Family Travel with Points and Miles
Finding a hotel in a European city can be frustrating. Rooms are generally pretty small and many hotels don't have standard rooms that allow more than two people. Even chain hotels, and in some cities, especially chain hotels will only have their biggest and most expensive suites allow more than 2 or 3 people. This… Continue reading February 2018: Rome – Hotel Planning
Given that we were almost a year out from our actual trip, there was decent flight availability at fairly reasonable prices. Using Google Flights I found several options, but noticed that not all airlines that flew out of Boston were showing routes. This was likely because I was searching so far ahead of time and… Continue reading February 2018: Rome – Flight Planning
Shortly after returning from our first successful family trip to Europe (Paris), we decided we wanted to explore another European destination. We considered London, but my wife really wanted to go to Rome, so Rome it was! She had been there for work several times and, while she didn't speak Italian, she is a native… Continue reading February 2018 Rome – Planning
Outside of winning the lottery, setting travel goals is the most effective way to make your dream vacation a reality! While achieving your dream vacation doesn't require wading into the points and miles hobby, it can certainly speed things along and make it better, longer, and/or more luxurious than you would otherwise have thought! Becoming… Continue reading The Value of Travel Goals
Since this was our first cruise we had absolutely no idea what to expect. The amount of storage in our room was unknown. We were unsure what temperatures to prepare for either. Leaving NYC in December, we expected cold, but wasn’t sure how much time we’d expect to spend outside and how sheltered the outdoor… Continue reading Christmas 2018 Planning – Cruise Packing
We were skeptical about planning too many excursions. We have heard they are money grabs by the cruise lines. I’m sure there is a lot of truth to that, though we wanted to see what the options were. We didn’t have to book the excursions when we booked the cruise. We could even have waited… Continue reading Christmas 2018 Planning – Excursions
Unlike with airlines, we could check in online to the cruise after we had paid the balance on the trip, fully 4 months before our sail date. The checkin process is actually more about gathering passport information, setting up accounts, and an attempt to upsell services and activities. Passports During this process we realized our… Continue reading Christmas 2018 Planning – Cruise Checkin
After returning from the cruise, we wanted to spend a few days in NYC catching up with family. We also needed 3 more nights with Marriott to reach our goal of 50 and 2 more nights in NYC would leave us with just one more night to find before the clock turned to 2019. We… Continue reading Christmas 2018 Planning – Post Cruise Hotel Planning
We were leaving on the Friday before Christmas from NYC. To make sure we didn’t miss the ship’s departure, we followed the online advice to arrive the day before departure. While NYC is only a 3-4 hour drive from Boston, we didn't want to risk traffic, snow, or other delays the morning the ship was… Continue reading Christmas 2018 Planning – Pre-Cruise Hotel Planning
Cruises were a completely new thing for us. We had to do a lot of research to find out about different cruise lines, different destinations and room types. In the end, since we were restricted to leaving from NYC, there was only one itinerary that fit our schedule. There were many more options leaving from… Continue reading Christmas 2018 – Cruise Planning
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