Passports Arrive!

Our passports arrived on Monday, March 22nd. We had applied for them a few weeks earlier to prepare for a trip we would like to take this summer. For the past several weeks we had been trying to decide what to do for Spring Break. We wanted to go somewhere, but hadn't decided where. I had looked up flights to Florida, South Carolina, Arizona, California, and anywhere else I could think of that sounded appealing! Going on a cruise was a possibility too, especially since neither of us had ever been on one before. We found great deals on cruises, but all of the port cities were farther than we wanted to drive. Since we planned to travel during the popular time of Spring Break, flights to all of these locations seemed to be way overpriced. Time was running out and there were just a few short days until our departure to what was still an unknown location. When our passports arrived, that opened up a world of possibilities for our trip, literally! During my research of cruises, I noticed that lots of them went to the Bahamas. That looked like a great place to me, so I checked out a few websites and found a good price on a flight. The only issue was the best deal would be to depart Wednesday of Spring Break and return the following Tuesday, meaning Steven would have to miss two days of school. Anyone who knows Steven knows that missing school is a big deal to him, especially so close to ISTEP testing time for his students. He just recently missed his first day of school in three years when he had to stay home sick. We were up in the air about out plans for several days...roadtrip, fly somewhere warm, go on a cruise....all sounded like good options, but nothing stood out. Friday rolled around and we were running out of time if we were going to depart the next day. It was a crazy busy day at work as I was wrapping things up in anticipation of being gone for a week. It was my senior accountant's last day of work and my temporary accounting staff member's first day. Steven called me around noon that day and said, "Do what you have to do to get me to the Bahamas!" That's all I needed to hear and I was ready! I was driving back to work from the chiropractor when I got the call and I was supposed to take two ladies from work out to lunch when I returned. I told them to give me 15 minutes, I went and back to my office and booked our flight. Done, decided...Bahamas it is! Friday night I checked out travel sites looking for the best deal for a hotel. I found the one where I wanted to stay, but I couldn't find a great price on it. I considered using hotwire.com, where you know the price of the hotel and the amenities, but the name of the hotel isn't revealed until after you make your purchase. There was a decent deal, but I noticed it was not a beachfront hotel. That option was out because if we were going to the Bahamas, we definitely wanted to stay right on the beach. I considered using priceline.com and naming my own price, but was nervous about the hotel we would get. It's one thing if it were just for a night somewhere, but for an entire week I wanted to make sure we stayed in the place we wanted. A bit of research on the web and I found a website that posted recent Priceline bid results. It seemed that if I bid a certain hotel rating the results all yielded the hotel that I had selected. Now there's always a chance this wouldn't be my result, but it made me a bit more confident. Placing my bid and closing my eyes, I waited to see what the results would yield. Sure enough, my first bid was accepted and the hotel chosen for us was the one that I wanted! Sheraton Nassau Beach Resort for 55% of the listed price on priceline.com. Score! With that, plans were finalized and we were leaving in just a few days. The schedule worked out really well because it gave us a couple more days to finish things at work and prepare for our trip. Three more days....then Bahamas here we come!