We're booked for Barbados!

After humming and hawing for the morning, we finally decided to book the trip. As I had said yesterday, the airfare wasn't a screaming deal, but it was a decent deal. And, it was flying from Ottawa so we didn't have to make our own way to Montreal or Toronto.

And to top it off, it came out to be cheaper than we were expecting!

I had been checking the price on the Air Canada website, and it was slightly different for different dates. And, slightly different for different times on those dates. I had gone into the site three or four times yesterday morning, and almost every time the prices changed. That happens sometimes with the pricing algorithms. That's why you have to book a flight deal quickly, because you never know when it's going to change.

Anyhow, I called at lunch time, and got through right away. I was looking at the computer screen and telling the girl which flights I wanted. (I would normally book online, but because we had those vouchers from the time we got bumped, I had to phone it in.) She got all the booking done, and told me that the total price was $531 CAD ($405 USD), and that we had to pay $128 CAD ($97 USD) each out of pocket for the round trip flight.

Sweet. The price had dropped while I was on the phone! It had been $570 CAD total each.

So, thanks to getting bumped, we have now got our one way flight from Regina to Ottawa for $36 each, our return flight from Ottawa to Barbados for $128 each, and we still have $242 each remaining on the original $800 each vouchers!

So, we depart Ottawa October 25th (at 5:35am!) and come back on November 13th. Nineteen days in Barbados.

So now the planning begins. We've decided we're not going to rent a car. They're expensive to rent in Barbados, and from what we're reading, Barbados has a good and inexpensive public transportation system. Plus, of course we will do a lot of walking and hiking.

Looking forward to taking lots of pictures of the island.

The most expensive part will be accommodation. We'll probably have to spend about $300 CAD ($230 USD) per week for somewhere to stay. The Barbados dollar is permanently pegged to the USD, so the exchange rate is definitely not on our side. But from what I'm reading, food and booze prices (if you shop around) aren't currently that much different from Canada.

We're thinking the entire trip will end up costing a total of about $1,000 CAD ($760 USD) each.

We're excited.... it's only a little more than four months away!

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Big price drop on the adjustable platform RV step... it's never been this cheap!

Camco 43676 Adjustable Height Aluminum Platform Step