Vacation Headaches

In true military fashion, we are trying to plan a summer vacation. It's definitely easier to do living here, but we're still running into problems. We're also learning what a complicated challenge it can be to plan flights out of here.

 The 20-seater that flies us to the States.

The plan is to visit my in-laws in a couple weeks, and then leave the kids with them while we go off and celebrate our anniversary (in true military style, a week late). Oliver still doesn't have leave because the guy who needs to sign his paperwork and send it up the chain is off-island right now, but we bought plane tickets and made a car reservation. Because we've learned a thing or two about this over the years (and we still are not completely positive about the dates he is going to get), we got them through Southwest, who will let you cancel an online reservation and carry over the funds for the next year. Between that and the ability to check two bags free, I'm not sure why people still fly legacy carriers (JetBlue is our airline of choice when we don't have to worry about the whole leave thing).

We're also hoping that we can manage to fly the same day as we leave the island. We requested a morning flight out of here, and then have a 1700 flight out of West Palm Beach. Hopefully, the flight here isn't canceled due to weather or something, and we don't get bumped. If either of those things happen, well, good thing we have Southwest tickets! Coming back, we're going to have to stay a night in Florida for sure. We thought we'd actually stay a couple nights and do some shopping before returning, but there's a Bahamian holiday and no flights scheduled that day, so it's either go back the next morning or wait three days for a flight. So, I guess we'll just be going back the next day.

Yikes, I didn't think taking vacation could get more complicated than it was when Oliver was on a boat. Apparently, I was wrong. I actually looked over at Oliver and suggested we just rent a car in Florida and drive all the way to New York because it was a whole lot easier to plan. There are way too many disparate pieces to put together! He nixed that idea, and I wasn't really all that serious. I think driving for two weeks on the way here was enough for everyone for awhile.

I'm really not complaining, however. At least Oliver is going with us this time!