Thursday, March 24, 2011

$450 a night? How about $175?

Having had the opportunity to travel to China, Guatemala, and Honduras in the past year, one thing i've learned is almost everything is up for negotiation. There's the regular price, there's the gringo price, there's the we know you're not from here price, etc... So unless it's at a world wide chain at a mall, you should always ask if there is room for negotiation if you feel there might be.

For those of you that follow along, we found a good deal at Thanksgiving at the beach, well we certainly out did that this past week. It was spring break for the entire state of Alabama so we hadn't even thought of going to the beach again, certain the crowds and prices would be at the max.  On Monday we decided to see if we could find any places still empty and we scored a major deal! We ended up at a single family home right on the beach in Blue Mtn. Beach along our favorite stretch of the panhandle for less than we could stay in a hotel with our clan of 7.  This was the throwback beach vacation you always picture, house right on the beach, covered porch, yard to play in dumping down onto beach, big windows open 24x7 with gulf breeze blowing in, etc... We were very blessed to have found such an affordable opportunity. We had originally thought about kicking around Atlanta for a few days which would have cost significantly more, so this was a huge savings for us.

We certainly had our normal ups and downs; i was sick, the cable was out (no march madness!), everyone wanted to do something different all the time, both boys went on a stretch of apparent potty amnesia, mommy daughter spats (after all we're not all 7 this close together for this many days in a row very often anymore), yet overall we probably had our best beach trip ever. It reminds me a bit of how an entire day can be really good except 1 minor detail and we let that 1 detail dictate the mood of the day. Well every single detail of this trip was not perfect, but overall it was an amazing 4 days!

Just like our daily walk with God, every detail isn't fun or perfect, but the whole experience when said and done is going to be fan-freakin-tastic!!




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