Paris/COVID: The trip that almost wasn’t (4)
Doubly COVID negative, we were able to board our flight and are now safely back in Paris, but what a gruelling experience…
In case this can help other travelers from NY state to Paris (or make you laugh), my family and I have personally tried three of the testing options recommended by the NYC French consulate:
A — The French gynecologist who meets you in a parking lot in Mount Kisco, NY
B — A Lab in Edison, NJ where he sends the sample or where you can go directly to be tested
C — Another French doctor in a health clinic in Larchmont, NY
And the ONLY winner was …. C: Dr. Philip Heinegg, 1890 Palmer Avenue, Suite 304, Larchmont, NY, 914–834–9606, info@larchmontmd.com, Monday-Friday 8am-3pm.
We made an appointment, it wasn’t crowded, they didn’t bullshit us, the results really arrived by email in a few hours AND it was free with a NY ID tahnks to the COVID fund. Apparently they used a lab nearby that delivered results in a matter of hours. BUT!!! We were among the last people to benefit from this and the address has been removed from the French consulate website…BECAUSE the lab they used can no longer guarantee a delivery time for the results, due to high demand (more about this below).
Still, do not bother with A and B, unless you have no other choice.
A is a lovely man who will charge you $60 per person to take the sample and send it to the lab, but trash your carefully typed paperwork so that the lab can’t read it and will not be able to contact you. He will also misinform you about the 72 hour time limit: “It’s fine to take the sample on Friday evening for a Tuesday evening departure!” (Not) AND not give you a receipt.
B will give you different information every time you call, will tell you they are not open on Saturday (they are), that the date of the sample will not be on the email with the results so you can have the test on Friday for a Tuesday departure (not). B will ignore the email address you gave them directly and use the illegible version hand copied in chicken scratch by A so that the results bounce back to them, meaning that you don’t get the results of your Friday test until Monday afternoon and only after many tense phone calls. Oh, and they will charge you $130 per person for this “service” which will be rejected outright by Air France. AND when B was first recommended by the consulate, they were charging $100 per test. A few days later they had upped the price by 30%, what nerve.
Fortunately we played it safe and scheduled our second test, with C,on Monday morning. We got the results Monday afternoon, which fell within the 72 hr limit. They were accepted by Air France and enabled us to fly.
So what would have happened if we had trusted A and B and shown up at the airport with results from a sample taken outside the 72 hr limit? The AF agent we spoke to said they have fail safe options: a testing center in Brooklyn and one in Queens where you can rush with your baggage at the last minute by cab and IF you are COVID negative, possibly arrive back to JFK in time for your flight or get on a later one. Fine, but can you imagine the stress? And why do they keep this information secret?
Maybe everyone is keeping their particular partners confidential because many labs are now swamped with testing for school reopenings and even the fastest ones can no longer get the job done quickly… For info, when we called C’s office to thank them for saving our butts, they said that they are no longer on the consulate list because they no longer have a reliable fast lab. We gave them the Brooklyn and Queens addresses we got from Air France, hoping that might help, because they have people coming all the way from Ohio and Pennsylvania to whom they have to explain all this, cancel their appointments, or use the expensive lab in NJ… Imagine the dialog!
Anyway, we are COVID neg, showed our results from C at the airport, filled out our required statements, got our temperature taken on both sides, wore masks, had a smooth flight, and made it back to Paris. We didn’t have to getanother test at CDG.
We did it! But it was a really close call.
For more precise names and addresses, PM me.
To be continued!
Aliss
Originally published at http://thankyouparis.wordpress.com on August 26, 2020.