Hey there, we are in beautiful Puerto Vallarta and today we're going to share with
you a very quick video. It's just basically our experience flying from Canada here into Mexico.
Okay so what this video is not is a recommendation to travel. It's completely up to you whether or
not you travel right now. Obviously many people are choosing to stay home at this time which we
completely understand. We made the decision to travel and so we just wanted to share
what our experience was. Okay we found the most helpful thing for us figuring out all
the pieces that needed to be put together for us to come to Mexico was on the WestJet website. So
if you go into their travel requirements area there's a little tool in there. And you just
plug in where you're coming from, where you're going, and then the dates you're going and it
lists out all the things you need to know, all the documentation, all the steps you have to
take. It was really really helpful. So it doesn't just tell you what you need, it also links out to
the official places where you can go and read more about it, so that's really helpful too. And
I assume other airlines have similar tools; for us it was WestJet. So one of the big questions that
we had that we wanted to know the answer to right away and which lots of people actually have asked
us so far about our trip is whether or not you need to take a COVID test before coming to Mexico
and provide the results. And the answer to that is no, you do not need to show proof of
a negative COVID test in order to come to Mexico. So Canadians know that when you're flying out of
a Canadian airport or into a Canadian airport you need a proof of vaccination and that's taken care
of through the WestJet app. We had to upload the QR code from our federal proof of vax,
that's all was that was required. We have paper versions of our our proof of vaccination but we
didn't have to show it to anybody when we arrived at the airport. So it was all done through
the app. So when we went to the airport all we really had to do, because we only do carry-on,
we went to the check-in kiosk and even that we really didn't have to do because we had already
checked in, but we printed out our boarding passes went right to security and through security that
was really painless. And the next thing we knew we were at the gate and we were happy to see that
everybody in the gate area was keeping their distance and had their masks on. So there was
a lot of respect for distance and mask use at the airport which we were happy to see. We were
also curious as to what the plane was going to be like. We really didn't know what to expect in
terms of how full that it would be, maybe about 90 percent full or 95. We had an empty seat beside us
which was really awesome and there were definitely other rows that had empty seats in them as well.
You wear your mask the entire time. There really isn't any food served
other than snacks and drinks so the number of times that you remove your mask is very minimal.
Okay so arriving in Mexico, and we flew into Puerto Vallarta, was was fairly easy. Basically
you have to go through two checkpoints; you go through immigration where they check your
passport – they do not ask for vaccine status or any sort of test as we mentioned – so it's what
you would normally expect coming into Mexico. And then we went through customs, it took about
15-20 minutes and and we were through. Now here in Puerto Vallarta we've seen a lot of mask use,
it's really well respected all of the servers and people working in restaurants and shops
are all wearing their masks. People are required to wear them to enter and then it's just similar
to home where once you're seated at a table you can take your mask off for eating and all of that
kind of stuff. But yeah other than that there's not a ton of restrictions, everything seems to be
pretty much open regular hours and the experience has been really lovely so far – and safe. We feel
fairly safe although we are wearing our masks outside when we're in crowded areas. And there can
be crowded areas like the Malecon. So that's about it. Just grabbed our morning cappuccinos from Ono.
We're a day out from our flight ,waiting on our test results, and we wanted to share how much more
expensive this trip has been for us. A couple hundred dollars each for our COVID PCR tests
and we bought some pandemic insurance, that was another 180 dollars. And then we had a flight
canceled on us within Mexico so that cost us also about 160 dollars. So all totaled,
maybe seven or eight hundred dollars extra this time around. So that's something you should be
aware of if you're thinking of coming down here. You'll probably have extra expenses.
Yikes. So we're back in Winnipeg and for this last segment of the video we just wanted to share what
it was like coming home. So we received our PCR tests, they were negative so we were good to go.
The ArriveCan app that the federal government has put out here in Canada is really helpful
at organizing all the information that you need so we just filled it all in. We uploaded the the
required paperwork and our negative PCR tests. After we checked in in Puerto Vallarta and went
to our gate it was at the gate that they actually checked to make sure we had a negative PCR test.
Got on the flight, came into Canada and at customs they were asking some people to to take
a COVID test. We were not selected to be those folks so we just went through as per
normal. They asked us a few questions like they normally would, they did ask us when we got our
PCR tests so we told them just a couple of days before the flight so that all worked out.
And that was it. So we have more videos from Mexico coming very soon but for now we just
wanted to share these quick pieces of information for anybody else who might be choosing to travel
at this time and who has some questions about the process. Otherwise that's it for now. Hasta luego!