Travel Planning
This week, I’m going to talk a little about travel planning.
One of our house mottos is that “Planning is Hot”. It’s one of my favourite things to do – and the challenge is to know when to nail down each segment of details. In my first blog, I talked about how we’ve planned to do almost all the big trips prior to our turning 70. That means that the “master bucket list” of trips or “what we want to see between now and Dead” was put together years ago. Then we’ve timed which year we want to do what, and so on. It also ensures that we have plenty to look forward to all year round and lots to discuss. It also gives rise to the collection of travel spreadsheets I put together to keep track of bookings and costs.
The first big trip we took (beyond Caribbean cruises and our favourite all-inclusive in Antigua) in our 60’s was in 2024 when we went to Hawaii, and then on a cruise from the Big Island to Vancouver. The first piece of planning was finding the cruise. That got booked in December 2022 for the trip in April of 2024. That piece of advance planning ensured we got the stateroom we wanted – always an aft-facing balcony in Celebrity Concierge class. (if we’re cruising with Celebrity) Before we choose a stateroom, I check the deck plans to make sure the room isn’t located under a pool, restaurant, or bar, to avoid potential noise issues.
Then we decided how long to stay in Honolulu, and I booked the hotel in May of 2023, although I switched it in the Winter of 2024 when we decided we didn’t want to stay on Waikiki Beach. (those hotels are usually at least a 10 minute walk from the beach) We then chose a new hotel downtown which we ended up loving, so that was a good last-minute-for-us decision.
https://www.marriott.com/en-us/hotels/hnlac-ac-hotel-honolulu/photos/
Flights for that trip were booked in September of 2023, 7 months before the trip. They were also booked through the cruiseline, to get competitive pricing, but the payment for the flights doesn’t happen until the balance of the cruise bill is due, about 2 months before the trip. We really care where we sit on a plane (although I’m finding many others do not), so we do tend to book earlier than others.
Here's some pics from the Hawaii trip:
In order, these are:
The Rainbow Waterfall in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park
2 overviews of Honolulu
Halona Beach Cove(the beach used in the film From Here to Eternity)
The Statue in Honolulu of King Kamehameha (for us Hawaii 5-0 fans)
How do we plan trips that involve concert performances? We tend to travel a lot to see live music, and that planning is really fun. Whenever we learn of a performance we want to see, we check for other performances during the same few days, and then if the tickets are not yet on sale, I put the onsale date into my calendar. Then I immediately book the hotel – if we can’t get tickets, I can always cancel that later. Once the tickets are purchased, I start booking restaurant reservations, especially for concert nights. In New York, we even make reservations at a favourite bar for after concerts, just in case.
Another tip for hotel booking – even though we book hotels way in advance, I go back about 2 weeks before the trip to see if the room price is lower. I just did that last week for a trip next week and locked in another rate that would save us $170 for a 3-night stay. Then I cancelled the original reservation. I just checked again today (4 days before check in) and our room category is sold out – so I got the best price I could. I also rely to some extent on Trip Advisor reviews when choosing a hotel in an area where we haven’t stayed before. However, I do check the reviews to make sure that the issues reviewers find important are things that matter to me.
I hope these tips are helpful – for us, it’s all part of the fun of travel! This month we started discussing 2028 trips, to keep the excitement going.
I’m happy to help you with your planning!
Happy Travels!