Author Archives: Justin

France 2021

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Back to Europe.  It had been 5+ years…definitely longer than I would have guessed back in 2016.  As detailed, we had a trip to Spain and Portugal planned for 2017, but that ended up getting canceled with the house project. 

After wrapping up the house, we owned two houses for a while – not exactly an ideal factor for international vacations.  Then Covid happened. 

In actuality, this trip wasn’t even supposed to be a trip to Europe.  It was initially an attempt to reschedule our Japan vacation planned for fall 2020, which was canceled because of Covid and ended up being the California/Texas trip.

Mid-summer, it became evident that Japan would again not be happening.  That was ok, as we now had far more options as alternatives.  We considered a couple options and itineraries, but ended up with France.  We actually had planned to conclude the trip in San Sebastian (instead of Nice) up until roughly a month before we departed, but too many flight cancellations made that not feasible…and likely for the better.

On that topic, planning with Covid was really not much of an issue except for one thing – flights.  Really, it probably made things like reservations easier to come by.  We did have to obtain the France Covid “Pass Sanitaire” – which was slow, but otherwise painless. 

Flights, on the other hand, were a moving target.  Initially, we were booked in both directions on the British Airways MSY-LHR direct flights.  They were canceled, then the replacements were canceled.  I ended up lucking into two saver Air France business class flights there (MSY-ATL-CDG) and booked those by transferring AMEX membership rewards points to Air France.  On the return, our flights were booked with AA miles.  Once the initial flights were canceled, they give you a much wider selection on AA flights (not other carriers though).  So, we ended up on American Airlines in business class connecting in London on the return (NCE-LHR-MIA-MSY).

Why France?  It made sense given the timeframe and given the fact that it would be just Alyce and I (because of the wine-ing and fine dining).  Plus, all of these locations had been on our list of places to go for a while – in fact we had planned to go to several in our initial France 2016 itinerary.  On the specific stops…

Paris – Paris is one of both of our favorite cities.  There are endless dining options, from the highest of high end to causal bistro fare.  The public transportation is fantastic, and there are plenty of interesting things to see.  Plus, Alyce was pregnant the last time we were in Paris, so she missed out on some things.

Initially, we were going to spend 5 nights in Paris.  However, we lost a night to flight cancellations, and I cut a night to make Champagne a stop rather than a day trip (the other night came from Burgundy).  We ended up with 3 nights in Paris.

Champagne – as mentioned, this was initially going to be a day trip from Paris, but that did not seem to do the area justice.  We turned it into a 2 night stop.

Burgundy – we were going to spend 4 nights in Burgundy in our 2016 trip.  We made some changes, and I’ve been wanting to make to Burgundy since then.  Plus, Burgundy wines are some of favorites – if not our #1.  I was considering 4 nights here initially, but we ended at 3.

Northern Rhone – we planned 3 nights in the Northern Rhone…though at multiple locations within the region.  This is another premier wine region of the world, so wine and food would again be the focus.

Nice – Nice was a stop I’ve wanted to make for a while, but we were going to initially fly from Lyon to San Sebastian because of how much we enjoyed San Sebastian on our 2016 trip.  Flight cancellations made that too much of a headache, but this itinerary was really what it should have been anyway.  We concluded the trip with 4 nights in Nice.

Traveling was relatively simple in that we’d fly into Paris, rent a car, drive to Nice, and fly out from there.  No trains, additional flights, etc.

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Hawaii 2021

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Hawaii had always been out there as an option, but I had never given it serious thought for a vacation until I had to scramble to plan our fall 2020 vacation.

Why not?  I don’t really know.  It is far and generally not cheap, but that hasn’t stopped us for other destinations.  Maybe it was less exciting and exotic being a US state?

Regardless, it was our leading option for the fall 2020 trip for a while, and it seemed like an fun place to travel.  I wanted to make it work at some point.  I was also confident that James would enjoy it.

I decided to look at it for a late spring trip in 2021.  I was somewhat confident it would be open for travel by spring 2021.  We were hemmed in by James’s kindergarten graduation and trying to make my family’s beach vacation on the other side.  So, we did not have a large window and settled on late May.

I found United Airlines flight awards (only available in economy) and booked three round trips with Turkish miles.  Yes, Turkish miles.  They are a star alliance airline and have an award price of 15,000 miles roundtrip for anywhere in the US (including Hawaii).  That meant all three of our flights to Hawaii were just 45,000 miles.  A ridiculous bargain.

That said, it’s a pain.  You have to email several Turkish centers and wait for a response.  Then you have to submit a form and hope everything goes smoothly while the award space is available.  If you succeed, you prize is an award at about 35% – 40% of the cost of using United Miles.

Hand-in-hand with the flight award was finding award space at the Andaz in Maui.  I had hyatt points and a suite upgrade that I wanted to use, and the Andaz was an excellent hotel by all accounts.  They do play games with award space, but I was able to get a room for the dates we wanted.

That led to picking out the stops.  I knew we wanted to do Maui and Kauai from previous research and feedback.  The only other stop I seriously considered was working in the big island, but 2 stops was good with only 10 nights.

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Roatan 2021

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I’ll do a quick recap of our family trip to Roatan – mostly with pictures.  I do not have a ton to report on the day to day.  It was mostly diving, snorkeling, eating, drinking, and relaxing.

My parents wanted to do our first family vacation since 2005.  They preferred a Caribbean destination with a pool, beach front, snorkeling, A/C…and preferably not obscenely expensive.  My brother and I actually ended up independently finding the house we’d end up renting.

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The House

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The house…it’s been alluded to on here numerous times.  If you know us, you’ve likely at least heard about it.  If you us well, you’ve likely been several times during/after the project. 

From March 2017 when we started looking into the possibility of buying the house to March 2019 when we moved in, it consumed most of our free time.  I had to organize the financing, plans, permits, acted as contractor, and physically did a ton of the work too.  Alyce had to double up on everything at home since I was always busy; she also helped do some work too when available.

In this post, I’ll try to go over purchasing the house and making plans, the things we did, before/after, and thoughts after living in it for nearly two years.

Buying the house

We liked our old house, but we knew we would prefer a little more space.  I also had always wanted to design and build a house.  Additionally, we did not want to leave our neighborhood.  The last two items did not line up with each other as lot prices (really tear-downs) were high and going higher.

With that in mind, we started to expand our search to houses that would need renovation.  I don’t know we had in mind the full scope of renovations we’d eventually do, but we were looking for potential.

There was a house or two we looked at, but saw people working on the house at the end of the block for the first time in a while as I was walking James.  This was notable for several reasons…

This particular house was vacant since Katrina (12 years).  This was very odd, as the lot alone was worth a whole lot as it was an oversized corner lot and faced the lakefront and the Canal boulevard neutral ground.  The house had the potential for good curb appeal.  And while not a major factor, it did have some history to it in that New Orleans musician Al Hirt lived in it for a long time.

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2021 Planned Travel

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I write this half-way through January with high hopes for the year.  But I also know that things could be all over the place.

Alyce has already been vaccinated.  I’d expect that makes it easier for her to travel as things open back up.  I have not, and I’m likely several months out (at a minimum) from being eligible.

We had to cancel Japan and Napa in 2020.  I’m looking to load up 2021 to make up for the lack of 2020 travel, combined with the fact that we were already behind on travel for the last several years with all the house related stuff.

Roatan (March) – This is a family trip with my parents and brother/his fiancé.  It will be the first trip we’ve taken like this in a long time (2005 was our last family trip – to Grand Cayman and without significant others).  I feel confident this one will happen.  Roatan has remained open since the fall and will likely do what they can to accept tourist.  We are currently experiencing a post-holiday uptick in Covid, but I’m hopeful that will settle down as we move away from the holidays and more people are vaccinated.

Hawaii (May) – We plan on spending 10 days in Hawaii with James: 5 in Maui and 5 in Kauai.  I looked into Hawaii a good bit for our fall 2020 trip, but it didn’t work out.  I wanted to get it in this year.  We will stay at a couple Hyatts, taking advantage of my status.  James should enjoy himself.  It’s technically a domestic trip, so I think it is more likely to happen.  It also fits in well with our longer term travel plans, which will have us more likely focusing on one longer trip a year.

Fort Morgan, AL (June) – This is an extended family beach trip.  We drive and were able to do it in 2020.  I’d rate it at likely to happen.

Japan (September/October) – Got this one scheduled for two weeks.  We currently have business class booked in both directions.  I may upgrade to First class if it becomes available on Japan Airlines.  We have stays booked on points at a number of nice Hyatts.  I’ll likely start working on restaurant reservations in a couple months. 

I’m also not that confident this one will happen.  With the vaccine, I give it a much better shot than I did a couple months back, but I’d think it’s still 50/50.  Good news is we’ve got 9+ months to go and things could be very different by then.  Bad news is Japan has been very restrictive on international travel with no plans to relax the restrictions.  We’ll see, as we really would like to go to Japan.

If not, the next place I’d look would be Europe (likely France) if open for international travel.  Should that fail, we’d look back at the national parks in the US.

Other – We have paid for a good portion of a Napa VRBO for the wedding we were supposed to attend in 2020.  I know our group would like to try to make that work at some point.

I currently have a promotional Southwest Companion Pass – not sure why.  It seems like it would be a waste to not use that.

That’s the plan.  As is the case with everything these days, it’s all up in the air as to what actually happens.

Disney – December 2020

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Before I start, let me pat myself on the back and say how nice it is to write a trip report only a month removed from the trip.  Hooray for remembering details!

Disney….

Let’s start with a refresher.  We’ve done some extravagant travel.  Look no farther than my previous report where our 8 nights in hotels would have cost nearly $25,000.  And that’s cheap compared to some of the first class flights we’ve taken.

The key missing detail is we paid $0 for that.  Nothing.  Additionally, I think we are extremely efficient with our day to day travel expenses.  They matter, and I track them excessively – I’m sure I can find the cost of a cab ride from Thailand nearly a decade ago in my master travel excel book.  That’s how we pull it off.

Disney on the other hand is legit expensive.  And there are really no workarounds to it. 

Point being, I can go to Europe for 3 weeks for what it costs to spend a week at Disney on a monorail resort with the mealplan.  That’s always been a holdup for me.  Still, I said I had one trip in me.  The question was when to take it.

Decemberish 2019, our good friends informed us of their plans to do Disney the week after Thanksgiving 2020.  That week is supposed to be one of the best to go.  It would also be great to have friends (both ours and James) there as well.  James would be at a good age – old enough to ride the rides, but young enough to still experience some of the Disney magic.  We didn’t make any firm plans, but Alyce blocked the week for vacation.

Meanwhile…Covid and all that.  First thought: no way we’re going to Disney World in a pandemic.  However, reports seemed to be nothing but positive from Disney – manageable crowds, shorter than usual lines, and no widespread reports of Covid spreading.  As the time got closer, we made the decision to go for it.

To be clear, we ended up staying off site (a Hyatt on points that included breakfast), skipped lunch everyday, ate nice (but not obscene) dinners, and generally did Disney about as frugally as you could.  It still was one of the more expensive trips on a per day basis we have done.  A major, unescapable cost is park tickets.

Still, I’m glad we did the one trip.  This was a good time for James.

Day 1

We hit the road early from home but not absurdly so.  The flight there was Southwest non-stop.  We left December 1, which was the day they started filling planes again.  Still, we had no trouble getting a good boarding group and seats next to each other.

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California and Texas – September 2020

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And now we’re getting into Covid times…

This trip was supposed to be to Japan.  I had held out hope we would be able to make the trip, but it was pretty clear that wasn’t happening not too long after the pandemic started.  We also had to cancel a trip to Napa in March with friends for a wedding.  That was a big bummer on many accounts.

Mid to late summer, things were looking up on the Covid front.  Some travel had started back up.  Our vacation time is use it or lose it, so we’d be taking time off either way.  I was interested in finding something for Alyce and I to do that was more outdoor focused and preferably not in a big city.  We had about two weeks to work with.  Just the two of us had not gone on a vacation since our 2017 South America trip, so we were due.

My first plan was Hawaii.  They were set to reopen to American tourism on September 1, and it seemed like a good Covid option.  Not to mention, they have some nice Hyatts at which I’d be able to put my globalist status and points stash to use.

But mid-August, it became apparent that they were unlikely to re-open for September.  [They did not.]

Back to the drawing board.  I looked at Alaska, but it would be late in the year for that trip.  I considered some combination of Yellowstone, Jackson Hole, and Glacier National Park.  Those too were later than ideal in the year (though less so than Alaska) and had some Covid closures.  Plus they were an easier trip that we may want to bring James to one day.

California seemed like the answer.  We could do Big Sur, Yosemite, and Lake Tahoe.  They were good options in consideration of Covid, and again we could stay in nice Hyatt resorts.

Next…bring on the wildfires!  Let me clarify, rescheduling a vacation is nothing compared to the devastation caused to Californians by the fires.  I absolutely do not intend to give even the slightest indication otherwise.  Still, rescheduling the vacation yet again was getting old by this point.  We weren’t sure which – if any – of the destinations would be available or worthwhile to go to.  Additionally, it could vary greatly week to week.  So all we could do was monitor closely.

A week or so out, it became obvious that Yosemite was not happening – and Lake Tahoe too.  We were holding out hope to still do Big Sur with something else but had back up plans as well.

Things worked in our favor, and it looked like Big Sur would be ok to travel to.  It was, and smoke was a complete non issue.  

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Cancun – November 2019

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This trip came about because I had expiring frequent flyer miles (Singapore Airlines if I remember correctly) that I just noticed the night they were set to expire – I get an email notice…when it’s working.  Not wanting to let that happen, I searched for something in North America to book with the miles that was appropriate for November.  Mexico was one of the few options with availability for 3.  Also, there is a really nice all-inclusive Hyatt there.  Mexican all-inclusives are not usually our style, but this one sounded good.   Worst case, it is way better than nothing.

For this wrap up, I’m going to give a general overview.  Not much use in doing the day to day.  If interested, I can sum it up in a sentence: get up, eat, James goes to the kids club, we hang out and drink margaritas by the beach, get James for a little bit, snorkel, maybe pool, sometimes James went to dinner at the kids club, sometimes he’d eat with us….and if he was at the club, we’d make our way to the tequila bar.  Mix in some evening shows and multiple stops at the café, and you have it.  We did not leave the property, and that was fine.

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