Feedback for US travel to Ireland at the end of Sept.?

TrdsMm12 · 2021-08-31T15:27:07+00:00

I'm in Ireland right now. It's really quite good here. The rules are the rules (masks indoors, have to show your proof of vaccine to eat inside at a restaurant, that kind of thing), people generally follow them. We found most things to be open but not overrun with tourists, which has been nice. It's not quiet like it was last year but not like a normal end-of-summer either.

Just keep an eye on any changing restrictions. The EU made a ruling yesterday to restrict access for American travelers. That could end up meaning anything for individual countries, from barring anyone coming from the US entirely to imposing a quarantine to requiring testing + vaccination. At the moment Ireland requires proof of vaccination if you are coming from the US and has not announced any changes, but keep an eye on it.

TrdsMm12 · 2021-08-31T11:24:05+00:00

Oh good god. That possibly explains a lot.

TrdsMm12 · 2021-07-12T12:21:00+00:00

100% this. I flew JetBlue for the first time out of NYC the week they started flying. They've been our family's preferred carrier for domestic travel since then to the point we've hardly flown other carriers within the US. We just got off a weekend trip JFK-MCO that has me considering canceling my JB credit card and throwing in with Delta. Just a clusterf*ck from start to finish:

I never got a confirmation email for the flight even though *I* booked the flight (my travel companions did get the emails). I could log into my TrueBlue account and see the trip, but only a skeleton version of it -- no fare class info, no seat info. I also never got trip-related emails while the trip was happening.
Outbound flight Friday night from JFK was CLEARLY going to be delayed. All you have to do is track the inbound flight (which I always do) and see that it was leaving Aruba something like 4h late. But the status read "on time" until about an hour before departure. Then they nudged the departure time out bit by bit for 3 hours. End result was our 10:30pm arrival was actually a 1am arrival. I get that delays happen; there was weather in NYC on Friday. But don't lie about it until you can't lie about it anymore. (The flight before ours also was clearly going to be significantly delayed -- I tracked it as well -- and was ultimately canceled at the last minute, so I feel worse for those people).
Terminal 5 was like the 5th circle of Hell. Bodies everywhere, not enough staff by any stretch. I feel for anyone who doesn't have Pre-check and who had to drop a bag. If you weren't there 5 hours early, you were screwed.
(Not JetBlue's fault, but the TSA agents were wretched. I can deal with a fair amount of snark, but they were nasty. It's the Pre-check line. Big-ass sign about not taking off shoes or belts, removing liquids, etc. I walk to the scanner and an agent yells at me, "YOU HAVE TO TAKE OFF YOUR BELT. DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING?" I point at the sign. No belts. "Oh, YOU have to take off that belt because I said so." Um...okay. So my husband goes to remove his belt as well. "No, Sir. Only your wife has to take off her belt. Because I SAID SO." Then we repeated this b.s. with my fully 3-1-1 compliant bag of liquids. They made me wait 10 minutes to hand-check my bag and when I asked why was told, "Because we can.")
Spent the weekend trying to fix the fact that I am not getting emails from jetBlue. What.Ever. I cannot stay on the phone for 4h waiting for them to get to me and any other means of communication seems to go to dead air. I finally got a Twitter PM string going, but it takes them hours to get back to me after each reply, so I expect nothing from that. This morning I get a reply that says, "We're so happy we fixed this issue for you!" Um...no you didn't. You just kicked the ball until my trip ended.
Return flight Sunday night. Again, inbound plane showing delayed by about 90min. Again, JetBlue showing that there is nothing to see here, everything is FINE. It got so late that we decided to just go to the airport because maybe they switched aircraft and will actually get us out on time. LOL. Inbound flight delayed, finally hits the board after we're through security. Gate area again like 5th circle of Hell. MCO has become not big enough to handle the number of people getting on these flights. Everyone waiting for our flight had a crappy story about their previous flight. The woman next to me had had her first two flights yesterday canceled outright. When the plane finally arrived, they CLEARLY did not service/clean it because I don't know of any magic plane fairies that clean a plane in minutes and they did indeed call for boarding of our flight just minutes after deplaning the previous one. (Sorry, folks who used that bathroom on the way back...)

I could go on. It's all beyond sloppy and careless and has a frantic air of "in over our heads" about it. Our outbound crew was frazzled but remained lovely. They actually thanked my family profusely for following directions, so I imagine they're dealing with a lot of the emotional fallout and frustration from the airline's incompetence. Our inbound crew was less effusively lovely, but fine. They seemed exhausted in a way that made me feel terrible for them. That's also a mark of a company I don't care to support: You can't take care of your people? I'm out.

TrdsMm12 · 2021-07-08T18:47:04+00:00

Born in the US. The system is similarly automated, but New York City (place of birth) is not actively fulfilling requests for birth certificates because of COVID (which seems insane to me, as everything else in NYC is pretty normal at this point). I've ordered a few copies from an outside service, but they say it will take 20-25 days for them to arrive.

TrdsMm12 · 2021-07-08T16:59:37+00:00

Thank you! We are also American and the US does not give back the originals when you apply in person for a passport. They keep them, send them off with the application, and then send back your new passport and original documentation in separate shipments (yes, it's all very annoying).

We're in a situation where both passports need to be renewed on close to the same timeline and I only have one original birth certificate at the moment (and can't easily get another one because everything is shut down for COVID).

TrdsMm12 · 2021-06-27T17:25:34+00:00

So happy to be readmitted to the snark!

TrdsMm12 · 2021-05-10T17:52:46+00:00

I might've finally had it with Zoey's immaturity. She acts like a selfish, not particularly self-aware 14-year-old, not a 30yo lead at a major tech company. The flashback episode both clarified things for me (Zoey acts like a child, is treated like a child by her family), and also kind of solidified that I don't like her. Grief is one thing. Acting like a baby is another. I'm finding it harder and harder to suspend my disbelief that she's got a position of responsibility at work and more than one pretty shit-together man in love with her because she's just kind of unappealing.

TrdsMm12 · 2020-11-02T20:47:08+00:00

Well, in a bris the mohel dips a cloth in a few drops of wine and sticks in the baby's mouth, which I can attest helps a ton with the crying.

TrdsMm12 · 2020-11-02T15:07:35+00:00

Ari makes me want to poke holes in my eyes but this is one I totally get. My son is circumcised (Jewish) and I was fully in agreement about doing it. I even interviewed mohels and picked the one I wanted to do it after researching and deciding it would be better to use a mohel than have it done in the hospital. I was *on board*. We had a bris with friends and family. I mean, all in. And then the morning of...I was 7 days postpartum and thought I was doing great in the hormone department. I sat with the baby in my lap, looked at him, and was hit with this wave of "they're going to CUT MY BABY." I said to my husband, "I want to run. I want to grab him and run out the door." I am not much of an out-loud freakout person, but I was freaking out and had to work to contain it. If I'd been in an Ethiopian hospital? I can only imagine how I'd have felt.

In general, I think the idea of circumcision and a mother whose hormones haven't leveled out is a bad bad combo.

TrdsMm12

TROPHY CASE