[Closed] Would you risk booking for New York next Easter?

Yes, that’s what I’m thinking.

Only with good insurance and/or if I was completely relaxed about cancellation at any point.

9 months from now is a complete guess basically. Even if the trip is possible, your airline might go bust. Why bother planning? We've a long way to go to hit bottom.

Nope, really enjoyed our visit a few yrs ago and always said we'd go back. With the way the current US situation is I would not chance it.

We’ve booked for October this year, it’s Mrs W’s 40th. Expecting to be postponing it until Easter next year.

I wouldn't, don't think I'd touch North or South American continents with a barge pole for some time.

But what do I know, yesterday we booked a staycation in Burnham Upon Covid for September. 😆

Nope. I wouldn't go to the us anyway but given covid its a double nope from me. Plus the potential for fallout from the election and the risk of civil war if trump is not elected.

Given what we know of the direction of the pandemic and given the US figures I think they could still be well in the grip of the pandemic then although NY did get their peak out of the way early

I really don't get how staycation has ended up in usage as "holiday in the same country". That's just a holiday.

@Aidy it’s because people are stoopid and just like repeating things they’ve heard without actually thinking about what they’re supposed to mean 😉. See also: man-flu.

A bunch of airlines are giving free cancellation on flights as a result of covid. I'd book under those circumstances

We had a trip to Colorado booked for September which we've had to carefully unpick and cancel.

I'm in no rush to rebook. If providers are willing to give you free cancellation options then maybe.

However, given the political and social state of the US, I'm in much less of a hurry to go there. Just seems like too much of a tinder box right now.

There are nicer and safer places to go.

Mr Brother and his Mrs have just moved into Manhattan on a long planned career move into an ultra high position.

The things that are going on behind the scenes just to get them there are nuts

Very much doubt anything will be stable in the US for the next 18 months

A bunch of airlines are giving free cancellation on flights as a result of covid. I’d book under those circumstances

Still waiting for my refund from flights that should have left UK at the end of March....

Not yet. The chances of disruption are high. Do you think it would be the trip you are looking for/imagining? Shopping, shows, museums, public transport, restaurants operating normally?

I think you'll be fine (you won't be devoured by flesh eating zombies) but the rest of the inconvenience would put me off.

Our plans for this year are to wait until schools go back and then go walking in Scotland. I'll probably do the usual spring cycling trip with friends but for bigger trips we'll see. Probably chose on the basis of where looks best.

Do check insurance. If you are covered then that might take the pressure off but I would be reading the T+Cs carefully. My experience of refunds on cancelled and delayed flights is that airlines don't want to pay at the best of times.

milestone birthdays

Unnggghh.

Bloody "milestones" my missus seems to invent new ones every year which apparently justify an expensive holiday, but even she is of the opinion that we give 'merica a swerve until at least 2022...

Problem with NY is that the fun things are mostly indoors. A Houseparty pal has immediate family in Manhattan and Brooklyn and he said there's a torrent of people leaving, permanently, particularly if they have kids. Usually he's back there 2-3 times a year but wouldn't countenance it for a good while yet.
If you have to go to the US, why not somewhere where life is more outside like Venice Beach? From what I've seen in this crisis the thought of visiting the US does not exactly spring to mind.

Four months down the line, Trump presumably out soon, vaccinations on the horizon and holiday date pushed back to spring bank...seems more likely now than when I started this topic.

Still not booked though.

Still wouldn't.

I'm not even risking booking Easter in England to visit family

Same here longdog.

Rockhopper ours is booked. Flying with BA, actually rescheduled from October. We’re going to be going, so if we can’t go when the flights are booked we can move them to later in the year.
I’m also about to do the same with my Girona road cycling trip. If I can’t go, it’s just a case of moving the dates to when I can. I get a feeling flights are going to be very expensive in the new year.

My wife is from the US, we were supposed to go to New York in October but obviously that didn't happen.

We were chatting with them last night and the latest from their top medical officer was that they don't expect restrictions to be lifted until next autumn. So I'd not book a trip for Easter.

With child places currently free I’m juggling with the idea of booking an August holiday in the Balearics on the basis of losing “only” losing £250 (again) if by June it looks dodgy.   I really don’t know but everyone needs something to look forward to.

Optimistically booked my trip to Kansas City for the Dirty Kanza today. With Avios, flights are cancellable for £35 fee and all the hotels and Airbnbs I looked at were doing free cancellation.

@kryton57 me too, booked (well, rescheduled from last year) our hol to Holland last week of school summer hols, 6th August.

DFDS and Duinrell still have our deposit, so at worst we're just kicking can down road, but hopeful we may get going. Who knows. 🤞🏻

Same as before, if it's refundable and/or you don't mind the loss, go for it.

Don't book and then whine if it's cancelled at the last minute, though.

The big late-April conference that I often attend is planning to be fully on-line with no physical presence, and no-one is organising big spring marathons yet.

I do think it's likely that things will be largely back to normal over the summer but wouldn't bank on it.

I’m not expecting things to be back to normal by August, but enough going on that we can go away and sit in the sun for a bit to make a change.  I’m also worried about “vaccine passports” being a thing - Mrs K has Lupus so that’s a very scary reason for not to have a vaccine shot yet, so potentially may not be allowed in to a county should it happen.

Whatever though, very much a first world issue all things considered.

I get a feeling flights are going to be very expensive in the new year.

Hopefully they'll stay expensive for a long, long time. International air travel is one of the reasons we're in this mess.

No, definitely not.
Vaccine take-up in the US is expected to be <50%; social distancing & mask wearing are alien concepts to many; the recent resurgence will be turbo-charged by upcoming Thanksgiving, followed by christmas.
There is still a high level of inter city/state travel with states having different regulations.
CV19 still has a long way to play out in the US.

Have rebooked accommodation around Fort Bill WC next May, I know there's a chance of travel restrictions but one place already had the deposit and the other doesn't want paying until just before we arrive. I guess returning people's deposits this year incurred too many fees. If the virus isn't contained by then I think there'll be mass civil disobedience anyway.
New Yoik on the other hand will be a refuge for Biden supporters driven out of their homelands by gun toting rednecks.

I’m also worried about “vaccine passports” being a thing

They are already a thing for Yellow Fever - several countries require a certificate of vaccination if you arrive from a country where Yellow Fever is present. I've not checked how exemptions work for those who are advised against receiving the vaccine but that's probably a starting point for aCovid equivalent.

Book a package with a good travel agent and you can secure both flights and hotel on deposit. Typically a small deposit.

Pick a travel agent with a good track record and a secure financial standing. DialAFlight and Trailfinders are both great. I may work for one of them.

If all goes wrong the travel agent will sort problems.

Book anything you want next year, but either find really good travel insurance including Covid cover, and/or don't get upset if it gets cancelled.

People who know more about it than me are saying things won't get back to anything like normal till this time next year, I'm not expecting any foreign trips till 2022.

I wouldn't risk it - what jonba says is spot on. What happens if you get there and everything's closed? I visited last year and I'll admit I was (unexpectedly) underwhelmed by the experience, but it would have been a thousand times worse if the Guggenheim and the Rockefeller and all the rest had been closed!

I visited last year and I’ll admit I was (unexpectedly) underwhelmed by the experience

Interesting. It's somewhere I've always wanted to go, but eldest went last year and wasn't impressed - hot, crowded, dirty, and smelly (mostly smelling of weed) he said.

He loved Washington and Quebec City, is quite happy to go back to either of them but not NY.

Interesting. It’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to go, but eldest went last year and wasn’t impressed – hot, crowded, dirty, and smelly

That's pretty much my impression too! It was shocking the level of homelessness, and having to step over the junkies just passed out on the sidewalk. The skyscrapers are impressive for the first couple of days, but then... The iconic New York sights like the Flatiron, Central Park etc - you see them once, you've done them and you won't be in a hurry to repeat.

Which isn't to say there isn't some great stuff to do there, it is a major city after all. We loved Harlem, SoHo, the ferry past the Statue of Liberty, High Line Park, and lots of other stuff. A personal highlight was the Intrepid, but them I am a bit of a geek 🙂

I think we made the typical mistake of getting a hotel right in the centre, when we'd have been much better off getting one a bit further out. I can see myself returning, but I'd get a place down by Wall Street, or further out in Brooklyn or Harlem.

MCTD & mogrim - try New Orleans next time or if you return to NYC get some local knowledge; I have an american daughter in law from upstate NY who lived in the city for a couple of years.

MCTD & mogrim – try New Orleans next time or if you return to NYC get some local knowledge;

Definitely - I can see NYC being a lot better with a bit of local knowledge and not staying right in the centre. Our hotel was right on Madison Square, and while convenient it was a bit of a downer having to step over junkies whenever we went anywhere!

go for it, at worse its cancelled, at best, there is a lot less tourists,

i booked the mrs a trip at christmas last year, we went mid March this year, 1 day after Trump travel banned the EU and a couple before he pulled the plug on UK & Ireland, we were sat in a restaurant and overheard a couple on the table next saying the UK ban had come in, so there were a couple of stressful hours where we wondered if flights home were ok, stayed near Wall Street,

it was a beautiful 4 days, and we've seen a New York that few will have seen, no queues, no crowds, on 4 dry cloudless crisp spring days, we walked everywhere and took it all in, NYC seemed closed around us while we was there, but we did everything we wanted bar the Guggenheim and 9/11 museum that closed on the day we arrived, even if they have the harshest of lockdowns through winter (I noticed public schools just closed) there's probably no better time to go, because there will be a need to reopen

would i go back? probably not unless i was transiting thorugh, there's a lot of the rest of the world to see

We went in April 2018 and stayed in Lower Manhattan for a quieter location, right on Battery Park and it was quiet.

Everything was as we expected. The only things that really impressed me were the glacial bedrock in Central Park, Ground Zero, an Italian restaurant chain called Eataly and the Rockefeller building.

I certainly would not risk going there next year.

Oh and Immigration was scary because I had Sudan stamps in my passport, so couldn't get visa waiver and failed the fingerprint test, spending 20 minutes in a rather tense area of the airport.

We were there over thanksgiving a couple of years ago and after initially dreading going, I absolutely loved it.

Wouldn't do it in summer because I don't like hot cities. November was just right. Chilly but not too cold. We have a daughter there and she arranged lots for us in advance which was a big help.

We went up the Statue of Liberty etc, ate meatball sandwiches in Madison Square Garden and walked the city flat.

Happy times.

No. Nice place for a trip but it won’t be next Easter. Biden will be doing things properly - they won’t want Covid importation. Autumn, maybe. Easter 2022, yes.

No. Nice place for a trip but it won’t be next Easter. Biden will be doing things properly – they won’t want Covid importation. Autumn, maybe. Easter 2022, yes

I dunno, the USA seems to be a place where you wipe your feet on the way out at the moment.

Consider Philadelphia over NY, incidentally. I much prefer it over Manhattan, and only a couple of hours away by train if you want to tick the NY box.

I wouldn't go if it was me, and I love NYC.

Another vote here for "yes you'll probably be able to go but no it won't be worth it".

Being able to go and being able to fully enjoy it are two different things. For me the good thing about a holiday is being able to look forward to it but if there was going to be a constant uncertainty about whether you'll actually be going or not and/or whether it will even be properly open it doesn't seem worth it.

I'd look for less risky alternatives if I was in your position I think.

There's going to be a third wave and possibly a fourth and a fifth as with Spanish 'flu.

Hopefully they’ll stay expensive for a long, long time. International air travel is one of the reasons we’re in this mess.

Or perhaps that responsibility should sit with government, who at the critical moment didn’t want to “take back control of our borders” after all.

Thanks all, good points. I think Duggan nails it though, at some point we are going to have to click “book flights” and don’t really relish checking the news every day to see how good/bad/disrupted a trip might be.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm

Maybe look at Oct half term, weather should be still ok for a Yorkshire family and it gives another four months to pan out.