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This will be our 10th trip to Aruba and our 10th wedding anniversary is next week. We booked this trip pre-pandemic so it has been a long time coming. Now that we have our Green Check Marks and Negative Tests, I will start our report. We leave on Thursday, but I am officially out of the office! Jon has to work one more day. I will be very busy tomorrow. I didn't want to jinx anything or get too excited until we had negative tests - now I have a lot to do on my day off. I am usually organized with lists, spreadsheets, plans, etc. But what can I say, it's 2020. We have a lot of stuff staged, one bag packed, it shouldn't be too bad. I did start a list with Alexa today by randomly shouting things out as I was wrapping up work from home today.
Covid Testing: To find our testing site, I used the site developed by Julien from One Happy Photographer: www.testfortravel.com; he has a searchable database of testing locations in the US and a few other countries. We found a place in DC that said we would have results back in 24-35 hours and they are currently focusing on testing specifically for travel. Anyone in the area looking for a place, the website is www.pclcare.com. I don't think they take insurance and we did pay $150 each. I didn't ask about insurance but I may submit to mine and see if we get anything back. My friend a few weeks ago paid $129 at CVS because it was for travel so that fee was not unreasonable to me. CVS and Walgreens in our area have been hit or miss for testing without symptoms. Jon met me at my office on Monday and we rode into the city together. We tested at 3pm Monday and had our negative results around 6:15pm on Tuesday. As I was typing this, they also called to verify we received our results. To say I breathed a sigh of relief is an understatement!!
We are staying in a 2 bedroom at Playa Linda. It's just the 2 of us, but the oceanfront, wrap-around balcony is worth every penny extra to us just to have that large balcony with a great view. I know we will be spending many evenings out there. It really worked out for us. The unit we originally rented we wouldn't check in until Sunday, but as the date got closer I found out that the owner of the same room was renting this week and she agreed to rent us the last 3 nights - so all of our days are in the same unit at Playa Linda and we don't have a room change. We have changed rooms on most of our trips that are longer than a week so this will feel nice and relaxing. We can get settled in early and don't feel like we are losing any time.
We have rented a 4wd truck from Yes that will be dropped off over the weekend. We will do some snorkeling in the mornings. We have one reservation made at Taste My Aruba. The rest of the days we will see how we feel. We have no excursions planned, but that may change. We want to see how the catamarans and other tours are running and then decide. I am hoping to pop in on Andrea and Paul at Reflections one day, but you never know.
The fun begins on Thursday. In a complete coincidence, we are on the same flight as Andrea from Miami to Aruba.
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Originally Posted by robin
