GTKY Tuesday Vacations

[waverly]

Since we were talking about vacations on MM, I have vacations on the mind.

1. What vacations do you have planned this fall/ winter?

2. Why did you choose that vacation?

3. If you don't have anything planned, then recommend a place that isn't usually recommended.  

[186momx]

No vacations planned. I did just get DD's gymnastic meet schedule and it looks like we have a few meets that depending on start time we will be staying overnight but we won't know that until the week of the meet.

I am planning a couple day trips over to the coast. The Oregon Coast is amazing during the fall. Wind isn't crazy and it is usually warm 60s. It is probably my favorite time to go.

[twinmomma]

We actually have a trip planned!

DH and I are going to my resort where I host my annual trip every year over Thanksgiving for a belated honeymoon. Work is paying for it as a thank you bonus, otherwise it would not be in our budget this year to do such a fancy place. We don't have the kids for the holiday this year, so it seemed like a great way to spend the long weekend.

We wanted to go to Scotland for Christmas, but that is just not in the cards this year. We'll plan another time to go visit SIL's crew over there when flights aren't so expensive and travel isn't so crazy.

[mae0111]

No real vacations planned - too many activities. We will visit MIL at Thanksgiving, but that's not really a vacation.

DH and I are trying to find a long weekend to spend at our beach house together. Even in the off season, there's stuff to do, especially if the weather is decent. I hope it's an actual relaxing long weekend and not a "get stuff done around the house and grab a nice dinner once or twice" type of weekend.

[rere]

So we took the kids to Gatlinburg, Smoky Mountains a couple of months ago. We did all the stuff they wanted to do which was pricey. So we were talking about Dh and I going again in October and doing what we want which is basically stay in the park and go to some nice dinners or picnic.

Then Ds perks up, I've never been in the fall. Then Dd says, I can come. So we booked the weekend for them and tagged on a few days just for us. Turns out that is Dds fall break. So our trip turned into a family trip and now Ds wants us to meet his girlfriend so she's coming. Oh well, at least they still like to hang out with us.

[librarychica]

1. Long weekend over on the Florida gulf coast.

2. It’s the slow season and we have a family place we can use over there. October and November are my favorites for the beach

If I could go anywhere I think I’d want to go to New England though, maybe Maine. I love NE in the fall/winter.

I’ll be following along here. H and I have a big anniversary coming up this winter. Maybe I’ll get some ideas.

[mommyatty]

DD, her bff, her bff’s mom, and I are trying to plan a girls trip. Thinking New York, Boston, or Chicago. We both travel a ton and have lots of miles saved up. We would like to do a long weekend.

I am seriously thinking of a trip to the Oregon coast to visit some friends who moved last year to Portland. We miss them.

[waverly]

We are doing a long weekend in NYC. We used to live there a very long time ago now.

Nothing else planned, but if DH decided to keep the lake house, he wants to spend more time there, so I could see us going a few times in Nov/ Dec when soccer season is over with.

[sdlaura]

I love planning vacations. Almost as much as I love taking them. One reason we have 6 people living in the same house we bought pre-kids is so we have $ for vacations. You're going to be sorry you asked me this question because I am going to write too much

Our next one is Hawaii (Ko Olina area of Oahu, rescheduled from Maui) for my kids' fall break the last week of October. This is DD's last year of elementary school, so her last fall break. It's such an awesome inexpensive/not crowded time to travel. Another family may join us for that.

Last year for New Years we went out to the desert near here (Palm Springs area) for a couple nights with friends, and likely will again. The kids thought having a party in a hotel room at 9 pm for East coast NYE was amazing.

We usually go on a long weekend trip to some nearby snowy mountains with the same friends for President's Day weekend since the kids have a 4-day weekend. Also my parents are at their condo here in February, so I don't have to bring the toddler. I sent our friends some ideas for this year, but we'll see if it happens. One of the families is hosting their daughter's bat mitzvah in June, so they're trying to save money, and the other family is going to Park City for spring break at the end of March, so they may just wait for that to ski and snowboard. So that's TBD. DD is already asking me when we can snowboard this year, so we may just go as our family if the friends aren't on board (no pun intended...).

The kids' spring break is two weeks at the end of March/early April. We may go to Park City or may go back to the East coast to see family, since we don't do that enough. Usually the kids do camps one of the weeks while we work, and we travel the other week.

End of April I'm trying to plan a girls' trip. We're having trouble finding good dates. We like to go Wed or Thurs-Saturday since we all have young kids and it's easier for our husbands to have them alone on weekdays when they have school/daycare. But we also all work FT and have work meetings we can't miss. I may have a work meeting on a Friday in Northern CA/close enough to wine country to combine that with the girls' trip.

In the summer we usually meet friends for July 4th week in the Pacific Northwest. We're looking at Suncadia near Seattle this year. We also plan to spend a week at a family resort in Vermont that my parents offered to pay for, for their 50th wedding anniversary. So with my parents and my sister's family. The resort doesn't open reservations till November after prior families have a chance to pick their weeks. DH and I will also go somewhere for a few nights again while my parents watch our little two and the older two go to sleepaway camp.

Next winter break (2024-2025) we plan to do our first family international trip (besides Canada and Mexico). We'd like to go to New Zealand and Australia for like 2-3 weeks (the kids have off school forever then, and our jobs slow down a bit over the holidays, plus it will be summer there). I'm having sticker shock at the flight prices though. Flying six people round trip may bankrupt me. So I have to see.

[supertrooper1]

sdlaura, I've never been to Suncadia, but that's the area we go many times a year for riding. Not much in the area, but a nice getaway near Seattle. The 90's tv show Northern Exposure was shot in that area, so if you were a fan of the show, it's cool to eat at The Brick.

We don't have anything officially planned other than a 4 day weekend this weekend to our riding spot in Eastern Washington. I have 90 hours of vacation I need to use by the end of the year so I'm sure we'll be taking a lot of long weekends. We have discussed going to Antigua in February with a Costco deal.

[k3am]

1. We're going to Cabo to an AI for October break. We've actually never taken a vacation of this magnitude as a family before, so fingers crossed.

2. We decided we don't have planning in us. It's all booked through Costco. Based on the season and distance we were willing to travel, it was Cabo or Maui. I wanted Maui, but DH won the argument. We paid for it the day before the Maui fires, so I guess the universe was telling me it was a good decision. I am not convinced the kids will love it - DH wants to do nothing but sit by the pool and relax, our kids are not the relaxing types. Hopefully the kids club is enough for them.

[mommyatty]

k3am- I am vacation soul mates with your DH. That’s my dream vacation. Or a cruise where I can lie by a pool with alcohol and a book while my family goes and does anything other than expect me to plan and execute something with/for them.

[dglvrk2]

1. What vacations do you have planned this fall/ winter?

2. Why did you choose that vacation?

3. If you don't have anything planned, then recommend a place that isn't usually recommended.

1. No real vacations planned for the near future. We will go - and by "go" I mean a 12+ hour drive - to the PNW to visit my in-laws at Christmas. The last few visits with them have been...a lot. DD1 and FIL clash. I feel like I'm generally playing referee when I'm on these trips. H is different around his parents too. So, unless there's unusually good weather and attitudes, this may be more of a "trip" than a vacation.

2. We are doing this because my in-laws are aging and spending Christmas with them is important to me and H, no matter how much time and diplomacy it takes!

3. La Cruz dе Huаnасаxtlе has been our favorite family vacation spot to date. It's a little town about one hour north of Puerto Vallarta. You can get to a few larger towns easily. This is a very walkable town with an extremely clean beach. PM me any time you'd like more info

[traveltheworld]

I live for vacations!

We are heading to Greece on Monday. Then we usually ski for the first week of January. In March we'll head to Vegas and the Grand Canyon; and then Italy in May.

I try to do at least one international plus one longish domestic vacation a year. It's a priority for me, so we give up other luxuries for it (e.g. Both of our cars are 10+ years old).

[k3am]

Sept 19, 2023 21:23:11 GMT -5 mommyatty said:

k3am - I am vacation soul mates with your DH. That’s my dream vacation. Or a cruise where I can lie by a pool with alcohol and a book while my family goes and does anything other than expect me to plan and execute something with/for them.

I have a little bit of this in me, but honestly, I get antsy too. My dream is somewhere that I can go explore for a few hours, then relax by the pool for a few hours. But also in an ideal world, while I'm exploring, I don't want to have to deal with people or lines, so yeaaaaaah. It's probably best I relax on a beach. 

[k3am]

traveltheworld, I am happy to see that your board name is appropriate.

[librarychica]

Sept 20, 2023 10:30:14 GMT -5 k3am said:

Sept 19, 2023 21:23:11 GMT -5 mommyatty said:

k3am - I am vacation soul mates with your DH. That’s my dream vacation. Or a cruise where I can lie by a pool with alcohol and a book while my family goes and does anything other than expect me to plan and execute something with/for them.

I have a little bit of this in me, but honestly, I get antsy too. My dream is somewhere that I can go explore for a few hours, then relax by the pool for a few hours. But also in an ideal world, while I'm exploring, I don't want to have to deal with people or lines, so yeaaaaaah. It's probably best I relax on a beach. 

This is a point of disagreement in my marriage — I like to do things on vacations. Hike, go to museums, kayaking is my especial favorite. I get antsy after a couple hours of lazing. H wants to lay somewhere scenic and have drinks brought to him. I am the family planner though and we usually have our kids with us so we have never managed this.

For our anniversary I am looking for a hotel or resort where we can lay around for 3 days. I figure he deserves it.

I do like to travel but I am also pretty happy to keep the travel close to home. There’s so much to do and see within a few hours drive.

[sdlaura]

traveltheworld we took the kids to the Grand Canyon last March and had a great time! It was still snowy, which the kids loved, but sunny and relatively comfortable. I recommend making a reservation for lunch at the El Tovar Lodge - they gave us the private Teddy Roosevelt dining room and it was so cool. It was too snowy to go far down the trails without crampons, but if you take the rim trail a bit from the visitors center, the views are beautiful and it's much less crowded.

[sdlaura]

k3am , I'm exactly the same in terms of wanting some of both. I really love to read a book by the pool, but then the next day I want to go on a hike. My kids are not at the age where I can do much relaxing if I'm with them, so our family vacations are more active.

I'm not a big fan of going to museums or historic churches or whatever crowded historic site. I think I did too much of that when I lived in Europe in college. Now when we travel we try to go to smaller towns or rural areas and hike and eat and drink or go to the beach. 

librarychica DH and I have ruled out kayaking because somehow whenever we took out a 2-person kayak we argued over who was doing more work or steering wrong or whatever Maybe we just needed to do single person ones.

[waverly]

Our classic vacation mixes both sightseeing and relaxation. When the kids were little, we rented a house with a pool. Then we got a kitchen instead of having to take them out to eat since that was super annoying with little kids. We did the beach in the morning and the pool in the afternoon for 2-3 days, and then the other 2-3 days were sightseeing kid friendly attractions (zoos, botanical gardens, children's museums).

They are older now, so we don't need the entertainment of the beach/ pool/ children museum anymore. For relaxation time, they enjoyed scrambling up and down the mountains/ hills in New Mexico, and we had 1-2 days where we went somewhere local to get out and the rest of the time was relaxing but most of the rest of the time was more active- hiking, non kid friendly museums, restaurants, biking.

We are not really resort people. We like a little more freedom, rental car, less crowds, kitchen to cook or just store some simple food.

[librarychica]

sdlaura, I own a tandem and use it with the kids but H and I absolutely prefer to two singles. Tandems are a great teaching tool but I think it’s best if they have a “director” in the rear. Generally you’d want the more experience and/or stronger person in the back, the rear paddler does the bulk of the steering, the front paddler sets the pace. I feel like two inexperienced paddlers in a tandem is a recipe for bickering. My brother (who evidently has forgotten all the paddling we did as children) and tween about strangled one another.

The biggest family meltdown we ever had was in a canoe. Evidently the skills didn’t transfer, lol.

[sdlaura]

librarychica I think our issue is that we both think we're the person who is the "director"/more experienced paddler/stronger person and that causes problems

[186momx]

sdlaura,2 person boats are divorce boats in my world. They work fine if you are hauling around a kid but two adults paddling one boat that doesn't work. DH and I can't even raft on the same side of the boat together. When we went a couple years ago after lunch the guide put us ladies on the opposite side of the boat from our husbands.

I've never done an airbnb. Can you tell me a little about it. I'm looking at maybe doing that instead of hotels for a couple of DD's meets as hotel prices are $$$ for a one bed, room and sharing with DD is not great.

[sdlaura]

186momx we've rented VRBOs/AirBNBs for decades now. Even pre kids sometimes it's nice to stay someplace that's not a hotel. I think the key is to read reviews, make sure you're aware of the all-in price and cancellation policy, and any policies for what you need to do before you check out (often it's just empty the trash/load the dishwasher and start it, but sometimes can be more extensive). Pretty much everything you need to know should be on the page/site - just make sure you read it thoroughly.

[campermom]

1. What vacations do you have planned this fall/ winter?

Boyfriend has free companion flights this winter so we are going to Big Sky for a long weekend when I don’t have the kids.

2. Why did you choose that vacation?
We planned to go to a beach since the last beach vacation was ruined-that’s when I found out about ExH being in my texts. But he sat down w me last night and said-we could do that anytime of the year. Ski season is short. Where I live the skiing isn’t always great. He knows it’s one of my passions, and I wasn’t able to when I was married until the end. He learned how/I taught him- and now he really enjoys it. He did some research on where would be the best place to go and this is where he landed!

[186momx]

sdlaura, I'm thinking I might see if another family wants to join us and we split the bill. I was looking at a 2 bedroom sleeps 6 house in the town that DD has her first away meet in and for the two nights it would be with fees $205. That is sure cheaper than the hotel near the gym which was $125 a night plus taxes. It looks like we will have to do overnights for 4 out of the 8 meets unless we get luck and have the noon session time which never seems to happen.

[mommyatty]

186momx, check the fees. And Vrbo etc make it extremely hard to do that until you’ve already reserved the property. For example, they all have a cleaning fee. It’s probably around $100. I’ve found that VRBO is cheaper than hotels if we would need multiple rooms and beds. But if it’s just one room, a hotel is almost always cheaper.

[k3am]

186momx , Airbnb fees almost always make it cheaper to get a hotel for smaller parties lately. They now have "more transparent" pricing, but there are STILL fees you can't see until you say you're ready to book. It's frustrating. And then you have to clean the place before you leave, despite paying a cleaning fee.

Most of them rent on multiple platforms too, so if you see one you like on Airbnb, you can likely also find them on VRBO, a local vacation rental place, etc. The differences in pricing can be wild.

We tend to rent houses for trips with friends - so 2-3 families. Our last trip we were able to get two two-bedroom hotel rooms for cheaper than we could find a 4 bedroom airbnb.

ETA: we have also had Airbnb cancel our stays for stupid reasons - because they didn't want people checking in on a Tuesday, because they wanted someone who would do 5 nights instead of 4, etc. even though NONE of these things were listed as a requirement on their pages. Thankfully all but one of these times we were able to rebook somewhere else. One time they cancelled on because of a toilet leak, and our entire vacation had to be cancelled.. thankfully we were driving, so we weren't out any money. But if we'd been at a hotel, they'd have just moved us to another room or found us suitable accommodations elsewhere. 

[sdlaura]

These sites got a lot of flak for not showing all fees up front so now you can click a button when searching to show all taxes and fees up front.

[k3am]

sdlaura, but not taxes. Or sometimes not taxes - sometimes taxes are part of the price, sometimes they're an additional fee you can't see until you reserve. A couple that I pulled up don't even reference taxes. Weirdly enough, none of the ones I pulled up today had a cleaning fee... I wonder if Airbnb finally said enough is enough, the cleaning fee is part of the cost of owning a STR?