When your family has a standing tradition, it can be frustrating to cancel, which is what happened to Bob I.‘s family. Bob, a Hilton Grand Vacations Owner at the Bay Club at Nikola Beach Resort Always looks forward to their annual trip to the Hawaiian Islands.
However, after they canceled their original stay earlier this year due to the pandemic, they tried to reschedule three or four times before successfully finalizing their October travel. “Our motivation was vacation,” says Bob, mirroring the sentiments of so many homebound travelers.
Bob traveled with his family to The Bay Club just over nine days after the island first reopened to travelers in mid-October.
Understanding that current travel to Hawaii involves COVID-testing, Bob was ready to meet all the requirements. To prepare for the trip and all arrival protocols, Bob found the best resource to be the state of Hawaii’s official Safe Travels website.
“The website explained all the steps you need to take. It even provided names of testing companies. And it was absolutely accurate.”
The most daunting of those was obtaining a negative COVID-19 test within 72-hours of his trip.
For the Bob and his family, their test with recognized testing partner Kaiser took about 18 hours to return results. Meanwhile, his daughter and her spouse used a different provider, and it took them a little longer to get their results back.
“That is the most stressful time,” says Bob. “You take the test, and you’re stewing until you have it in your hands and whether you’re going to get it in time.”
“I would tell everybody to get your test done as close as you can to the 72-hour departure window to allow for the maximum amount of time for your results to come back,” adds Bob.
As for the flight and travel experience itself, Bob said the combination of the cleaning protocols conducted by airlines, the requirement that all travelers wear a face covering and Published studies on the safety of air circulation on airplanes made him feel safe about his flight over to the island.