What Are Your Travel Plans In 2022?
The City of New Orleans finally lifted its mask mandate following the completion of Mardi Gras. Later this month, they will be removing the vaccine mandates. It almost makes me feel like we are getting back to normal (how many times have I thought this over the past two years?).
Hopefully, this is the one…
Most people in the United States now live in areas where those who are healthy do not need to wear masks indoors, according to new US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance -- a sweeping change from what earlier Covid-19 metrics recommended.
Masks are not needed on cruise ships, Canada, the UK, France, and Italy just relaxed their Covid mandates, Iceland removed all restrictions. There has been a sharp increase in flights being booked as the restriction are eased.
Here at Naughty Events, we just had our biggest week in over two years. It was one of our biggest weeks in history. It kind of caught us off guard because most of our staff was out and about enjoying the festivities, parades, and Mardi Gras Balls as Fat Tuesday came and went, and when we finally got back to the office, we had a lot of work to catch up on.
Just this past week alone, we booked 48 Naughty N’awlins packages and our newly launched Naughty Vegas sold 52 packages (that is over 25% of the entire hotel in just one week). That is well over 100 new bookings when you count in our Naughty Beach event which sold 6 more packages this week.
Over the past two years, we had many weeks where we didn’t sell one event as the world went into shut down. In fact, we had weeks with minus 100 bookings as people canceled their travel plans and that was the right thing to do.
Through this entire process, we have always looked at the numbers and followed the science and trends. It has been very hard to figure out how to proceed and we really felt bad for so many friends that owned bars, restaurants, and other businesses that had to make similar decisions.
New Orleans is down to some of its lowest number of infections and hospitalizations since all of this started. I was worried that Mardi Gras would create another spike, but it seems like Omicron swept through NOLA in January and most of the people who hadn’t caught it, finally did.
The good news was that this strain wasn’t nearly as deadly as previous strains. The hospitals did not get impacted like other spikes. That was really good news.
As the numbers look good and the mandates and restrictions are soon going away, I hope this is the last blog I write on this subject. I am finally planning things that are almost a year out.
I am looking at several big trips this year. I will be heading back to New Orleans in 2 weeks, I am coming back again for Jazz Fest. I am about to book the Desire Lisbon-Ibiza Cruise, heading to Vegas in June, Naughty N’awlins in July, then I’m heading west in my RV to check out 4 or 5 beautiful national parks before heading into Burning Man.
I’ll be in Vegas in early October, then back to New Orleans for Halloween and then Engulf (our regional Burning Man festival), then off to Naughty Cancun (Temptation), and then onto the Dominican Republic to see the two new Temptation Resorts. To Indianapolis for Thanksgiving, I’m still unclear on where I’ll spend Christmas or New Year’s Eve. Maybe Zipolite and then Rio de Janeiro for the Desire Cruise to South America. I mean, I have always wanted to go to both Rio and Buenos Aires.
Probably.
I have a full schedule of places to see this year, and I am sure I’m going to add in a few more places once I see the Saints schedule.
Can we all just go back to the way it was soon?
I am.
I am ready for some normal in my life.
See you at a Naughty Event soon…
— Bob
