Where To Go & How To Get There

Honey and I have a 50th wedding anniversary coming up in December, and I have been exploring options, looking for someplace special to go.

Our old pals the Sheltons will also be celebrating their 50th – I was his best man on the 18th, and he was mine on the 28th – and we were talking earlier this year about going to Belize.  Then Travis had back surgery last week, and it looks like they won’t be doing any traveling for a while.

Anyway, I’ve been searching on line for a great place to go, and Honey has been trying to get me to rein in  my  budget.  She is entirely more practical than I will ever be, but I contend that this is a once-in-a-lifetime event and we deserve to splurge a little.  Besides, I don’t plan to live forever and while I love my daughter and our grandkids, I have no interest in leaving any more money behind than it takes to dispose of my carcass.

The criteria are flexible, but we would like:

• Someplace tropical
• Hotel on the beach
• Preferably all-inclusive
• A Casino would be a plus

Checking websites like Cheap Caribbean and Funjet provided a couple of possibilities, but required multi-stop flights of 18 hours or more to get from Houston to someplace we might want to go, and changing flights caused the price to skyrocket.

Why would anyone ever want to fly coach from Houston to Cozumel by way of Charlotte, North Carolina?

I located one 7-day cruise out of Houston (Bayport) that was actually cheaper than a 3-night hotel stay with airfare.  I was pretty excited about that until I realized that smoking was banned almost everywhere on the ship – including your private balcony off your stateroom.  Yeah, we probably should quit smoking, but going cold turkey for a week couldn’t possibly add to our enjoyment.

I was considering Cabo San Lucas until they got hit by a category 3 hurricane a couple days ago.

Our honeymoon – such as it was, I had to be back on the air New Years Eve – was two nights at the White Rock Motel in San Marcos.  At this point, I’d even consider going back there, but it doesn’t exist anymore.