I just watched a video showing how tens of thousands of USAans are stranded in the Caribbean because all their flights have been grounded. The airlines have no obligation to feed or accommodate them; all they get is a refund of the fare.#
Yep, my daughter is house-sitting for a vacationing couple who were supposed to be back yesterday. Now they’re hoping for anytime this week.
There are worse places to be stranded, as long as you have the money and a place to stay. I feel for those having to sleep in the airport.
I saw a clip of a blogger walking along a sunny beach, filming the blue sea and warm sand, mock-complaining how terrible it was to be unable to fly back to his home in Chicago.
Funny. I lived on St. Thomas for several months in the 70s. A beautiful place with water so clear you can see the bottom. As a non-swimmer and non-sunbather, I still enjoyed walking on the beaches. If you drink enough rum, it’s all good.
I’m seeing Flights have resumed.
But I’m not there.
News is fanning these flames.
There is no logical reason to suspend flights to/from almost all of the Caribbean.
The only questionable islands are Trinidad and Tobago. Which USN could easily protect from Venezuelan aerial retaliation.
This smells mostly manufactured to me.
Do you think it might’ve been the commercial airlines being overly cautious? If it was actually not just generic delays.
The problem is finding a room if you are stranded.
Many places in Aruba rent weekly and there are limited slots available for day by day reservations.
I’ve been there 4 times in the last several years and have had to rent rooms at other hotels separately if we arrive a day or two earlier.
Not sure how that would work in this kind of emergency situation. Perhaps places are more flexible.
If nobody is coming in and nobody is coming out it all balances. Different people, but same number of people.
It appears that other countries are still flying in/out - it appears to be just the US carriers cancelled.
So it’s a crapshoot about your room.
I belong to a couple of Aruba groups on Facebook and it is a circus.
Some people can’t get flights back to the US until January 10th/12th.
Of course I need to keep in mind that most of the time people only post about their difficulties online and not their success.
It appears that American carriers are starting to add some additional flights so hopefully things will even out in a few days.
If this means that members of the island vacation demographic are personally feeling some pain from Trump’s policies, that might have some longer-term benefits.
Apparently the strikes were launched from Puerto Rico, which is why so much of the Caribbean was closed to aircraft.
Agree.
I guess I have to suffer as well.
At least my trip isn’t until June so things might be calmer by then.
Would be nice to know if there was any impact on some people’s perspective but I doubt this will change anything.
The leopard-eating thread is full of cites to people who voted for trump, have been personally harmed by some action of his, and still lurve everything he’s doing.
I doubt anyone’s vacation being ruined is going to change their minds. If you hated him before, you now hate him more. If you loved him before, he can do no wrong so you must accommodate yourself to these minor inconveniences as he remakes our country into greatness.
Many fun adventures to be had in Venezuela. Don’t listen to the negativity.
Ix-nay on the MAGA hats, though.
I have a Facebook friend who was sitting on a plane getting ready to take off for a Caribbean vacation early last Saturday morning. Her plane had already pulled back from the gate; they then sat on the tarmac for an hour; then pulled back to the gate, deplaned all of the passengers and canceled the flight. What’s worse is that they gave her no indication when they could get her on a later flight, so she drove back home and canceled her whole vacation.
She is pretty pissed off. She is definitely not a Trump supporter, but there had to be some onboard that flight that are.
My wife and I have vacation plans in Riviera Maya, Mexico in February. I’m nervous about those plans now, with the trump admin having threatened incursions into Mexico and Cuba in the wake of the Venezuelan action. We do have cancellation insurance, so I guess we just keep a close eye on the news.
It’s good that you have purchased travel insurance.
I always purchase a decent policy for international trips.
I hope everything goes well for you all.
I have an annual trip to Aruba in mid June this year.
Hopefully everything will be calm for that adventure.
Regardless I will taking all of my medications with me
instead of just enough for the trip.
Maybe “there had to be some on the flight that were” would be more appropriate phrasing. In general, by now I’m sure millions of Trump voters have buyer’s remorse.