How to Find a Cheap Expensive Vacation
Start with your budget that doesn’t included spending money. Spending money is always your own option with if you want to do extra things on your vacation or not. No matter what you’ll need some sort of spending money, you’re still going to want to eat out once in a while depending where you go or buy a souvenir so don’t count out spending money right away.
First things first is start with where you want to go and what you want to do. Do you want to go somewhere warm? All inclusive? Do you want to go to amusement parks like Disney or Universal? Do you want to travel outside of the U.S.? These are all questions you have to figure out before you take a look at prices.
Don’t just start off right away with looking at prices, that will turn you away.
If you decide you want to travel outside the U.S. and want something all inclusive, start by looking at cruises. Staying at resorts in Mexico or a Caribbean Island are great until you realize you have to pay for airfare as well.
Cruises are offered throughout the U.S. many ports are in New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Florida, California, and Alaska. There are other ports throughout the U.S. so don’t get discouraged if you don’t live near one of those states. Those other ports just aren’t ones that typically run cruises out of all year long.
If you do decide on a cruise, decide on which location and dates work best for you. Normally all the cruise lines are around the same price after all add-ons with beverage packages and what not.
In my opinion, after cruising on Carnival, Celebrity, and Norwegian Cruise Lines I would pick Norwegian again because of the deals they offer when you first book a room. Recently I booked a room of 4 people to Bermuda out of New York for 7 nights. They offered what they call a free at sea deal. It’s your 3rd and 4th guest sail free. And it’s no lie, they sail free you just have to pay taxes on them which is around $200 a person. Along with that we offered to add 2 unlimited adult beverage packages on for free, after we all split the price we each paid $780 for a balcony room.
Cruises are all inclusive and a good choice if you decide you want to be catered to all the time and have an endless buffet at all hours. You also don’t have to travel somewhere warm, they offer cruises all around the world.
Now if you decided you wanted to go somewhere like Disney or Universal you have to take in consideration that it won’t be as cheap as a cruise but you can make it so you aren’t totally breaking the bank.
The best time to fly is in the middle of the week on a Tuesday or Wednesday. That is where you’re going to get the best deals. Also depending on the luxury you want will depend on the airline you take. You can pay a very cheap price to fly on “beat down” airline but is that how you want to start your vacation?
I choose Jet Blue out of Stewart Airport since it’s basically in my backyard. I don’t have to worry about leaving my car at the airport and paying an extra fee.
After figuring out your air situation which can be tough because your search history will catch up to you and the price of the airfare will just keep going up. The best way to search for airline tickets is to go incognito which Google offers, it doesn’t track anything you do so you never have to worry about the prices going up.
Now to figure out where you are going to stay. How many people are with you? If you have 5 or more people it’s worth renting a home a mile or two away from Universal or Disney depending which one you plan to visit most. If you have 4 or less people you can afford a cheap hotel room on site.
Since I’m going to Universal more than Disney I decided to stay on Universals property. Cabana Bay Resort is right on City Walk, we can walk to all three of Universals parks. A hotel room there is priced around $150 a night it has a pool, a bowling alley and a restaurant there. It’s a cheap resort on the property. You can’t beat that price.
Now looking at park tickets this is where you can’t get around saving much money. Universal and Disney both offer hopper passes so you can hop between parks within one day. You just pay a little extra few for that. For a 4 day hopper pass to Universal it was $264.99 a person, not a bad price, and that is for their two main parks not their new Volcano Water Park. For Disney we choose the hopper pass for 2 days all parks at about $230 each. Disney is definitely more expensive but it all depends on the experience you are looking for.
You can find any vacation for the price you really want if you do enough research. You can always hire a travel agent they are great but it depends on your budget once again.
