules were due to expire on 3 May, but around 29 April Spain renewed them for another 4 weeks, so in principle no UK tourists can enter until 31 May at the earliest.

However, there is a proposal for debate at the EU Council meeting this coming Thursday (20 May) to change 25 to 100, the ostensible logic (although there are fig-leaf elements to that) being that the success of the vaccines means that 4x as many cases is liveable with. The UK is currently at 50 or so, so this would allow UK tourists into the EU for holidays (which almost everyone wants) without having to make a specific exception. This is likely to be approved, and Spain is likely to follow it very quickly, quite possibly in advance of the currently planned 31 May revision (they will have an eye on places like Portugal, which will be letting in UK tourists from today (it's today where I am), 17 May, the first day the Brits have been allowed out. And as long as UK numbers stay at their current level, why not... Spain's own number is around 160.

The big question seems to be whether those Brits will need a test. Currently, coming from a country that is on the Safe list means you don't need a test, which in the case of people coming from Australia or Iceland doesn't seem like a big problem since there have hardly been any of them. But in a normal year, there are 18 million visits by UK residents to Spain, and even if only a third of those come this year, I can't believe that with the Indian variant looming they will be allowed in without testing negative. Even if they were allowed in by the Spanish government I doubt if they would be allowed into the Balearic Islands; currently our rate is 55 and you need a test to come here from the Spanish mainland, even Valencia where the rate is 32. The EU rules (which, again, Spain doesn't have to follow to the letter anyway, but they do try to be good Euro-citizens) don't AFAIK say anything about testing, since health is a devolved matter, but since up to now the 5 Australians who arrive each week haven't needed a test, people have been doing a lot of wishful thinking.
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bob sterman
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Re: International travel

Post by bob sterman » Mon May 17, 2021 5:45 pm

Well this NHS app "vaccine passport" is a bit creepy...

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/ne ... 48828.html

Not sure I want to know my "Expiration date" - although I suppose it could be useful when planning a holiday!
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Re: International travel

Post by shpalman » Mon May 17, 2021 5:49 pm

bob sterman wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 5:45 pm
Well this NHS app "vaccine passport" is a bit creepy...

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/ne ... 48828.html

Not sure I want to know my "Expiration date" - although I suppose it could be useful when planning a holiday!
Like in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brand_New_Testament
?
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Re: International travel

Post by shpalman » Tue May 18, 2021 12:28 pm

you can travel to Amber list countries but don't and those 20,000 people allowed in bringing the Indian variant, by Marina Hyde.
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Re: International travel

Post by sTeamTraen » Fri May 21, 2021 3:11 pm

Spain announced today that from Monday, the UK will be on their "no Covid problem" list, along with Australia and New Zealand.

This means UK tourists will be able to enter Spain with no need for a test, vaccine, or quarantine. :shock: I am amazed at this. I can only assume that there was a very long cabinet meeting at which the Health Minister's bladder failed before the Tourism Minister's, and he got stitched up while he was out of the room. This will be even more baffling for us here in Baleares because right now you need a PCR test to come here from Barcelona.

Meanwhile Robert Buckland was on GMB this morning saying "The important point that the amber list offers is... it does allow for necessary journeys if you are working or there's a pressing family commitment that can't be put back". Yeah, good luck with that, Robert. I suggest you don't stand in the way of the people running for the gates at Stansted next week.

To add to the fun, the FCDO's "we advise against all but essential travel" list is regional, whereas the DfT's traffic-light list is national. For example, while Spain in amber, FCDO currently advises against all but essential travel to all of Spain except the Canary Islands (which suggests that they have taken their eye off the ball, because the Canaries haven't had the lowest Covid rate in Spain for several months now). If the FCDO says no, then travel insurance isn't valid (unless you buy silly-price "insurance for war zones", but on the other hand the travel companies have to give you a refund). Yesterday there was a story of someone who doesn't want to go to Greece because it's amber and they can't afford the quarantine on return, but their destination is Rhodes and that's not on the FCDO advised-against list, so it's "safe" to travel.

If TUI and EasyJet open up the floodgates, the UK airports on return are going to be an utter shitshow. There were 6-hour queues in February when almost nobody was flying, and those who were were highly motivated to do so, because a few muppets didn't have their travel form and test kits booked. 100 planes a day from Malaga, Alicante, and Palma, with 10% non-test-kit compliance and a few people dobbing in their seat neighbour for having coughed a lot during the flight will result in huge super-spreader events right there at the UK border.
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Re: International travel

Post by sTeamTraen » Sun May 23, 2021 7:30 pm

21 May: Spain announces (see above) that Brits can enter Spain with no test.

22 May: Germany announces that because of "variants of concern", only German citizens and residents can enter Germany coming from the UK, and they have to quarantine for two weeks. Even other EU nationalities are banned. This is stricter than the ban on travelling to Spain from the UK that Spain imposed for the first three months of this year.

Still, at least it shows that EU states can control their borders. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Re: International travel

Post by Herainestold » Sun May 23, 2021 8:22 pm

sTeamTraen wrote:
Sun May 23, 2021 7:30 pm
21 May: Spain announces (see above) that Brits can enter Spain with no test.

22 May: Germany announces that because of "variants of concern", only German citizens and residents can enter Germany coming from the UK, and they have to quarantine for two weeks. Even other EU nationalities are banned. This is stricter than the ban on travelling to Spain from the UK that Spain imposed for the first three months of this year.

Still, at least it shows that EU states can control their borders. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Good for Germany. The sooner that Europe locks down again, the sooner the India variant is controlled, and the sooner we can return to a less pandemically altered life.
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Re: International travel

Post by shpalman » Fri Jun 04, 2021 6:30 am

So Portugal is back off the Green list to protect the British from the rising cases of the Indian variant which British tourists took there?
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Re: International travel

Post by bob sterman » Fri Jun 04, 2021 9:29 am

shpalman wrote:
Fri Jun 04, 2021 6:30 am
So Portugal is back off the Green list to protect the British from the rising cases of the Indian variant which British tourists took there?
And the media are covering it as "a nightmare", "holiday hell", "holiday chaos", "a holiday ban", "a savage blow" etc etc.

The only difference between "Green" and "Amber" is that for "Amber" people returning from Portugal need to self-isolate for 10 days at home when they return to the UK - and get PCR tests on day 2 and day 8 (children under 5 are exempt from this part).

And as usual the government have left a 4 day window so people can rush back avoiding all this.

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Re: International travel

Post by OffTheRock » Fri Jun 04, 2021 5:18 pm

4 days might not be enough this time. Moving your flight now also means moving your pre-flight covid test. Seems there’s quite a queue for tests now and it might not be possible to get a test & a result in time.

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Re: International travel

Post by Millennie Al » Sun Jun 06, 2021 12:57 am

shpalman wrote:
Fri Jun 04, 2021 6:30 am
So Portugal is back off the Green list to protect the British from the rising cases of the Indian variant which British tourists took there?
With the usual stupidity of giving people enough notice that they can do the exact opposite of what is needed and rush to cross the border before quarantine would be required. If somewhere is found to be dangerous (and prediction is hard, so that means it's dangerous right now) the change should be instant.

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Re: International travel

Post by shpalman » Sun Jun 06, 2021 7:47 am

Anger on the streets of Porto
The fact that the city was swarming with British football fans last weekend only increases the bitter sense of disappointment.
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Re: International travel

Post by shpalman » Sun Jun 06, 2021 10:43 am

OffTheRock wrote:
Fri Jun 04, 2021 5:18 pm
4 days might not be enough this time. Moving your flight now also means moving your pre-flight covid test. Seems there’s quite a queue for tests now and it might not be possible to get a test & a result in time.
https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news ... me-5495465
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