My Experience Travelling to an Amber List Country

 

If you follow me on Instagram, there’s no way you could have missed my incessant ‘holiday-posting.’

After a long year working on a big-budget feature (with several lockdowns happening during production) a break away to somewhere sunny was long overdue. 

The majority of people who work on big budget fiction films/TV series’ usually work 8-9 months, and then take about a 1-3 month break before they take their next job so they can rest, as that kind of gig is really intense, and they know the phone Is always going to ring again.

My issue is that I’m a workaholic and doomsday planner, so when I finish a job, I really get The Fear over whether or not I’ll ever work again. I like knowing where my next pay check is coming from.

As a result of this, I rarely give myself much of a break between gigs (and usually spend my breaks working one-dayers for ACA or for my mum in the hairdressers) 

So, when my boyfriend insisted we book ourselves to get away before I took on my next job, I really HAD to agree.

I’m lucky enough that my mum’s best friend (basically my auntie) is a travel agent, who gave me the best advice and knew all the ins and outs of what was happening in each country.

Chris and I are both fully vaxxed, so to get over to Spain all we had to do was fill out the Spanish Passenger Locator form within 48 hours of our arrival in Majorca, and have our proof of double vaccination ready to be shown (I personally like and recommend having everything printed out rather than on my phone, as sometimes scanners can glitch and have trouble reading your phone screen or if your phone dies)

At check in in Belfast Intl, we just had to show our passports, vaccine certificate, and passenger locator forms, which were then checked again before we left the airport in Majorca, then we were free to roam!

Getting back home to NI was more complicated, in order to fill out the UK passenger form, you had to have a booking number for a pre-ordered Day 2 Test (a PCR Covid test that you take on your second day of being home) to be able to fill in the UK passenger locator form (which also had to be completed within 48 hours of landing in the UK) and we also had to provide proof of a negative covid test at the airport (again, I had these all printed)

We didn’t need to book our Covid test in advance of landing in Majorca, in fact, when we got there, we were delighted to see that there was a test centre on nearly every corner. Once we got to the hotel, there were leaflets everywhere about where and how to book your Covid test to get home, so we booked into our nearest test centre (a 3-minute walk from our hotel, with several options we could have walked to in less than 15 minutes) for our covid tests on the Friday before we landed home (We landed on the Sunday)

Our negative results came through early on Saturday morning and we were able to fill in the UK passenger locator form, we then headed down to reception to get all of our documents printed and we were all set for our journey to the airport!

Being on holiday post-covid was still a brilliant experience, and wasn’t as restrictive as I was expecting. Bars, restaurants and waterparks were all open, and (similar to NI) masks were only necessary when moving around in public, indoor spaces (getting out of your chair at a restaurant, hotel reception area, etc.)

The extra forms/printing definitely felt intimidating at the beginning of the experience, but now that it’s done, I would definitely recommend it and be more confident to get away again in the near future, it’s totally worth it!

‘til next time guys,

Stacey Xx