Let the Vacation Planning Begin!

Last time I blogged, I was having a bit of a freak out over whether or not I would be able to get my vacation time approved.

Well, long story short, I got my vacation time approved! Not to mention yesterday we booked our (first class) flights over to London! Thank the Tim Tebow above for my parents massive amounts of flier miles!

I can say with absolute certainty that my family and I will be in Europe from September 13th through the 27th. As of right now, our only destination is London. We still need to wait until about June/July when the La Liga soccer schedule comes out before we know whether we're heading to Barcelona the first or second week.

Now that our flights are booked, the next hurdle to jump is where we plan to stay. The first decision is whether to go the hotel route, or rent an apartment for the week. Since we don't know which week we'll be in which city, we would have to book a place for two weeks, then reduce the reservation accordingly.

After doing some research, it was much cheaper to rent than to get a hotel room. Plus, with a hotel, the chances of getting a refund once we reduce our reservation from two weeks to one week is pretty much impossible.

At least when renting an apartment, we can communicate with the owner of the apartment and try to work something out.

I searched for apartments on the website airbnb.com. I saw someone recommended the site on a Rick Steves message thread. And since Rick Steves is God, I gave the site a try.

It's actually pretty legit. You type in which city you want to stay in, who long you're there and how many people, and it pops up with a bunch of apartments that you can rent. Some a definitely cheaper than others, but on the most part their cheaper than staying at a hotel.

The best part, I think, about the website is that you can contact the owners of the apartment if you have any questions. I've been telling many of them about my family's scheduling predicament, and many of the owners are quite accommodating. I have a feeling that picking an apartment out of all the options will be the tough part.

There's one apartment in Barcelona that I'm a huge fan of. It's in the Barceloneta neighborhood and it right by the beach. It's big enough to accommodate all three of us. Not to mention that (according to her profile picture) the owner of the apartment is a huge FC Barcelona fan. Win!

I messaged her, so hopefully after the Christmas nonsense gets under control, she will get back to me.

I am just so thrilled that my dream vacation is finally coming together. Only 10 months to go!!!

Off to Christmas Eve mass. My favorite (and only) mass of the year!