Still Wrestling…

I appreciate that many of both of my readers will not have slept well all week, waiting on the next crucial update in my self-inflicted dilemma of where to spend two weeks on holiday. I’ve done nothing but turn down interviews with major news outlets, conscious that I should only be giving updates here.

The news from Virgin Arlantic was as expected. We could cancel but at sizeable cost. So our options if we wish to not use the flights we have booked are –

1. Amend them to somewhere else that Virgin fly to ideally from Manchester for £500
2. Cancel for £700

Whilst not life changing in the overall context of the cost of any trip we may end up going on, those amounts are painful enough to mean it isn’t a simple decision, especially when all this may be a ridiculous over reaction and our original trip would probably be no different to any other we’ve been on despite the absolute buffonery and malice coming out of the White House.

All the signs point to the usual cycle with this orange idiot. Something is announced, the news is dominated by it for days and then it gets walked back due to the consequences or reaction or it was never going to happen anyway and, in the example of tariffs on Canada and Mexico it just facilitates some nice insider trading for the billionaire’s club who were able to watch the stock market crash for a bit, buy a load of cheap stocks and then make immediate paper profit once the tariffs are “postponed” and the markets recover.

So we haven’t made a decision is what I’m saying. There has been fairly extensive searching for alternatives and once again I’ve come across the ususal TripAdvsior issues where any place we think looks nice then has too many reviews talking about the kind of stuff we hate on holiday.

1. 6am sunbed reserving
2. Poor food selection/choice/quality
3. Butlin’s style “entertainment squads” round the pool

Maybe I’m just looking wrong, but these are not cheap package deals.

The best thing to do of course is go off personal reccomendation and a friend and colleague of mine has just returned from a work incentive prize trip to Mauritius. It was incredible and I’ve even been looking at the hotel they all stayed at. For roughly the same all up cost of the Orlando trip, once we count spends etc, we could do that, although I suspect it would end up being a little more as it’s only Half Board, not All Inclusive, but the blocker here is the travel.

Flight options are either a gruelling 24 hour marathon indirect from Manchester via somewhere like Istanbul or direct via Gatwick. For Northern monkeys like us that is pretty challenging. Getting the train to Manchester can be hard enough, never mind from our local station, to Manchester, to Euston, then two tubes to Gatwick, with cases and hand luggage. That doesn’t sound like fun, especially on the way back on the wrong end of a 12 hour night flight.

The resort (Sugar Beach) does look stunning though.

So for now, even I’m bored of hearing about it so we’re sitting tight for a bit. We don’t need to really do anything until May when we have to start paying balances for stuff like the hire car. Perhaps if I just decide not to watch the news for a bit I can just be oblivious to the seemingly intentional journey into war and global recession and just go and enjoy brunch at Wine Bar George as the good lord intended.

Sticking with the plan would certainly be the easier option as the thought of going through the hoopla of cancelling with Virgin, waiting for the refund etc and then starting again with a place I know little about sounds like a time sponge.

I shall draw a close to this post so you can all give your eyeballs a rest from the constant rolling they must understandably be driven to do reading this stuff. Enjoy your Sundays.

Till the next time……