After the press conference of November 3, more holidays were booked to Curaçao. But today the news came that the island is dealing with a record number of infections. Yesterday it concerned 51 cases. 315 active infections have now been registered on Curaçao.
Are the Dutch who are now in the Caribbean worried? RTL News spoke to two holidaymakers to gauge the mood on the island. The 33-year-old Remco from Elderveld decided with his wife to book a holiday to Curaçao the day after the press conference.
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“My best friend lives here, so this has been planned for a while”, Remco explains. “We watched the press conference that Tuesday, then I looked at my wife and we decided to go together.”
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What exactly did Rutte say on 3 November?
“In line with the advice ‘stay at home as much as possible’, we are also adapting the foreign travel advice today. The world map is already almost completely orange or red. So traveling is a risk this winter anyway.
And we don’t want people who are now going on holiday abroad to take the virus back home. The urgent advice therefore becomes: do not travel abroad until mid-January, unless it is really necessary.
We do not treat the Caribbean part of the Kingdom as foreign. There, a negative travel advice only applies if an island is on orange. “
Source: Central government
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Remco hesitated for a while. “But in the end the island is still code yellow. We also stay at a friend’s house, don’t go out too much and don’t seek out the big crowd.”
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He is, however, surprised about the conditions on the island. “The Netherlands and Curaçao are two different worlds. In the Netherlands, all rules are strictly observed, here it is not all that strict. I understand it, because the climate is different here of course.”
Curaçao has been subject to a curfew since September 14, which applies at night from 0.00 to 04.30. The restaurants may remain open until 11 p.m. “You will still see parties that move to the beach afterwards, but the police will eventually end them,” says Remco.
Ticket already booked
Arjen (61) from Oegstgeest also chose to travel to the island. He had already booked his ticket at the end of October, but did not think about canceling his holiday.
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“No, I did not have any doubts”, says Arjen. “I was not afraid that I had to cancel the holiday, but that may also be my nature. I feel just as safe here as in the Netherlands. There is no difference.”
Still, he sees advantages of life on the island. “Here everything takes place outside, you are constantly in the open air. That is a lot safer. The island is large and you have relatively few people per square meter.”
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As an independent entrepreneur, Arjen works in the morning. He enjoys his vacation the rest of the day. “In the Netherlands you work at home in gloomy weather, so this is a great place to flee. I can also work fine here in the morning to enjoy the island afterwards.”
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