Turks and Caicos Christmas 2021 - Day 1: Arrival

We went to St. Croix in 2019. For obvious reasons, we didn't go on a trip last year around Christmas. This year, we booked Turks and Caicos as soon as we could get flights, back in February-ish.

Sabrina and I have been here once before, in January of 2018, which made some of the planning easier. The pandemic, however, made some of it much harder.

The entry requirements were similar to St. Lucia, but slightly stricter. Other than the usual plane ticket and passport, we also needed:

• Vaccine cards
• Negative COVID tests, taken no more than 3 days prior to arrival
• International health insurance, with proof that it covers COVID treatment/testing
• TCI Assurance pre-approval, which required uploading all of the above
  

Due to the recent explosion in cases in the northeast, it took longer than we expected to get our negative test results. Lauren's was down to the wire; Rudy and Sabrina were submitting her paperwork to TCI Assurance at midnight, nine hours before we planned to leave for the airport. (A midnight typo caused another delay as we needed to upload a photo of her passport, and her approval came through around 9 AM.)

Sabrina managed to get all of the paperwork straightened out, for all five of us. We kept telling ourselves that this relatively high barrier to entry would keep other people out; when we saw how few people were in the JetBlue international terminal area, we suspected that our prediction was correct.

There was absolutely zero wait at security, which was good because some of our ziplock bags of snacks failed the swab test and went on a side quest, and the gate area was almost empty when we arrived.

According to a flight attendant, there were only 65 people (out of 162 seats) on our flight. We had several rows to ourselves, up in rows 6 and 7.

Our original flight was 11:45 AM, but it was changed to 1:15 PM (and possibly combined with a later flight?), which meant we didn't have much daylight to spare. It's only a 3.5 hour flight, thankfully.

The sun was waning as we deplaned, just before 5 PM. It was humid and warm, around 80°F, which is always a surprise when coming from below-freezing conditions.

As there weren't many tourists coming in, and we were at the front of the departing crowd, we breezed through COVID check, immigrations, and customs. It was as painless of a travel day as we could have possibly wished for, given the circumstances. (It was nearly the polar opposite to our St. Lucia experience this summer, for comparison.)

The change in flight time complicated the rental car acquisition, as the Avis franchise closes from 5 to 8 PM (presumably for dinner). Thankfully. Lauren had called ahead and had our car waiting, with the keys in it. Once we found it in the parking lot, it seemed kind of obvious in hindsight.

We made it the 4 miles or so to our Airbnb, unloaded, shed some layers, and concocted a plan for the remainder of our evening. After some debate, we decided to go with a safe bet for dinner and headed to the Mango Reef restaurant, just over a mile down the road.

Just as the last (and only) time we were here, there were birds patrolling the perimeter, presumably looking for dropped morsels. Jeanne asked about them, and I think the waiter said they were "night herons".

The food was excellent, and it was a beautiful night to dine al fresco.

After dinner, we hit the IGA grocery store, just down the Leeward Highway on the other side.

A passing stranger saw us taking pictures in front of the giant Christmas tree by the door, offered to help, and produced this absolute gem.

Back at the house, we stowed our plunder, further settled into our temporary home, and called it an early night. The sun rises an hour earlier here than at home, and the Terrizzis are all morning people. Plus, the upstairs bedrooms have open balconies into the vaulted living area.

Tomorrow looks like perfect weather, so we will probably go to the beach.