The toughest part about our move across country 6 months ago is missing our friends and family. Energi Gal and I are so looking forward to our wedding in 4 months for a couple of reasons. First, we’ve been engaged now for 18 months, so at this point, we are just itching to get married. Second, it gives us the opportunity to go back home and see those friends and family.
When you can only see them a couple of times a year, you really appreciate it. This is why we took the opportunity a year ago to plan a vacation with some friends on a Caribbean island in November. Unfortunately, with my starting a new job, vacation time is at a premium. It’s difficult to fit in the wedding, the honeymoon, and this week with friends. The cost of all of these activities doesn’t make it any easier.
There are several timing, cost, and preferences issues we had to overcome. First, we couldn’t have our honeymoon in the middle of nowhere. Energi Gal wanted Fiji, but that wasn’t near the budget. I wanted to stick with the original plan of going to Napa, but it lost it’s caché since it’s less than an hour drive from where we live now. We looked into Cabo San Lucas and that was a finalist. Second, when are we going to go? With a wedding in July and this trip in November, what’s the right time to go? When we lived in Boston, I took winter vacations as an opportunity to escape the cold for a week. That doesn’t apply when you are taking a vacation in July. We were thinking that early September might be an appropriate time, but three weeks of vacation in 4 months is a little much. Lastly we couldn’t combine the honeymoon with the trip with friends, neither of us thought that was appropriate.
Finally we came across a solution that was almost too perfect. We planned a cruise for the week before the seeing our friends in November. This means that it’s a two-week vacation in November – at least it’s only one contiguous time span. There are a couple more pluses to this plan. We will take one flight there and back, thus saving airfare over what we’d have to do if we took an entirely separate trip. By choosing a cruise we’ll get to see several islands. We’ll also save on dinners as meals are included on the cruise. All-in-all, I think we made a good choice in booking the cruise.
Yeah I like the word ” all-inclusive” you don’t have to worry about hotels or food expense. Each day you wake up in a new country. What’s not to love. What islands are you two going to visit? Me and my husband are planning on going on a cruise soon to St. Lucia and Barbados, can’t wait.
We are definitely going to Barbados, and St. Maarten. I am pretty sure St. Thomas is in there as well. I’m not sure about St. Lucia – I’d have to look it up and I’m just a little too Lazy right now.
Sounds like a good plan. Have fun and congrats on the marriage!
We went to Cozumel at an all inclusive. Food and drink included is the best thing — ever.