Thursday, July 17, 2014

The boring part

We were trying to make our trip to California as cheap as possible.  Several things went into accomplishing this.  #1.  We got our hotel through a time share deal.  We had to sit through their proposal and we got a room at a Hilton for 3 nights for $150.  #2.  We only went for 4 nights.  The last night we had a OK room at a crappy Motel 6.  #4. We ate a lot of our meals in the room with food we bought from the grocery store. \
 
There were certain times we could book the room because of the time share thing so we headed over to California on Thursday afternoon.  Michael wanted to use as little vacation time as possible so he worked that morning.  We left around noon.
 
This is traveling with kids.
 
We took lunch in the car with us.
I saw an idea on pinterest about buying shower organizers for food organizers during car trips.  I couldn't find shower organizers at the dollar store, but these baskets worked.



We got to Dana Point just before 7:00.  We checked in the room and then went out for a quick dinner.  Elliott has completely stopped sleeping in the car (it's been close to a year since he slept in the car) so he had been up all day and we wanted to get him to bed as soon as possible.
 
The hotel room was 2 separate rooms- a bedroom and a living room/tiny kitchen.  The living room had a pull out couch.

 
This is Elliott and our room's toilet.
Spencer was very excited about having his own bed.  Not that having his own bed is any different than every single night at home, but whatever.  We bought the pig at IKEA recently.  He named her Peach and she is a new favorite, so she got to come on vacation with us.
Friday was a lot more exciting.  We spent the whole day at the beach!

1 comment:

Sherry said...

I love your tips for planning a budget vacation. I have never tried the timeshare route, but it sounds like a great deal. We always try to get the best deal for our annual beach trips by going at the end of summer when prices drop drastically and by booking way early in the year to take advantage of early booking discounts. I know this means planning vacations a long time in advance, but it usually works well for us. We do try to buy food at the grocery store and eat at least breakfast and lunch in our room. Glad you guys had a pretty uneventful drive as I know that can make a trip way less enjoyable. Brody will sleep in the car, but he does keep himself awake more if he has a movie on that he likes. It helps to keep him from sleeping too much if you know what I mean. :-)