Trip Planning Juggling

Six Trips. Within the next nine months. What were we thinking? Actually, I know the answer--Yes. My husband and I have trouble saying no when opportunities for trips come up. We both love to travel and are of the mindset that we should while we can as you never know when that could change. But, six is more than we've ever had on the schedule.

These are a mix of vacations and scrapbook/work related trips for me. The crops are a great blend of work and play and I always come home recharged and filled with creative energy. Now that our children are grown, my husband comes with me to the scrapbook retreats and golfs (if it's not snowing) while I crop.

The rest of the trips require a bit (or a lot) more planning depending on the destination. May will be a relaxing trip to a resort in Virginia...just me and the husband. The resort has plenty of activities on site: golf, crafting, classes, excursions. Some of the activities I can reserve ahead of time, and no need to plan ahead for meals. We'll have a kitchen, so some meals we can dine in the room and others go out to eat. And with there only being two of us, not much juggling of interests and schedules. As we're driving (only 2 1/2 hours from our home) no need to find flights or arrange rentals. Just pack up the car and go.

Our December and February trips are a whole different story. December is a family trip (8 of us) going to Disney World. I'm sure saying for 8 people and then adding the fact we're going to Disney World pretty much explains the juggling for that vacation. It takes a lot of work to find a time that works for all those schedules, especially when only 2 are children and the rest are adults with jobs. But, I got it all straightened out, and in the end it worked out perfectly, even thought I didn't get my preferred date. The alternate date chosen fell under the Free Dining Days just released. Yay for saving money!

The truth is I love to vacation plan, it's one of my other hobbies, so I've been doing plenty of reading and research on Disney--and we have been a few times. There are only 2 must do restaurants on the combined lists, and I'm hoping one of the days we're there I'll be able to snag those coveted places. With it being free dining time, I know it will a race to snag reservations. Wish me luck! I'm confident I'm up for the task. After dining comes FastPass reservations. I'm starting to pull together my family's requests now and if they don't give it to me in time, they get what I pick.

Our last trip on the calendar, so far, is in February to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway. Right now, I'm trying to see what hotel will work best for us. I don't want to wait too late and have our options limited--or more expensive.