Testing Timing West Coast - Help Please

Hi Everyone:

My apologies in advance regarding my questions, but I am finding the process a little stressful given the travel requirements and timing. Especially as I have just read a trip report stating the traveler did not receive the go ahead until hours before departing and I hope to avoid that situation. I do not want to show up at the airport and be denied checking in.

We depart Orange Country, CA on December 5 at 5:10 pm with 2 stops, SLC and ATL We arrive in SXM at 2:42 pm on Dec 6.

I have arranged for COVID PCR tests for Dec 3 at 10:00 am, and the lab guarantees results in 24 hours. Do I trust the guarantee?

My questions are:

1. Is this timeframe doable for pre-approval prior to travel Saturday afternoon?
2. Should I attempt to reschedule our tests for Dec 2 to buy a little time?

Thank you for any advice.

If your test is scheduled with a commercial lab that caters to COVID travel screening, the 24 hours is guaranteed. I did mine at such a lab (not on west coast), and I got my result within guaranteed timeline.
I submitted my test on Sunday afternoon, and I received pre-approval 30 minutes later.
Depending on your flight arrangement, if both stops are on the same itinerary, you probably would need SXM pre-approval to board the first leg. Maybe a bit more time buffer before your first leg would be helpful, just in case.

I would move it to Tuesday December 1. Still within that 120 hour window prior to final boarding on last flight to sxm.

The world is probably about to shake off it's axis, but I agree with Scubaman..

🤩👏 WOW

Thank you everyone. I changed the date of my test to provide a buffer.

Now I have to keep fingers crossed all my flights are on time and not canceled. The flight from ATL to SXM does look rather full, so that is a good sign.

Make sure time of testing coordinates with time of last flight to SXM and not more than 120 hours before.

This whole testing within given time parameters is becoming a nightmare for some of us.

In our case, I don’t know if it’s because of it being a holiday week and some labs closing for non-essential tests; the congested area we live in combined with the up-tick in cases; or perhaps because of the huge number of travelers right now but getting appointments and getting the results back quickly is driving me crazy.

The only thing that keeps me hoping our trip will happen as planned is that we are on the East Coast and worse case scenario, we could reschedule and travel the next day, if necessary. Thank goodness there are flights available.

Good luck for you West Coasters - I truly hope all goes well for you.

Best of luck, Pat! Hope it works out for you!

Hopefully for future travelers post vaccine a certificate of vaccine will do instead of proof of negative test every time you want to travel.

TY. So do we but so far it has been a freakin’ mess.

I can’t believe the doctors office called me on Friday and cancelled my Monday (today) appointment and then called me today to ask why we didn’t keep our virtual pre-Covid test appointments for this morning and asked if we were still planning on keeping the actual Covid test this afternoon.

Apparently one hand (department) doesn’t have a clue as to what the other departments are doing. No communication at all. I hope and pray it will all work out for tomorrow and this will all be but another thing to laugh about down the road.

Pat--don't get me started with regard to the topic of doctor's offices! Hopefully everything will work out great!

Where does one find a place that caters to the traveler? My primary care doctor can't get us in until Tuesday afternoon and we leave on Saturday. BUT, the tests sometimes take 4-5 days to come back!

Depends where you live....RI has a testing site for travelers...MA has the "Stop the spread" sites for asymptomatic people. Supposedly both are results within 48 hours.....maybe

Seems that those with an MD referral or symptoms are put on the back burner for a later result....

We are in MA. But most of the places on the Stop the Spread are not specifically for travelers.

Correct....but they are no fee asymptomatic testing sites that supposedly get results in 48-72 hours

Update:

We scheduled our nasal rt-PCR test Dec 2 at 1:00 pm at a private clinic in Irvine CA. The results were received at 10:00 pm same day - they were done through a private lab that guarantees results within 24 hours specifically for travel at a cost of $175 pp. Submitted our health application this morning at 7:15 am and received pre-approval for travel into SXM at 7:54 am. Talk about efficient!

SXM here we come! So very excited! I cannot wait to go to the airport Saturday!

d fish--Great! Glad you had no problems. Enjoy!