I find myself in the same situation of debating one big trip vs smaller trips. And example has been the debate on doing Belize vs Fiji. It is almost exactly 2 to 1 in pricing with just about the same number of dives.
Time vs money...some only have one vacation so opt for the more expensive or luxurious trip. Also the Belize trip this year is a bit of an anomolie. Usually the Carribbean trips are $1200 range + air of $600 so easily $2k. The Fiji trip in this case includes air for $2995. Many people think diving in the other pond is worth the $900. Plus there is NO shore diving in Belize where we are going but excellent shorediving in Fiji.My thought was to plan one big trip two years out in Truk and then do smaller trips between now and then to get as much diving in as I could and prepare for it. However, if that trip is out, I may need to re-evaluate my plans.
Part of why we are having this discussion now. So far only 2 people want to do Truk...you and me!People do not have the money or are still leary of spending it. Sadly Truk has not come down in price yet...I am asking if they will. It may be such a thing as we offer Truk as part of a "Deals" offering vs. a group trip offering. The entire industry is in change right now and we are working to see how we fit in and how to keep offering great trips for our members!
Part of it is also scheduling. Beyond the May trips, I run into scheduling conflicts right up to Cozumel. I'd love to do Galapagos, but it doesn't look like I can get the time off. Maybe the Mona trip?
Galapagos is worthy of trying to get the time off. Fewer and fewer boats are getting permits...and the few boats with them are JACKING PRICES SKYHIGH!!! It is now easily $1000 more to do the Galapagos than a little over a year ago. There is no end in sight to this trend.
I know I enjoyed the liveaboard in Australia and would like to do another one of those. We will see.
I LOVED diving there and one of our favorite vendors unexpectedly sold its boat to a world health organization so does not have a boat in Australia right now. With the economy they may pick up a good deal on one and have it ready to go again depending on what happens to the dive industry in general. In the meantime the only other options are a boat that carries 24/26 passengers and one that carries 36 passengers. Both of which are too large to charter the whole boat (ours was only 16 divers) and if you can't charter the whole boat then you do several 3/4 day itineraries back to back vs one 7 or 8 day itinerary like we did. What this means is you repeat most of what you are seeing and spend lots of time 'steaming' back and forth rather than diving like we did when we when WAY UP NORTH and dove almost continuously with very little steaming except for some in the beginning and the end.
It seemed like we had quite a thread of people interested below and based upon what I heard on both the Bonaire and Cozumel trips last year, there was quite the interest in the Truk trip too.
http://www.singlediv...a...=15564&st=0
Granted circumstances change. But I would definitely want to do this one as a group trip given the dive teams in doing deco dives. I would not be comfortable as a single diver just latching onto some other group.
Unfortunately work can not guarantee the time off for Galapagos. The timing is very poor for someone in corporate planning with quarterly meeting, budgets and reforecasts all occuring during that trip. By the time Cozy rolls around, that can work.
It seems like in addition to Belize, Roatan and Cozy are certainly value trips too. Airfare is less than some of the more challenging locations like Bonaire as well as being easier to get to.
Scheduling is always going to be challenging for me. So the sooner you get a schedule out there the better!
