Monique Cormier travelled to Florida with her husband.
Cormier, who is a fitness instructor, was competing in the Olympia 2021 bodybuilding competition.
While the trip was memorable, the return home was an example of the unexpected challenges that can happen with travel COVID-19 protocols.
"We paid $149 US each person for a 24-48 hour test and it just came in 74 hours later forcing us to cancel our first flight on Thursday and paying for a second test today because we couldn’t stay in Orlando forever," said Cormier.
Instead, she says they have to pay $349 US each for the 30 minute test.
Chris Mayne, the owner of Mayne Travel in North Bay, says examples like this show how much more prepared travellers need to be as travel world comes out of the pandemic.
"Right now the most important thing about planning any trip is to check what the COVID-19 requirements are to where you are going and what the requirements will be when you come back to Canada so you really have to check and double check all requirements in both directions these days and you can't just check two months in advance and forget about it because the conditions are almost changing weekly," said Mayne.
Mayne says requirements vary by destination.
"For most countries in Europe right now as long as you can prove you have had both vaccinations that is all they want," Mayne explained.
"Right now in Mexico and the Dominican Republic they don't even require a test for COVID-19 when you arrive. They just want to see money in your wallet and come on down."
However, Mayne says many of the other winter destinations are still requiring a negative result from a PCR test before you can even board the plane in Toronto.
"In the United States which a lot of people are gearing up and getting ready to travel to, they are still requiring the rapid test, which is the less effective COVID-19 test compared to the PCR test but for some of the carriers like the cruise lines they may not accept mixed vaccinations so these are the things that are all in the process of changing, but for anybody travelling the next month to two months you really need to check very carefully what the specific requirements are for your date to travel," noted Mayne.
