from shutting down business, which really didn't happen because she's had to cancel plan after plan, sometimes 3 or 4 times already, without getting paid of course. Add on top of that all the "mercurial" policies that are constantly changing through all of this, and it's been crazy for her and the industry as a whole, especially with the recent Omicron surge.

But we've also been able to reap the benefits of an industry that is trying to make a comeback - In a little over the year, we've done 4 cruises, and land trips to Hawaii, St. Lucia and Cancun.

None were cancelled, some had itineraries change. For all the trips we had to go through the testing to make it happen so yes, definitely added stress/risk.

Most airlines/hotels these days have cancellation policies that are making travel less risky so there's that as well.

I've enjoyed far lesser crowds on the planes, airports, beaches, hotels, cruiselines and tourist destinations.

It's also been very humbling to visit places and see them decimated from the pandemic, talk and hear the stories of the workers on the cruiselines about what they've gone through, the sacrifices they've made for their families, etc.

While visiting Aruba, our driver said that at the peak of Corona there, islanders were all hitting the beaches to fish for food, because grocery stores weren't stocked, etc.

In St. Lucia, workers at the resort were so grateful to us and to have any visitors, their entire downtown marketplace that depended on tourists and cruises coming in was bare and no foreigners were allowed to visit those areas.

While we visited the Norwegian Cruiseline Bahama island - I spoke to a worker that was stationed there during the pandemic from the Philippines and said he was basically stuck there for months, no tourists, and couldn't go home for over a year.

So something we've reflected on is how grateful we are to travel and how appreciative/empathetic we are to the people who are trying to make a living in the industry that sacrifice far more than we could know by virtue of living in the US.