Anyone got any travel planned?

[kcowan]

Moon's Puerto Vallarta.

We have used Rick Steves for Europe

PV is pretty dynamic with lots of changes in dining choices and hotels/condos. Xitomate has closed. De Santos has moved. Teatro Limon has relocated. Beck's Best is the most current source.

For Italy, Steves does not cover the south. We had to get Fodors on our last trip to Siciliy.

 

[NW-Bound]

Good for you! I love Maui. This spur of the moment trip was brought to you by ER.

Thanks. Most of our travel has been this way, even before we retired. My wife would surf the Web and called out to me a good airfare that she found, and I would say "Why not?".

So, we will have been to each island twice, except for Kauai where we have visited only once. I have always wanted to return to Maui, and this worked out just right. The flight will be non-stop too, from our home airport.

Before we happened to spot the timeshare in Maui opening up just two weeks in advance, we saw some units available in New Mexico, and thought about booking one just to use the timeshare credit before it expires. But I was not thrilled about it, as the environment would not be too different than at my 2nd home in the high country.

 

[Theseus]

Punta Cana winter weather getaway in February is already bought and paid for, and now I'm starting to put together a plan for Europe in August/September. DW and I traveled there for 2 weeks for our honeymoon, and enjoyed it enough to vow we'd do a trip like that every 5 years. That was 23 frugal years ago and we have only had one trip since that was close to that, time to live it up a little.

 

[bltkmt]

Heading to Cancun with DW and two sons (20 and 17) for a week starting December 24th. This will be our 4th visit as a family - has become a nice family trip destination. We did the Club Med there twice and have done the Fiesta Americana Condesa twice.

 

[tulak]

Headed to Europe for a week to visit family. This the longest stretch (4 years) I haven't been back since I was a teenager. Should be a lot of fun.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Heading to Cancun with DW and two sons (20 and 17) for a week starting December 24th. This will be our 4th visit as a family - has become a nice family trip destination. We did the Club Med there twice and have done the Fiesta Americana Condesa twice.

This is my dream Christmas--we took kids to Cozumel two or three times when they were a little younger and have wonderful memories as I know you must! Maybe will have to consider an extended family trip for next Christmas....

 

[ElizabethT]

2016 Big Rocks

Just booked our pre-trip accommodations for a dream-trip to Europe this coming spring.

We start with a full week in Amsterdam on our own, during which we'll see all the sights in Amsterdam, visit the Tulip Festival, day trip to Delft and Haarlem, and take a bicycle tour of the countryside. We then join up with our tour group for a five week river cruise that starts in Amsterdam, then onto Germany, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria and finally Romania.

This has been on our bucket list for years!

Also booked for 2016 is a fall tour to Portugal and Spain, with a day trip by ferry to Morocco. The tour is three weeks in all, ending in Barcelona, after which we'll stay on another week to enjoy Barcelona on our own before flying home.

Currently this mix of on-our-own and organized touring is working well for us. It gives us just enough of what we appreciate about both forms of travel without overwhelming us with what we don't. (Love the freedom of on-our-own travel, but not necessarily the work involved to do so. Love the fact that tour groups take care of all the details, but also miss the freedom we give up as a result.)

 

[Bigdawg]

Lots of little ones

Like usual, many smaller trips for now. This weekend will be in Delaware for daughter's volleyball tourney (3rd of 4 for this year). Two nights in an Embassy Suites. Racking up those Hilton Honors points. Sunday I get on a plane for Southern Cal-work/pleasure combo trip. Two full days of work and two half days for 6 days in So Cal? I'll take that any day. More Hilton Honors points on the company dime. Thanksgiving up in PA. 4 hour drive. Two nights in the SIL's guest room. One last volleyball tourney at West Chester, PA-two more nights in a Hilton Property. Christmas for a week in VT at the in laws. Skiing, snowmobiling and sledding.

2016-4 spring volleyball tourney's around the NE. Probably a few work trips out to the west coast. Fall of 2016-Hawaii 11 day cruise with the extended family. Talking about this one for years.

FYI we live on the beach on Chesapeake Bay so May-Sept is like being on vacation almost everyday interrupted by a few hours of work 9 days out of 14. Oh well.

 

[Bamaman]

Just booked our pre-trip accommodations for a dream-trip to Europe this coming spring.

We start with a full week in Amsterdam on our own, during which we'll see all the sights in Amsterdam, visit the Tulip Festival, day trip to Delft and Haarlem, and take a bicycle tour of the countryside. We then join up with our tour group for a five week river cruise that starts in Amsterdam, then onto Germany, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria and finally Romania.

This has been on our bucket list for years!

Also booked for 2016 is a fall tour to Portugal and Spain, with a day trip by ferry to Morocco. The tour is three weeks in all, ending in Barcelona, after which we'll stay on another week to enjoy Barcelona on our own before flying home.

Currently this mix of on-our-own and organized touring is working well for us. It gives us just enough of what we appreciate about both forms of travel without overwhelming us with what we don't. (Love the freedom of on-our-own travel, but not necessarily the work involved to do so. Love the fact that tour groups take care of all the details, but also miss the freedom we give up as a result.)

Your 5 week river cruise trip should be absolutely magnificent. We so far have limited ourselves to ocean cruises due to the cost. We could go for 5 weeks on the Mediterranean or Scandinavian cruise for the price of a Tauck River Cruise for a week. Viking's less expensive, but they start at 2x the cost per week of an ocean cruise. We just returned 9/10 from Scandanavia cruise, and it was great.

We're still young enough to plan and execute a ground tour of our own--without an organized tour. Unfortunately finding travel partners is difficult when we've been just about everywhere in Europe already.

 

[ElizabethT]

Your 5 week river cruise trip should be absolutely magnificent. We so far have limited ourselves to ocean cruises due to the cost. We could go for 5 weeks on the Mediterranean or Scandinavian cruise for the price of a Tauck River Cruise for a week. Viking's less expensive, but they start at 2x the cost per week of an ocean cruise. We just returned 9/10 from Scandanavia cruise, and it was great.

We're still young enough to plan and execute a ground tour of our own--without an organized tour. Unfortunately finding travel partners is difficult when we've been just about everywhere in Europe already.

We are very excited about the river cruise, particularly since, as you've noted, the cost is such it's unlikely we'll be doing another in the near future.

We did the Baltics cruise in 2010 (what I assume your Scandinavia cruise was?) and loved it. We used Rick Steves 'Scandinavia' book in every port but St Petersburg to do on-our-own touring. Loved the scenic sail ins to Oslo, Stockholm and St Petersburg. So much so I can see doing a repeat of this cruise, something we rarely do.

We go back and forth on the organized tours, but they do allow us to cover a lot of ground, and the volume of historic and cultural information provided is often hard to obtain otherwise. China, as an example, was superb as a tour.

Because I plan out our annual multi month RV trips, down to very small details, I think I see touring abroad as a way to sometimes vacation from vacationing.

 

[brett]

Looks like we just decided. Cannot leave the frozen north until Feb 11 so seven/eight weeks in Vietnam, via Cambodia. This should be perfect given the north/south weather variations.

Siem Reap for a few days then head to HCMC and the south for beaches and warm sunny days. We need to do these bucket list items now while we can still tolerate longer flights and have the health and desire required for independent travel.

 

[longranger]

We are flying to the Phillipines on new years eve. Will stay 2 weeks mostly beach hopping. El nido, Puerto Princessa, Borocay etc.. Even though my DW of 27 years is from Manilla this is the first trip for us to her home country.

 

[martyp]

I'm flying to Bangkok in February. I couldn't resist the $650 round trip air fare from San Francisco. I will celebrate my 60th birthday there.

 

[Bamaman]

We're flying into Rome in April and staying 4 days. Then we're taking a 12 day Celebrity cruise to Malta, a number of Grecian islands, Turkey and back to Venice. We've been on the same class of Celebrity ship before and really liked it.

 

[brett]

Just added Cambodia to our Vietnam itinerary...plus another two weeks or so. We want to fly return to Hong Kong and do regionals from there. We can get a return ticket with only a $50 change fee in case we extend our trip by a little.

 

[FUEGO]

Just booked a cruise from Charleston to the Bahamas for 5 nights for January 2016. The priced dropped for a short period and we jumped on it since it's a local departure port for us and the price was great. $313 per person including tax, and the 3rd and 4th passengers were actually $80 cheaper at $233 per person.

I'll be in one cabin with DW and our 3 kids are in another room with my mom (who graciously paid her own passage in spite of being a nanny for us on this cruise ).

The destinations aren't exciting (our 5th or 6th visit to Nassau, for example) but escaping the cold in January will be a nice diversion.

Now I'm hoping to find another good cruise deal so that I can book a getaway just for me and the DW.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Though we've moved office since the last cruise, your parking space is still available, Fuego.

I'm booking a trip for us to England for April, before the American Airlines mile redemption changes from 20k to 30k. Delighted that I figured out how to book into London and out of Dublin to avoid the $$$ departure tax at LHR. Going to couchsurf with friends around the country for a couple of weeks.

 

[FUEGO]

Though we've moved office since the last cruise, your parking space is still available, Fuego.

Thanks.

I was going to ask you about that. We're getting to Charleston on a Wednesday and the cruise returns on a Monday. I'll get in touch through facebook once we know what we're doing.

 

[jfn111]

Just booked two weeks in Florida. Renting a house for DW, myself, DD, DSIL, and Grandson.
Should be interesting.

 

[braumeister]

Getting ready for a trip to Mordor with a few friends to return a piece of jewelry.
Anything I should watch out for?

 

[youbet]

We managed to snag a camping site in Everglades National Park for ten days in February. Has anyone done this? Any clues or suggestions?

We understand we'll need a break in the weather to get out of northern Illinois pulling our camper. (No leaving in a blizzard!) And we'll have to de-winterize the camper once we get into the sunny south. I think we understand those logistics. But what about things to do in Everglades National Park? And what about other nearby attractions in southern Florida?

We've never done the "winter in Florida" thing before.

 

[Alan]

Getting ready for a trip to Mordor with a few friends to return a piece of jewelry.
Anything I should watch out for?

Ringroads!

 

[audreyh1]

Getting ready for a trip to Mordor with a few friends to return a piece of jewelry.
Anything I should watch out for?

Huge ugly hairy dirty bare feet!

 

[Teacher Terry]

WE recently returned from a 3 week trip. we spent 4 days in Boston & then hopped a royal Caribbean cruise ship for 2 weeks, then Tampa for 2 days. Boston was awesome & we easily could have spent more time there. The ship had so much to do with excellent entertainment. Even on sea days no way do you get bored.

 

[mh]

Getting ready for a trip to Mordor with a few friends to return a piece of jewelry.

Anything I should watch out for?

Do yourself a favor and book the Eagles round trip instead of just the return leg.


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