Travel Tuesday - Late Edition
/I know I promised you a Travel Tuesday post about our trip, and you’ll get it. In installments.
See, today was the first day of school and my little Maggie didn’t get her schedule because we were on vacation last week. Then yesterday, after I had been told that, “sure, she can come into the building on Monday. No problem!” she couldn’t get into the building. So this morning I had to put on my Mom hat and take her to school early, find the office where we could pick up her schedule, and help her maneuver a brand new building (for her) to find her classes.
Funny little side story here . . . So we’re in the 6th grade hallway fiddling with her locker before school. About 10 minutes before the bell was supposed to ring, kids start flooding down the hall. I observed to Maggie that they must have let the 6th graders in early so they could get to their lockers and find their first class. Isn’t that nice of them? Dear Maggie took a quick glance around to see what was happening, straightened up her shoulders, and gave me a big grin. Then, just as quickly, she said, “Bye, Mom!”
I obviously wasn’t needed there anymore.
Anyway, it’s kind of been one thing after another today, thus the late edition of Travel Tuesday. Next week I’ll get into more nitty gritty of our trip, but for today I want to leave you with a few pictures. (And only a couple because I haven't had time to go through them all yet.)
I also want to tell you that not every trip has to be an expensive one. I spend a bit of time doing research before each trip we take. I look around for deals, keeping my eye out on forum boards for people who have also found great deals and report on them. Our week in Williamsburg and Washington DC came about on the spur of the moment. We hadn’t planned on taking a summer vacation, but when Kate decided she wanted to go college hunting on the East coast and her parents both wanted to go with her, we decided to load up the truck, so to speak, and head out. Since we hadn’t budgeted for this trip, I knew we needed to do it as economically as possible.
If, like us, you know you’re not going to be spending a ton of time in your room, and if you don’t care that much about amenities, then Priceline might be just the thing for you. I had used Priceline once or twice before and was really happy with the deals I got, so for the two nights we’d be spending in Williamsburg I figured it was worth a shot.
I’m here to tell you, it was definitely worth a shot. We got a room that would normally cost about $150 a night for $60 a night. Definitely worth a shot, since we saved over $180.
Then, when I was digging around on TripAdvisor one day, I read a note from someone who said that they saw a deal on Travel Zoo for $89 in Washington DC. So I headed over there and, sure enough, got the same deal. So, a room that would have cost us $900 for four nights in Washington cost us around $500. For those of your mathematically challenged, like me, that’s a savings of around $400.
Making it a grand total of $580 saved on hotel rooms alone. Can I get a woot woot?
And that’s before the Big Red Bus debacle which ended up costing us a total of . . . nothing. A savings of about $125.
Oh yes, I’m full of savings tips. But the Big Red Bus debacle wouldn’t be one of them. Because that’s another story for another day.
