Vacation Planning Sucks…

I hate planning vacations. Usually for me the stress that is associated with planning the vacation outweighs any amount of relaxation that the vacation itself actually brings to me. Maybe I just go about it wrong, but it’s getting to the point where I’d almost rather just stay at home instead of having to deal with the stress.

Vacations are supposed to be a relaxing event that we all take part in to escape the issues we deal with on a daily basis. Usually once I get to the actual vacation I get the needed release from the trip. That is after I force myself to not worry about what it is costing me and just know that I’ll deal with that after the trip is over.

Expedia, Travelocity and other similar sites are supposed to offer some shelter from the stress of planning a vacation. I’m sure in the grand scheme of things that is the case because I can’t imagine having to plan out every piece of the trip individually. These sites do a good job of getting everything in one place at least.

I’ve had a recent skirmish with vacation planning that has got me thinking about this. Laura and I are going to take a cruise in April. We’ve been wanting to do it for a while and have just now managed to get the final plans in place. After doing the usual searching for the best deal stuff (which is probably one of the most stressful parts of the planning) we finally settled on a cruise out of Cape Canaveral. Considering what we are doing we got a pretty good deal, but it only took about 6 months of us talking about it and searching until we finally found something we were ready to bite on. I pretty much made a promise to myself one night that if I was going to open up the computer again and put myself through the searching process that I was going to book the trip that time. So, I booked the trip.

Next we needed passports. To get a passport you need your birth certificate, 2 photos with a white background among other specifics, the correctly filled out forms, and about $100 for the processing fee. So we packed up and went over to Walgreens to get the passport photos taken. Just a tip, you can’t get photos and apply for a passport over a lunch break. Walgreens was a little slow in getting the pictures ready. I knew we were in trouble as soon as I saw that they were charging $8 a piece for the two of us. Then it took another turn downhill when the employee came out with a digital camera and took the pictures. So, I’m pretty sure we could have just taken the pictures at home, photoshopped in a white background and been done. Finally we get to the post office to apply for the passport and we have to wait in line again there. This wasn’t too bad but then they told us that they had to send in our birth certificates with the forms. I’m hoping I won’t need it in the 8 weeks that it takes to get the passport.

After the passport fiasco I got an email from Expedia saying that they had a problem processing my payment and that I needed to call them to take care of it. When I called they told me there was no problem. So, I’m not even sure if we are really booked or not. I’ll probably call back soon and ask another person just to compare their responses to my issue.

So, I hate vacation planning. I’m sure I’ll be happy I did all of this once we are actually at sea on the cruise, but for now it’s a little stressful. Maybe next time I should just use a travel agent.