17 replies to this topic

[scubafanatic]

...a difficult subject to solidly answer now...I'm a big fan of liveaboards (all my 2008 trips are liveaboards)...I feel they're MUCH easier logistically, and it eliminates the stress/physical labor that's such a pain on land...not to say I'd not consider a land-based trip, but that would be my second option, not my first. I have found liveaboards to be no more expensive, and often cheaper than a comparable land based trip on a per dive basis...so to me they're more fun and a better deal.

...having switched jobs last fall, I won't have 3 weeks of vacation annually until 2010, so for '08 and '09, my max trip length is a week or so, as I don't plan to blow my entire annual vacation on a single trip as diving once per year is unacceptable...........so, of course, no flying to the far corners for a while as it's too much $ for airfare to only be somewhere for 1 week.

...with airfare skyrocketing...fuel surcharges piling up....I'll likely spend a week in May '09 on JULIET/Puerto Rico....and 2 or 3 'long weekend/half-week FG/SPREE trips for '09...not the world's most ambitious/sexy dive schedule...but I need to keep-it-real.

...options will widen a bit in 2010 with more vacation time available...but I'm a long way from worrying about 2010 travel...I will say I'll never spend crazy amounts of $ on airfare no matter how good the diving...gotta draw the line somewhere.

Karl

[hambergler]

I normally don't even start planning dive trips until I know what, if any, my tax refund and/or bonus will be, and that isn't until Feb or Mar. I know sort of where I want to go, and up until I retired from racing this Spring (12 days in the hospital was the final straw), dive trips would be scheduled after the race schedule comes out and around that.

Next year's dive trips will be much more flexible, and I want to maximize variety but still minimize individual trip cost (a road trip to South Padre Island for Texas Clipper diving is being considered by a few friends and me). I usually do Cozumel with my LDS during Memorial Day weekend, so leftover $$ gets allocated to the other trips (usually I like to spend less than $1,500 per trip, and I normally have about $3,000 to play with each year). FG happens to fall in that range, and this year Dry Tortugas became possible too. All of these are 3-7 day excursions, some liveaboard, some land-based.

So, really, it all depends...

[clearvis]

Like the others have said I appreciate all the hard work that you put into the planning and arrangements.

I guess the only thing that you can be sure of is that most prices and in particular air fares will go up in the future.

My biggest problem is time away from work. My best options are one long trip and one or two long week end trips (four nights over a week end type).

Fred