Frequent Miler on the Air - Navigating International Travel During COVID | Ep115 | 9-11-21

Episode Date: September 11, 2021

This week Greg and Nick discuss the challenges they have faced in navigating protocols and requirements for a major international trip. See more here: https://frequentmiler.com/guc-trip-update/   Music credit: Annie Yoder

frequent miler on the air starts now today's main event wait hang on a second not the voice you were expecting yeah greg usually kicks things off but this week nick here to kind of give you a little bit of a disclaimer so if you haven't been following along on Instagram and the blog, you might not know that this week, Greg and I have been in the midst of our Passing the Guck Delta Global Upgrade Certificates Challenge, where Greg essentially gifted me with his Delta Global Upgrade Certificates under the premise that I would need to plan a big international trip for the two of us and meet a number of challenges along the way. And so you can check out our Instagram story for updates live as it's happening and our reels for some of the stuff we've done this week.

And you can head over to the blog to learn about how we've made it all happen. And this week, we decided to talk about some of the COVID challenges, the COVID protocol challenges that we faced in planning the trip and determining how to get into the various places we wanted to go to. And we recorded this episode while driving from Abu Dhabi to Dubai because we're in the midst of this trip to Dubai, Abu Dhabi. And now as I record this, we're in the Maldives. So like I said, we recorded it in the car on the way to Dubai and we used wireless microphones that were reasonably good at picking up our voices. Unfortunately, they were also reasonably good at picking up road noise in

the background. And so this week's episode has far more background noise than we would like it to have. And we weren't able to find a way to eliminate that background noise in time to publish this episode. So we totally understand if that background noise is too much for you and you want to skip this episode and hold out for next week's episode because next week we'll be back at home recording with our normal microphones and we won't have this background noise. But we wanted to publish this anyway for those of you who aren't bothered by it and want to listen in and find out a little bit more about what we were talking about so if you listen on great thank you very much and if you

skip it totally get it we'll see you guys again next week all right i'm gonna kick things back to greg to kick it off frequent miler on the air starts now all right uh let's see. So we always start our frequent miler on the air episodes by saying frequent miler on the air starts now. But today. Yeah. We're not on the air, so to speak. We are not in the air. We are on the road. On the road.

As you can see, Nick's driving. This is sort of the card pool. Card pool. Card pool. Card pool karaoke right here. This is the car pool karaoke version of Freak of the Mile. Use our affiliate links. That's all the singing you can do today.

And you're going to thank us for that. I'm keeping my hands on the wheel, though. The speed limit here is fast, as it turns out. So, two hints, two hints. So we start every show with the giant mailbag. But today we're not going to read giant mail, even though I have the giant mailbag with me. It's pretty impressive, I think. It is.

I mean, it's traveled all the way to the United Arab Emirates. We are somewhere right now between Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Yeah, we are. And we did not leave the giant mailbag behind. And when I say we, I mean Greg. Greg did not leave the giant mailbag behind. I do this for you. Respect. Respect. we i mean greg greg did not leave the giant mailbag behind i do this for you respect so um

our main event we didn't even talk about what the main event is we didn't yeah but the main event is we're going to be talking about how to navigate the logistics of travel during covid during the pandemic when there's all kinds of rules about being vaccinated and and being tested and whether or not you could go to this country or that country from whatever country you're coming from we're going to talk about that the background though is the trip we're on now which was inspired by giant mail from january of this year where the so-called fan wrote to us and I had told the world wait wait let's be clear we're not calling them a so-called fan all right that's that is that is this person's name like you're right that's how he goes he goes by that right I mean he's actually he's a fan he's a fan

all right I don't know about this so-called business he's a fan right so he's he's actually... He's a fan. He's a fan. All right, I don't know about this so-called business. He's a fan. Right, so he's misnamed himself. So, yeah, back at the beginning of the year, I said as a diamond elite with Delta that for the first time ever, I wasn't going to pick a global upgrade certificate as my choice benefit with Delta. Because, like, I'm not going to be traveling internationally this year, I thought.

What would I do with these global upgrade certificates anyway? And Nick... I thought that was ridiculous. That was silly. It's going to take 25,000 sky miles instead of two extremely valuable global upgrade certificates. So I said, wait, before you throw away your global upgrade certificates, you can at least give them to the employee of the month. And, you know, Carrie said she wasn't going to be doing any international travel this year either.

So we had to come up with another plan. And Stephen, like, even though he was traveling, he just couldn't use them. So, yeah, so, you know, Nick was sort of hinting that I could give them to him. And the so-called fan said, why not make a game of it? Like, do get the global upgrades and make a trip out of it. And that's exactly what we decided to do. And the problem is I can't just give these global upgrade certificates, or GUCs as we call them, to Nick

because Delta requires for anyone besides me to use my GUC, they have to be on the same flight as me. So I gave Nick my gucks, half of my gucks. And the requirement was that the other half are used by me. We would travel together. He would plan the whole trip, and he would get bonus points for various things. And so we're in the middle of that trip now, but we're not going to go into details about the trip so much now,

at least not about the bonus points and all that stuff. Because hopefully you've been following our Instagram stories, so you've been seeing pieces of it all along. And if you haven't been, then you should get on Instagram and see what's still there. You really should. And it'll still be there because if you look at our profile, there's like a button for the GUC trip. And we call it Passing the GUC.

And you'll be able to review the major stories that we've posted just by clicking there. So. So, that out of the way. So, given all that background, that's why we're in the United Arab Emirates now. But to get here, we had to navigate some of the turmoil, some of the confusion of traveling today. So, I mean, I guess we got to start sort of back at the beginning of the trip in order to do that right so the first thing you have to do if you're going to travel internationally these days is get a test usually most locations are going to require you to do some sort of a covid test so the first thing is

understanding a what kind of tests they require and b where you can get that kind of test right because right you know a lot of people might be familiar with those tests you can buy and do yourself buy them at a pharmacy and that may work for some destinations but for example the united arab emirates requires a pcr test they will not accept a rapid test so an antigen test won't do it you need an rt pcr test and not only do you need that but we discovered thanks to stephen Pepper's snafu, he happened to be traveling to the UAE just ahead of us, and we learned, okay, most destinations require you need to get tested within X amount of time

before you leave, and so I think, for the most part, that means 72 hours before you depart on your first flight from your home country, your first international flight. However, that would make sense. That would make sense. Yeah. But what we learned was that for Dubai, you need to be tested within 72 hours before your

final connection, before the flight that actually lands you in Dubai. So we were flying Air France from Washington DC D.C. to Paris, and then from Paris to Dubai. So we needed to get tested within 72 hours of the flight from Paris to Dubai. Right. And we were very clear about that because Steven had a last-minute crisis regarding all of this. So he learned about it. What? Was it at the airport? At the airport, yeah, because they wouldn't let him board his flight. He had a flight booked, but it connected in Doha. He was supposed to be flying Q-suites,

and his 72-hour in advance test would not have been 72 hours before the flight from Doha to Dubai. It would have been close, but it would have been too far in advance. So they had to get another test at the airport and book an entirely new flight in order to get to Dubai. But, you know, lucky for him, he was able to get a, he found first-class Emirates award availability and was able to fly direct rather than going, having a couple stops on his way. So it actually worked out very nicely for him, but, you know, I'm sure that it was a

little bit stressful a little bit you know I think that day I was I was sitting at dinner with my family explaining them what was going on and I said you know how would a normal person handle all of this if you weren't into a word travel and miles and points I just can't imagine the crisis there you get to the airport you can't board your flight now what are you gonna book a paid flight day of departure you know like right you know it's just craziness craziness crazy thank goodness he had the points to do it and the knowledge to figure out how to do it so of course we didn't want to end up in

that boat even though we've got the points and the know-how to figure out another plan we wanted to make sure we got tested within 72 hours before our final flight to Dubai and you're gonna want to check wherever you're going abroad whether that's the rule that applies or 72 hours before you leave home or 96 hours before you depart to begin me it's different requirements for different places so look it up right so so we had figured out that we had to get tested no earlier than Saturday morning. We were flying out on Monday, and because of working out the whole thing, we had to get tested no earlier than Saturday at something like 7 a.m.

And Nick got tested Saturday morning, I think. Yeah, my appointment was 12.30 p. and and I they told me it would be 24 to 36 hours on results there were a number of places I called that said three to five days and so I mean that range won't work right because I have to be within 72 hours of the Paris flight and five days forget about it like nobody wants to test five that's not going to do any good for travel so right you know navigating that was pain, just figuring out where would return results in time. But even that. So 36 hours.

I got tested at noon on Saturday. That's like midnight on Sunday. And I got to take off Monday morning here. So that was a little nerve wracking in and of itself. But I got my results back like nine hours later. I got my results like nine o'clock. So he was fine. So my issue was when I looked in my area for a PCR test,

now I probably didn't look hard enough, but so I found ones that promised anywhere from 24 hours to 72 hours. And then there was one that was labeled a rapid PCR test. And I would have loved to have gotten that one, but the Dubai website says that they don't accept rapid tests. Now, whether or not that includes a rapid PCR test, probably not. Like, it's probably okay, because how would they even know as long as it says it's a pcr test yeah as a result it's probably fine but i was just i was more worried about that than you know then i i just figured these testing sites have gotten better and better at getting

stuff done and so they say up to 72 hours just as you know worst case, but it probably be faster So I took a chance and it sinks her I I booked a Saturday afternoon test That part wasn't so smart. I definitely should it on Saturday morning. Don't know what I was thinking there You don't want to we don't want to push it any closer than necessary because the problem is Then as soon as you get done getting tested, you're like obsessively checking your email looking for results, right? Because what happens if they don't come back in time, you know?

And you end up in Steven Pepper's shoes, you know, scrambling to punt and figure out what you can do. And, you know, we've got hotel reservations and activities booked and things like that, the kind of things you have when you're going on a trip, right? Right. So that made it a little difficult, a little nerve-wracking. Oh, it sure did. And we were leaving, so we were flying out of Washington, D.C., but that meant both of us had to get to Washington, D.C. So I had...

On separate tickets. On separate tickets, right, from our paid ticket. Our paid ticket was leaving Washington, D.C. Our international ticket was leaving Washington, D.C., Our international ticket was leaving Washington, D.C. But we both booked separate paid tickets from our homes to D.C. So that added another wrinkle because I'm going to have to leave well ahead of my international flight from home. Right. Then what?

I'm never going to be ready. So Greg ended up a little nervous there, right? I was very nervous so and part of part of what made me nervous Nick got his test results back same day and so when I didn't get mine back same day you know as it was getting into Sunday um by the time I hit this 2 p.m which is around when I got the test on Saturday Then I was really starting to sweat because I'm like all right. It's been 24 hours I sort of assumed that it would come back in 24 hours. It didn't I had to start worrying about alternative

Options like how can I now get a pCR test that would be ready in time I checked the rapid p PCR test option and I found oh okay the place opens 9 a.m. Monday I could show up at 9 a.m. get the rapid test it'd be ready in a few hours according to them and so I had that as my backup plan now if I did that though I would have missed my Delta flight to DC that I had booked luckily luckily I had also booked a United flight to DC later in that day that would still theoretically get me there in time for the later flight to Paris and then onward to Dubai. So it was just great that I had, I booked both of these with miles, so in either case

I could have canceled and would have canceled one of them, whichever one I found out I wasn't going to be taking, and get my miles back for that one. I mean, that's a nice thing about the flexibility of travel right now. Now that airlines have gotten rid of the change fees, it makes it a lot easier to book a backup flight. Right, exactly, yeah. You can book it without any consequences. That's huge. It is.

It's huge. It is. It's huge. So, yeah. So, anyway, I still didn't want that kind of, you know, last second. Getting the test, even though they say it'll be done in a few hours, will it really? And then there was still the problem, it's a rapid test. Will Dubai accept it? I don't know. Well, and you've got to also with that consider the fact that you've got to not only worry, is the person in Dubai going to accept it I don't know well and you gotta also with that consider the fact that you've got to not only worry is the person in Dubai gonna accept it you have to worry is the person working check-in at the airport going to accept it you know there's a good point there's like a few steps

and if they're gonna take it here okay are they gonna take it also in Paris you know you're gonna have to stop a couple of times here in order to get somebody to look at it and so that adds to me that added more stress than i wanted and i only had that stress for like eight hours so yeah i wasn't i wasn't particularly happy with that part of it right right so uh as it turned out though about 7 p.m sunday night the test results came in negative which is a positive thing don't get it twisted now and so he's good to go so so I kept that United backup reservation still in place for its original purpose which was if something went wrong with the Delta flight the

next morning I could still go over to the United flight and I would still make it. So that was why I originally booked it. Not out of concern over the COVID test. Yeah. No, I mean, it turned out to be handy for that, but I did the same thing. I booked a backup flight on Southwest because I knew it could be canceled up to 10 minutes before departure, no penalty. And so I booked a backup flight on Southwest that actually took off sometime after I was scheduled to land in DC on my original United flight that way if my United flight got canceled you know or I missed it I got up late or something like that I had a backup to still get there and I didn't cancel my Southwest flight until I arrived in DC once I got there on the United flight I didn't want to chance anything Like I don't want to chance there's something goes wrong as they're taxiing

out or whatever else. Once I got to DC, I canceled the Southwest flight, got my points back and we were good to go. Yeah. Uh, you know, when I look at this video, we can see the screen as we're recording this. I can't help but think we should be singing karaoke. On the road again. I'm not going to sing it. I'm really bad. Me too. Clearly.

Everybody knows that now. Secrets out, guys. We're bad singers. So, all right. What were we talking about? We booked backup flights. We didn't need the backup flights. We canceled the backup flights. But that's something I would do.

Yeah. Positioning, you've got to do that exactly if you have a positioning flight like that then then it's really helpful to do if you're all on one carrier through one ticket it's probably not necessary so uh but we weren't that way so if i were going to book a positioning flight i'm almost certainly going to book a backup flight these days just in case yeah so we haven't really solved the problem for anyone as much as just explained the problem right it's a two-hour rule true but the solution it's there oh yeah I don't know a solution you know I mean maybe booking backup flights even if you are all on one ticket it makes sense like if you could all on one ticket, it makes sense.

Like, if you could book all the way to your destination for another, you know, a later time and cancel that for free, that might be a reasonable way to do it. You know, but it still has to be within the 72 hours and all that kind of stuff. One helpful thing I read when I was getting, preparing for this is that at least usually, if not always, when they have a 72 hour, 96 hour rule, whatever it is, it's based on the planned time of departure of the flight. And so I was worried about what happens if the flight's delayed and then it goes past the 72 hours and supposedly that's okay because they know obviously that happens and they would account for that I don't know if in reality that's that would work but that's we did get delayed for a bit okay but by not enough to go past the 72 hours. Yeah. All right.

So backup flight's definitely a big piece of it. Then what else? So navigating the COVID protocols. So we... I think work harder than I did in finding a testing site that says it'll get the test back to you quicker. Yeah. Well, I will say that Walgreens and CVS have links on their sites to check the current processing time for their labs. So you can at least check and see, they'll give

you a seven day average of the processing times from their labs. So that can be an option. I went to an urgent care facility though, in my area, that's where I got my test. And again, I called, I called several different places to speak to a human and ask how long. And also to ask if they were doing specifically the RT-PCR test that Dubai requests. And nobody knew about this RT business, including the nurse that administered the test. I was like, do you know if it's an RT-PCR or reverse transcription, whatever it is? And she's like, it's a molecular test. And I was like, yeah, but is's an RT-PCR or reverse transcription, whatever it is? And she's like, it's a molecular test. And I was like, yeah, but is it an RT-PCR? And she's like, I really don't

know. And I said, okay, well, I'll figure it out when I get the results, I guess. And then she went to open up the swab thing and looked at the little container and said, oh, RT-PCR. And she pointed to it. I was like, okay, that's what I was looking for. But nobody answering the phone knew that. So again, I was just hoping, I was pretty sure it was probably the right. All right. Let's talk about the harder situation. Yeah. So we're, we're driving back to Dubai right now from Abu Dhabi, where, which we eventually did get into, but talk about stress. Not without a little rigmarole. Yeah, so we originally planned to go to Abu Dhabi for a night on this trip,

but then we found just a few weeks ago that Abu Dhabi had moved the United States off of their green list, so they were instituting a quarantine requirement. And you had their quarantine for, I don't know how long it was, but however long it was was too long for the three nights we're going to be in the united arab emirates so uh so that obviously wasn't going to work so we canceled our reservations in abu dhabi booked

something else in dubai for the the one night we were going to spend in abu dhabi and thought it was all going to be good and then just a couple of days before the trip began word came out that abu dhabi was changing the requirements again. And now if you're vaccinated, even if you're not from a green list country, if you're vaccinated, then you need to get a test within 48 hours and then you can come to Abu Dhabi, at least theoretically. Right, right. So theoretically, as long, you know, again, as long as we got tested within 48 hours we we were good to go theoretically yes because we're both vaccinated right exactly but it turns out they they have an app for this so there's a process and and i learned this on the plane with in-flight wi-fi on the way to dubai

from paris that there's a website you need to register at so it's this ICA website it's like an immigration and customs authority website where you register your information as a foreigner and that system if you've registered before you land will then generate a unified ID number that you need in order to register for an app so you got to do this part on the website. First you register your name and passport information and when you're going to be in the UAE, that type of information. And then when you enter, you get a QR code that nobody ever asked to see. So I have no idea why you get a QR code, but you get a QR code. And then you can

apparently ask the immigration officer for your unified ID number, which I saw Greg ask, and it sounded like the officer didn't know what he was talking about. But he gave it to me. He did. He did. Yeah. Little did I know. So then I didn't even ask when I went through.

So Greg had his UID, and I did not have my UID. But I later determined there was a way to pull that from the ICA website because after you enter, you still get another email. Okay, great. So in order to get this unified ID number, we had both uploaded proof of our vaccination. Yeah, and I had uploaded a picture of my vaccination card, which kind of makes sense, right? If you're gonna, if you want to prove that you were vaccinated, going to the source seems like a good idea to me. But Nick chose a different path. Well I did because the new requirements seem to suggest that if you're a foreigner that you can show

proof of your your foreign vaccine, but it's very clear that it has to be a QR code based now when I say that I mean the next part we're going to talk about is this Al-Hosan app because they have an app here in the United Arab Emirates that everybody in Abu Dhabi uses to show that they've been vaccinated and PCR tested so so in lieu of using that app, theoretically, you can show digital proof of your vaccine from your home country. So because I had read that, I uploaded a copy of my Excelsior pass vaccination proof, which for those of you who are not from New York state, New York has an app. And so if you've been vaccinated in New York state, you can download this app and put in your information,

and they give you a handy-dandy QR code that I thought Abu Dhabi would love. So I uploaded that instead of my card, which was a key mistake. If you want to go to Abu Dhabi, don't do that. Yeah, if you want to go to Abu Dhabi, don't be Nick. No. Just do the obvious thing, which is upload your card. Take pictures of your card. Take pictures of your card, yeah.

Upload your card. That's what you should have done. Exactly what Greg did. But that's not what I did. I mean, if you're traveling internationally, there's a good chance you've already taken pictures of your card for other things. And so I already had them on my computer. I just uploaded files I already had.

I had taken pictures of mine, but I did not save them. They were in Google Photos, so I hadn't saved them on my computer so I thought oh it's gonna take longer I gotta take pictures and get them onto the computer and you know the screenshot was faster blah blah blah more of the story than you need bottom line is when we got into the United Arab Emirates we then downloaded this Al-Hosn app and so we had to put in our unified ID number and our cell phone numbers which we did and we tried to do tried to do because the Al-Hosn app said no that's not right try well no no you're getting ahead of okay all right it had us pick the country code or the

city the city for phone number right well no no no because the Al-Hosnaf did have an option for a plus one for the United States. But when we tried to enter our phone numbers, it said that there was no number. Essentially, it told us there was no number associated with our accounts. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah. So then we go back to the ICA website where we had registered our vaccination information and find that there's a place to change your mobile number so we both figure okay for whatever reason our cell phone numbers even though we entered those when we registered for this didn't get into the system so we figured okay we'll

just load in our cell phone numbers except the ICA website there's that's where Greg is coming in. That's where I was. ICA is not for him to do that. Had you picked your city from the UAE, and it wouldn't allow any area codes, so to speak, from outside of there. So we couldn't put in, there was no way to put in our US numbers in there. Right, no way. So we called around, called the people that run the system,

called the places we were going to go. And everybody basically told us to go get a SIM card and a local phone number. So off to the mall we go to go buy a SIM card and a local phone number. I do that and, you know, boom, I'm able to put that into the ICA website. It works. So then I go to the Al Hostin app and I put in my unified ID number and my local cell phone number. And boom, that gives me a text message verification. So great.

I'm good to go. So now Greg's turn. So now we figured we could reuse this same number. So I put Nick's number in, and it takes it in as a new number for me. And then I go to the app and try to use it. It's like, no, that doesn't't work you can't find you or whatever okay so we figured I need to get my own number too I go buy my own SIM card put it in blah blah I finally I go to I just so I add I add it in as another number into my profile.

Then I go to the app, put in that number. And do you remember, like, what the message said? Yeah, it said, that's not right. Try the number ending in. Try Nick's number. Right, try Nick's number. That's exactly what it said. Try Nick's number.

So the original thing where it didn't like Nick's number was just basically a way for, you know, to get me to spend more money. Right. They wanted to make sure that you spent your extra $22 on a sim card that you didn't need. So I put in Nick's number and I was actually good to go. And so, yeah. And then the app cross-verifies. And I got to say, this app that they use is pretty cool because it seems to pull together a lot of information. It comes up with a picture of you.

It's kind of magical, yeah. And in my case, it was an old passport photo. Like they clearly put together information about me from previous visits because it was a picture of me from years ago. Yeah. Whereas for me, it was the picture of me upon arrival in Dubai at the Dubai airport pulling down my mask for the camera. So it's very obvious it's a recent picture. Right. So the app then shows that you're, well, maybe I'm getting ahead of it. The next step for us after we got the app was to get our PCR tests. And so, or maybe we

had gotten the PCR tests even before we downloaded the app because we knew we had to get them. So we got PCR tests at our hotel. That was awesome. Grand Hyatt Dubai was able to send somebody right to your room at a time you schedule. So that was super easy. We got the PCR tests. And so we go to sleep, wake up the next morning and I see, you know, actually sometime that evening I saw in the aloha app, mine said that PCR was negative. So, okay, great. My results came back, again, just a few hours. So I thought that was awesome. Until the next morning, I saw Greg's app that said his PCR was also negative.

But it was also lit up green, and it had all of his vaccine information, which the green background on the app is what shows that you're good to go to enter Abu Dhabi. And mine wasn't green, despite the fact that Greg's was yeah no and and you know it you're you're still not green are you no I'm still not green right now and and we're already out of Abu Dhabi at this point uh I do I do want to say something about testing about the COVID testing so back in the states I think for both of us it was like a front frontal nasal swab and in my case I don't know if it's your case it was a do-it-yourself like while they watch they told me what to do swab put it in a little bag and off I go super easy no problem yeah someone else did it for me but it's same

thing it was just very shallow barely feel it for me, but it was the same thing. It was just very shallow. Like you barely feel it. And in the hotel was halfway between that style and the old style where they used to tickle your brain and pull some gray matter out of there. So this went sort of halfway in. So it wasn't at all painful, but it was kind of ticklish. Yeah, it was kind of ticklish. Not super comfortable anyway. Yeah, I wouldn't want to do that like all the time, but I wouldn't be nervous about it or anything if I had to do that again. It's no big deal.

Right. So we got our PCR test. Mine is not green and Greg's is. And I realized at some point that the difference is Greg's app is showing the dates of his vaccinations and my app is showing nothing for vaccination it doesn't have any information about me being vaccinated right so so Nick spent the day trying to figure out how to add his picture of his vaccine card into the app which was a pain and you know a struggle in and of itself but I finally decided you know I'm just going to go back to the beginning their system seems to put information together really well so probably if i just go

back to the beginning and try to register all over again so to speak it will figure out that this is my vaccine card and i'll upload these pictures of my vaccine cards so that's what i did and it was really easy and it was very clear to me right away that it recognized who I was, uploaded the copies of my vaccine card. And within a few hours, it showed in the app the dates of my vaccines, but it said pending approval. And so it didn't turn green the way Gregg's did. You know what? You better pay attention to the instructions that Google's giving. I'll tell a little more of this story, and you can sort of half-listen and chime in.

I'm doing it. Got it. All right. To make a long story slightly less long, Nick never got it green in time to go to Abu Dhabi, but he got sort of a half-confirmation that we probably could get there anyway and so we drove there and there's a there's a border you know border guard station that looks like a tollbooth basically where they looked at they looked at his app and all the information he was ready with all his all his vaccine information but they didn't want to hear about it there they said go back they gave us directions to go back to

a testing center so it was a few miles back the road back on the road where we didn't know what was going to happen would would nick be uh you know thrown into quarantine when I walked in it said home quarantine this way government quarantine that way and there were like people with suitcases so I wasn't sure that I was gonna be leaving yeah so so you know I thought about going in with him but then I thought you know if he gets quarantine I don't want to be like stuck with him. So I had the car keys. I'd be good to go. So I went into the government quarantine center and one person after another kept telling,

like, cause I, there were a bunch of different points to stop and it wasn't clear where to go in my situation. So I keep explaining to a different security guard what I'm there for. And they just keep pointing further in telling me, Oh, go further in. And that felt less and less comfortable the further I was getting into the quarantine center. But sure enough, they're very friendly about it. And so they gave me some paperwork to fill out. And I went to fill it out and sign it. And I saw that it said that I was agreeing to quarantine at home and be fitted with a bracelet. And I was like, wait a second, I thought I didn't have to quarantine though. So I went back to ask more about that and the agent told me,

no, don't worry about that, there's new rules now. So under the new rules, you don't need to home quarantine anymore. It's just the old paperwork. So new rules, old paper. Don't worry about what it says and what you're signing to. You're going to be fine is what she's done. So I went ahead and signed it. And you were told, right, that as long as you had that form,

you'd still be able to get into the hotel, get into restaurants, get into activities. Because I specifically asked, am I going to be able to go to the hotel yeah get into restaurants get into it because i specifically asked am i going to be able to go to restaurants and stuff and she said yeah just show this paperwork it'll be fine so great right like i mean it's still a little scary wait so and unless let's be clear she told me just show the paper that says that you agree to home quarantine and they'll let you into the restaurant i'm'm not sure what sense that makes, but I was like, okay, if you say so. If you say so, all right. She said, just go get this stamped at the door.

And so I carry it over to the door and somebody stamps it and I walk out with my paper and I think, okay, well, I guess we're good to go. To be clear, they didn't check anything to make sure that it was like, proved anything. No, I had my vaccine card there too,

but nobody cared about that. So we go back to the checkpoint and there the guy happily looks at the form, says, oh, all right, you may go in. And he keeps the form. And I was like, wait, you keep that? And he just like folds it up and says yeah like there was no there was no conversation about that so we're not getting in any restaurants

so now we're into abu dhabi technically right but without that form um you know the story gets a little less interesting after that it does after that yeah basically every place we went did ask to see the app. Nick explained that, you know, he didn't have the vaccine in and nobody cared. Right. Everybody was like, oh, you're a foreigner? Okay, well, sometimes it doesn't work for foreigners. They just wanted to make sure that the PCR said negative within the right amount of time. And then that seemed to be fine. People seemed less concerned about it than I expected.

And to be clear, they do ask to see the app everywhere you go. So like walking into a hotel, walking into a restaurant, walking into activities, they do ask to see the app as soon as you walk in. Right. So I'm pretty sure there's no COVID in Abu Dhabi, because there's no way a COVID virus could navigate the requirements there.

It's too complicated. I mean, imagine trying a COVID virus, trying to get that too complicated. I mean imagine trying, you know, a COVID virus trying to get that app working. I can't, yes. Forget it. So I'm sure that the app will light up green for me as soon as we leave the United Arab Emirates. But the moral of the story is, A, I never in a million years would have realized that there was a checkpoint, a police checkpoint between Dubai and Abu Dhabi. I've been to the United Arab Emirates before. That's surprising. I had no idea until I started to do a little bit of research in the days before, like in the hours before arriving here on the airplane. I had no idea that I was going to need to have all of this app and stuff. I wouldn't have known any of that. So do your research before you go because I would never have expected that to be an issue. And upload your regular vaccine card.

Yeah. Yeah. So the lessons here, just to summarize, because this is kind of long and complicated. Right. It did go over. To summarize, like, it's good to have backup flights, especially positioning flights, if you can, you know, book things that are fully refundable. Research the heck out of things. You know, make sure you actually understand the rules when it says

72 hours what does that mean 72 hours from what uh don't be nick don't be me don't get fancy don't get fancy when it says upload a picture of your vaccination you know uh just use the card that you got when you got vaccinated and I think that's good that's that's basically yeah that's basically it so we're almost at our destination so we're gonna we're gonna sign off we are yeah it's been good talking to y'all and hope we'll see you at our next destination. See you then. Bye everybody.