On the Road Again!

Another email from Aer Lingus confirming our flights.  As they didn't say that anything had changed I had a quick look against the previous email to see and there's nothing changed. The re-timing of the Dublin to Miami flight in December might actually be a benefit as the US Immigration is done in Dublin and a bit longer might aid getting through there and maybe be a boon in Miami.  There are scare stories about Miami and the massive queues of foreigners trying to get in, whether with ESTA or Visa. On the car-hire front I cancelled the National booking and have a new one with Dollar at a lower rate for an "intermediate" car.  The example is a Nissan Sentra. I don't tend to look at Nissan at home or away and so have little idea what one looks like.  I Googled it and this is a  Sentra .

Still smarting from the last look at Miami car-hire I have delved back into the murky world of the web to have another look, Confused? You will be. Different comparison sites seem to have different rates for the same companies.  I usually book direct with National via there own website and have had some pretty decent offers for full-size cars.   When in the US, be it Florida, NY or Arizona, why have a Toyota that is smaller and more cramped than the car I own at home? I want to drive American.   Okay, like the Ford Mustang we had. The "hood" didn't look as though it was the right size for the hole.  It covered the engine okay and didn't fly up as we drove along and the gap at the front of the doors looked a little wider than really necessary...... But!!! It's all about insurance and the level of cover.  For the past few years we have gone National. All the cars have been reasonably new and in decent condition.   The only blip on the radar wa...

Going through the motions of checking to see what the rates are.  For some reason National who I have been using for years appear to have hiked their rates up and for the "full size" bracket the quote is about 50% higher than last October (2017) Will look later. I prefer the idea of booking and not paying until I am face to face with the counter clerk! But too many are pay now.

So. The question of how to use the 36 RCI points I have banked was coming down to two periods of time. From UK to the US it is really not good value to spend 9 hours plus flying for one week away. So it needs to be when there are two weeks or more to fit into. Easter and Summer holidays. Surprisingly July/August was best for the timeshare exchanges in the more westerly states; Arizona etc. But from reading Roger Naylor's articles for Arizona magazines it's monsoon time. After last year in Florida following the hurricanes, no thanks!!!  But airfares to Phoenix or Last Vegas are for the rich only. So my attention was shifted to Easter. Schools break up on April 5th and return the day after Easter Monday. And since our management dictated our holidays could only be in school holidays I booked that fortnight off ages ago. Now the problem was looking for flights. We went into the Thomas Cook agency in Hythe. Got some ideas. Then used Skyscanner.  London Heathrow to Miami, on April...

The Big Six-O has to come around at some stage and it has arrived on our front step, crying and mewling like a new born kitten, or 2014 as it is also called. So what to do to celebrate?  Unless we win the National Lottery or the Euro Lottery in the next year or so, it looks as though my annual leave expenditure will rise to ever higher levels. This year we are cruising to Norway and the Fjords.  Not a biking holiday, but I guess something has to give a little as age and impending senility beckons.  At least they feed you 24/7. So where to go? At a travel show earlier in the year we looked at some exotic and some less exotic places. The proviso for the trip is/was that we could use the timeshare exchange system and cover our accommodation that way.  Touring sounds good, but Claire wants a mixture of looking at things and quiet time.  So after my brother's experience on Route 66 on a Harley, that was scratched off the list. With Claire off the b...