Cancelled Travel Consolation Prize

We were supposed to be on a cruise ship sailing from Australia to New Zealand.

Thank You COVID for ruining my travel plans.

The biggest bummer of the cancellation, and there are a lot to be bummed about on this trip, is how much of a deal this cruise fare was.  SIGH.  Hopefully we will be able to re-book this cruise at a later time when the state of the world goes back to normal…er…different…er semi-normal…er…semi-different?  Oh hell, I don’t even know anymore!

I realized I never actually updated the blog world (the small amount of readers, although the numbers have grown) that our Australia and New Zealand Cruise was cancelled many months ago.  Okay, I think I did update you all but I didn’t tag it as cruising so I didn’t locate it as quickly…I digress.  This was no surprise and we spent some time looking at alternative cruises.  An idea circulated to vacation with Phoenix, her kids, her boyfriend Stacey, and her parents so instead of booking something else during my pre-planned advanced approval time off work, we cut this time off short and I will be taking a week off work later this month so we can join them in South Padre Islands, TX.  I am looking forward to that vacation as I have only been to Texas once.  We plan to also hit up a few Texas attractions along the way.

Since I had been saving my vacation time-off in anticipation of needing over 80 hours off work for such a large trip across the big ocean, and that it was an advanced approval, which you only get two a year with no date changes, I had time off to “burn” and nowhere to go.  We didn’t want to go too far or spend too much money hence the second trip coming up in a few weeks.  While I was dying to get on a cruise ship again, the last few months left so much uncertainty on if ships will continue to sail, the constant changing protocols, uncertainty if the entertainment staff will be healthy enough to put on a show, and overall just not feeling like it was a gamble I wanted to get my hopes up for.  

We decided on our favorite travel destination, a quick trip that didn’t cost us a dime to book…VEGAS!

I’m even more stoked the mask mandates rolled back since this will be our first trip to Vegas post-COVID-COVID-COVID where we will finally be able to feel “normal” again.  We are also going over the weekend, which we never do.  So many restaurants, bars, and dance clubs are closed mid-week so this was a nice change.  We booked on travel points and hotel room comps.  What was even more awesome is when we booked, a few of the MGM Resorts were waiving the resort fees, giving $50 free play, and giving $100 resort credit that can be used towards food and drinks.  Um…a free trip?!?  Okay, I guess I will take that as a consolation prize.

To add even more incentive, our temperatures took a sudden drop so heading to the land of warmth and sunshine sounds amazing!  Of course, we will only see a quick blip of warm temps and then they come down a bit.  Hey…that is still better than 30 degrees in Idaho.  Although, we have had some unseasonably warm temps.

If you need me, I’ll be soaking up the sunshine and getting that Vitamin D.