Between disappointment and anger -Canceling a trip

"Canceling" a trip is not a correct term to use here because we just had to postpone our trip. But I was very disappointed, so "canceling" seems to be a stronger word. So what happened?

Back in May we decided to go on a cruise around Mediterranean sea. We wanted to do this for a long time and finally had the money and the time to do it. So we booked a triple room (for the three of us) in Costa Favolosa, which was supposed to sail in October this year from Savona in Italy, to Marseille in France, Barcelona in Spain, Citavechhia in Italy and back to Savona in a total of six days.

At the time of the booking, I informed the agent that I was pregnant, and will be 30-week pregnant by the time we'd board into the ship. She said that was okay, as long as I'm accompanied by a fit-to-travel letter from my gynecologist. Which seemed logical, as air companies also let pregnant women fly up to 36-week of pregnancy if accompanied by a fit-to-fly letter. So we made a full payment and added a travel insurance.

A week ago I was surfing the internet in bed when I ran into some travel forums on cruising while pregnant, where the ladies discuss about the ships' policies of not allowing pregnant women on board after 24-week. I checked on the official website of Costa, and they do mention that no pregnant women over 24-week are allowed on board. The same policy applies also for MSC and Carnival Cruises. I got panicked. And upset.

I made my husband call Costa the next morning, and they confirmed that it's a valid policy for my own safety. However, due to the fact that I did mention about my pregnancy to my booking agent (who obviously was unaware of the policy), we're entitled to either full refund or reschedule of the cruise to after birth. The thing is, no baby younger then 6-month is allowed on board either. That means, we can only cruise in the summer of 2017 (my baby is due on Christmas eve this year). It's very upsetting to wait for another year, of a trip you've been dreaming the whole time!

Now the good thing is, because we've paid the full amount of this cruise we now have to cancel (read: postpone), my husband thinks we might be able to save some extra money and make an upgrade, so we're now thinking about Costa Pacifica which sails in September next year and includes Ibiza in its itinerary.

Itinerary for our Italian roadtrip to temporarily replace the cancelled cruise

The rainbow after the storm, I get to plan some other trip. Because we already planned the free week for the cruise, we've got a free slot to do another trip. And after thinking of Malta for a while (we'd fly Ryan air from Venice), we decided to do a big Italian road trip: driving from Ljubljana (where we'll live by then -about this in another post) to Lake Garda, then to Turin via Milan, continuing our trip to the famous Cinque Terre, then to Pisa to see the leaning tower, and finishing it in beautiful Florence for a couple of days before returning to Ljubljana.

I'm really not good in dealing with disappointment, especially caused by cancellation of a trip I have planned so well in my head. Waiting for another year for it to happen is another long torture for me. Moral of the story? Check and recheck the company policy before planning any vacation if you're pregnant (or planning a pregnancy).

Story in pictures: Monemvasia & Athens, Greece, July 2015

 

Planning a trip far ahead, yay or nay?

I'm far from spontaneous. I'm obsessed with organization. I honestly admire people who can decide in a second where they're going the next day, sit down and buy a ticket, pack and fly the same moment they decided what to do. I'm far from that. It's not only because I'm now a mother, I never was spontaneous even as a young single traveler. I need lots and lots of planning, for a sense of security, but also for financial reasons.

Now that we travel as a family with a toddler (and with another baby on the way), planning ahead help us with providing babygirl an enjoyable stay she enjoys as much as we adults do. I still wish that one day for once we could be one of those families who travel super spontaneously, but for now, this is the way of traveling that works for us.

Organization is the key of a success vacation for us

I have limited days of vacation. It's 26 working days a year. That's basically five weeks of vacation, which I can take whenever I want, at once or broken down to several breaks. For most Indonesians, this is a lot of vacation days. As far as I know, most workers in my home country are entitled to approximately 11 working days of vacation. If you travel though, 26 working days are really not that much as they sound. We need to plan ahead how we're going to use 'em, how many destinations we're visiting in a year, how long we're staying in each and so on. Because well, the rest of the year, we have to work. Weekend getaways though, could be spontaneous sometimes.

My husband goes on business trips a lot. Mostly to Brussels, but often to other European cities. The frequency could reach twice a month of multiple days of stay, so we have to coordinate our travelings with his schedule. Sometimes he goes on business trips on non-working days (of Croatia) if he has meetings abroad, if it's not a non-working day in his country of destination. Because of that, we have to plan everything ahead, so he doesn't commit to any job when we have a vacation planned. As we were heading to Paris a couple of week ago, his superior asked him to go to Rotterdam for some event. He told the boss he'd be on vacation with his family for four days. Being a workaholic that he is, he immediately felt bad and offered an alternative to his boss that he'd take a TGV from Paris to Rotterdam and get back to Paris to us as soon as he's done with the job. I, of course was upset with his plan. But he got back to me and brought the great news: "forget it, my boss said no. He said -no way! Your wife is going to kill you, I also have a wife, I know how it is!-" :)

I like to make babygirl happy. With her, we travel in two ways: I plan every itinerary well and stick to that, or give open options to my babygirl and let her choose what she wants. Both ways though, I need planning ahead. Even when I leave plenty of options for babygirl to lead our way, I need to research which options are best to be offered. I need to know which routes offer the most entertainment for her, children playground, trampoline, water, animals and other things she enjoy. I need to book an accommodation which works for us as a family, and that would mean less stairways, lower floor (unless it has an elevator), bigger bed (because we co-sleep), equipped with bath tub (she prefers taking a bath to a shower) and if possible, a playground nearby.

Wherever we go, it's obligatory that the place has a trampoline!

I save money when I plan well. Who doesn't? We buy plane tickets during sale periods, pick low-season dates for a trip to avoid overly high prices and tourist traps. For example we've always been dreaming of going on a cruise. Just around Mediterranean sea. And cruises are not cheap. After a couple of years of saving, we finally decide to go on a cruise this year. After a long research, we found a ship that we thought would suit us well, as far as the destination, the contents, the facilities for children and the price are concerned. However the prices go up and down depending on the departure of it. We decided to reserve a departure in October, which is much cheaper than summer departures, guessing and hoping it would be still warm enough in the Med compared to November or December departures. Planning is also important when you fly with a plane. Babies get plane ticket for free until their second birthday, so I know a lot of parents who travel a lot while they can get their babies on plane for free.

I need to keep on track with all medical check-ups. Having a baby also means a lot of routine checks with your pediatrician, and a lot of vaccination schedule. I created a calendar for all of babygirl's regular check-ups and vaccinations when she was born, so I could keep track on the days we'd need to be home, to avoid having to take her to another doctor which is not hers, in some other place. Now that I'm expecting, I myself have a monthly check-up at the obgyn which requires me to keep the agreed dates for routine visits.

Whether you plan your family trip ahead or you just book and go, the most important thing is your entire family enjoy the traveling experience. Traveling can never be bad for your kids. It can only enrich their lives. Bon voyage!

Family trips on budget

There are so many places in this world that my husband and I want to visit and experience. But like other people, we have our limitations. Mostly, financially. Sure there are stories of travelers who work and earn on the road, living for and from traveling; but we never actually plan to live that way. We have steady jobs and don't plan to leave.

Traveling is not cheap, but let's be honest, it's never been more affordable. Plane tickets prices have never been lower, the number of low-cost carriers have never been higher. Countries get more and more "border-less". More agreements and treaties allow citizens to cross borders without visas, or, even more, without passports. Community-sharing options have never been easiest to find like today. We now share our living space with travelers (options like Airbnb and Couchsurfing), and we share our vehicle with travelers (options like Uber and Blablacar). These are our tips on cutting expenses while traveling with your family:

Sign up to newsletters 

Many air companies and travel agents allow you to subscribe to their newsletter so you can be the first to find out their deals and offers. Two months ago I was at work when I received a message through Viber from my husband: "did you get the e-mail from Qatar? They're on big sale!". He didn't have to say it further, but I knew he meant I should check the prices for Indonesia, because we normally go home once a year. During that sale period which lasted for two weeks, Qatar offered return ticket from Zagreb to Jakarta for surprisingly low €390, 40% lower than its usual price of around €600 per person. We made a reservation for another Indonesia trip in March 2017, and turned out that the newsletter in the end saved us several hundreds euros.

Don't be afraid to fly low-cost carrier

Sometimes it's like I'm raising two spoiled brats. One bigger and older than me (read: my husband), the other is two and I gave birth to her. My husband often flies with luxurious airlines (occasionally on business class) for business, so he kept making fun on the service of Ryan air when we were flying for a city break in Paris. He did it jokingly though, he's a very fun person. He grinned while we're entering the plane and whispered "no one asks me if I'd like to read newspapers?" And because you get nothing for free on Ryan air flights, he kept buying sandwiches and chocolates and coffee during the flight. My babygirl, not too much different, asked me during take-off "where's the candy?" knowing that in most long-haul flights the flight attendants offer you candies before take-off to help you balance the air pressure in your head. For the entire flight she was waiting, and by the end of the flight she asked her dad "where's the toy?" expecting the attendant to hand her a toy. She got plenty of different toys from Turkish airlines, Garuda Indonesia and Lufthansa from previous flights. In the end it was a great holiday anyway. I mean, for a €19 flight from Venice to Paris, what else could you expect except a flying bus?

Use community-sharing based accommodation

Since we started to travel with a baby, we basically stopped couchsurfing. We used to couchsurf and to host surfers, but with a baby it's rather inconvenient to share a space with unknown person. That's when we switched to airbnb. Basically we rent a whole apartment for ourselves,  get to choose the place that is most suitable for us, at a convenient location of our choice,  at a much lower price than most commercial listings. For example last week in Paris we paid €40 a night for a one bedroom apartment with fully equipped kitchen and bath, located close from Arc d'Triomphe owned by a very kind girl we were glad to meet. If you prefer hotels to apartments, try to collect and pay hotels with miles. My post on miles collection can be read here.

If you're comfortable, share your car

I know some family who share their car using blablacar when traveling. They also have a child and share the other two empty seats in their car with travelers heading to the same direction. Thus, sharing the cost. I personally don't feel comfortable with that. The main reason is because our car is super small. Besides that, car-moments are rare intimate moments for our family, and we need to be enjoying 'em alone. Babygirl likes to listen to her songs and we would sing along loudly. We also like to make a lot of stops to let her rest and run a bit. So driving with strangers wouldn't be the best solution for us. But if you think car-sharing will work for your family, why not try it?

a postcard my husband sent to me and delivered to my office address

Plan ahead and book everything online

In most cases, entrance tickets to most attraction are cheaper bought online. Whether it's a museum, amusement park, zoo or opera, check for the prices online and reserve your ticket that way. When we visited Paris back in 2010, we booked our ticket to Louvre online. Not only  it was a couple of euros cheaper, we also avoided a massive waiting line for the ticket box. When you have your tickets printed at home, you can avoid the line and go directly to the main entrance of the attraction. Now with babygirl, it's much more convenient to avoid all kind of waiting lines for an obvious reason.

Well, cook your own meal

It's much more convenient to eat out in restaurants while being on holiday. Especially because one of the reasons we travel is to try the local specialties. However, it could be extremely expensive. What we usually do is we'd prepare meals for breakfasts and lunches by ourselves, and leave dinners for experiencing local and authentic restaurants. If we have a fully equipped apartment, cooking is not an issue. We don't just cook whatever though. My husband like to elevate the experience by only cooking the locally famous foods of the place we're currently at. When we're in Paris last week, he cooked soupe l'oignon (French onion soup) for late lunch, which we continued with dinner outside. Back when we were in Greece, we'd buy the best black olives, feta cheese and vegetables from the local market and make our own Greek salads for lunches. The experience of picking local foods in the markets and creating the meal together while telling stories about the meal is also a plus for babygirl, rather than being sat down in a restaurant three times a day.

If it works for your family, make a special saving account

Open a special saving account just for traveling, if it suits your family life style. Several years ago without my husband's knowledge I opened a saving account which is separated from our regular bank accounts and from our main saving account, which directly takes a small amount of money (in foreign currency) from my main account (where I get my salary) on a monthly basis. I withdraw the fund every two years, get some little interest rate, and get to surprise my family with unexpected trips. If this doesn't work for you though, I hope at least our tips above could be used to cut some expenses for your future trip!