Swine Flu

I'm sure most of you have heard about the recent swine flu breakout.  I heard about it today and didn't think a whole lot about it, until I heard it originated and is spreading across Mexico.  After I heard that, I started getting nervous because we just booked a vacation to Mexico last week for the end of May!  

Too much irony this past week for us- Mitch walking the same week he starts physical therapy, and now after we book our first kid-less vacation since our honeymoon, there is an influenza outbreak in the same location we book our trip.  What are the odds?

My mother, being an infection control nurse, kindly sent me an email regarding the current swine flue situation and although as of today there is no need for panic (yet), the U.S. Travel Agency has issued a suggestion that "nonessential travel to Mexico be avoided."  Well, as much as I'd like to say our trip was ESSENTIAL (vacation every now and then is essential, right?), in all reality it's not.  Now what do we do?

Well, I've been on the phone all day trying to figure out my options.  This morning, our travel agency (Costco.com) said that our trip protection insurance would not cover the "suggestion" from the U.S. Travel Agency and that if we canceled, we'd have fees of $600 (about a third of the total trip, wow!)  And the airline we booked the flights through is willing to move the trip date or let us fly to some other destination with no changing or cancelation fees, but only up until May 8th (we don't leave until May 22nd).

Long story short, I decided to call Costo.com back randomly for a small question and was told by the agent, "We just got a new policy from our manager- if you cancel today, you can cancel for no fees except your trip protection fee ($54)."  I never thought I would be excited to cancel a vacation to Mexico, but we jumped on it.  With the uncertainty of this flu outbreak, it wasn't worth it to us (financially or health wise) to wait around and see if it was going to clear up before we left.  The dates we are vacationing are set in stone for us (with Ben's work schedule and other things) and it was too risky to wait around until a few days before and either have to cancel our trip and pay hefty fees AND not have time to reschedule another vacation, or still have the advisory in tact and go to Mexico with the chance of being exposed to a flu we are not immunized against. 

It may come down to the fact that this scare/outbreak clears up in a few days or weeks, but now we don't have to worry about it.  So now..... back to the drawing board for vacation destinations!  We are still planning on somewhere warm, either state side or otherwise.  Wish us luck, but curses on Swine Flu!