Looking back on our One Month Flying Caribbean Adventure...
Hi to our RV Family of Friends!
It’s been nearly two weeks since we arrived home to Southern California, and it’s been the
HARDEST two weeks of having to go to work in my ENTIRE lifetime! I can tell you that I
REALLY MISS being on Island time!!!!! I
TOO really
MISS checking in with you all on our daily travels in the islands!!!
But this is life, and here I am, in the ‘real world’…but the good news is that I’m writing about our ‘trip of a lifetime’ without having to wait a lifetime to tell you about it!
I have to thank Doug “Krash” Reeves and Van’s Air Force for allowing me to share this trip with you. I also want to thank you
ALL OF YOU for following along on our trip and posting all the kind notes here on this thread! Lastly, I thank the
MANY of you who wrote personal e-mails that I very much enjoyed (and hopefully replied back to each of you!).
This trip has been two (2) years in the planning, and it was really great that I could share it with these
special friends who flew with me for the entire month:
Andrew “Sharkbait” Brandt
Mike “Keys” Brewton
Indira & Chris “Jailbird” Kleen
And let’s not forget these
special friends from the first week of the trip on Grand Turk!
Dave “Taco” and Alina “Belle” Bouno
Scott “Scoot” & Tanya “Cookie” Card
Laura & Randy “Deuce” McFarland
Gene “Moody Blue” & Janet “Bun” Larsen
John “Sugar Daddy” and Dani “Trophy Wife” Wilson
Bill, Jody & baby Will Wootton
Steph Hoke (flew with Andrew and left for home from the British Virgin Islands)
Greg & Robin Vouga (arrived to Grand Turk the day after we left)
And lastly, for some of the trip, Doug “Opie” Dodson and his wife Gail (E-Stitch), my skypark neighbors!
Standing (L-R): Bill Wootton, Mike Brewton, Steph Hoke, Scott & Tanya Card, Andrew Brandt, Laura McFarland, Dani Wilson, Janet Larsen, Dave & Alina Bouno, Chris & Indira Kleen, Doug Dodson
Kneeling (L-R): Rosie, Tuppergal, Randy McFarland, John Wilson, Gene Larsen
So here’s a summary report of how the trip went and I’ll be sure to correct this very post when I re-read it again and think of something I missed. Here goes…
COST
I have been asked by many people, “How much does it cost?” Back in 2004, when I first started flying with Jim “Jimmyb” Baker to the Caribbean, gas was cheap (compared to what it is today: I recall paying something like $2/gallon in 2004). When I got home from that first trip, I figured it cost me
an average of $300/day, and I was gone for two weeks.
Now keep in mind that I did not spend $300/day….some days were more and some days were less. When flying in the USA, those days cost ‘less’ because we stay with friends who house and feed us (thank you very much!). Flying all day, staying and eating in a USA hotel costs a bit more. Flying all day, staying and eating in a foreign country costs the most.
Then the costs settle down for a week in the islands since you are not flying but still paying for hotel and food and all the ‘other’ costs that go with a vacation…souvenirs, taxi’s, tips…this list goes on and on. But let me tell you this, and those who have flown with me on these trips have heard this over and over and over again:
“We did not fly all the way here in our RVs to save money!” And that’s the truth!
We flew here because we wanted to fly here in the airplanes we built (or bought)!
So here’s a rundown of how costs have gone up over the years, and don’t forget that I have to fly all the way from California to near Miami to even
begin the open-water legs:
2005: (Still) About $300/day to the Cayman Islands
2007: About $350/day going back to the Turks & Caicos (2-week trip)
2009: About $400/day going back to the Cayman Islands (2-week trip)
2011: About $400/day going to the Bahamas (3-week trip with 1-week in the USA)
2013: About $450/day flying the Caribbean (4-weeks) trip (and no regrets!)
Just like you, I go to work and save money away to take a (< 4 week) vacation every year. And I’ll continue to plan an ‘Islands’ trip every odd year from here on out
I recommend using either the the
Capital One or
Discover credit card as they
DO NOT charge foreign transaction fees. We used the card whenever we could, and we spent ~$4500 cash. US Dollars where accepted everywhere except in Martinique-France where they took only Euros.
PLANNING:
It’s not too hard to do when you are following somebody like I did in 2004 chasing Jimmyb, Seismo and Lucky to the Turks & Caicos but sure is a LOT easier to plan for myself now having done a few times! I’m still calling Jimmyb with questions but they are getting fewer as the years go by. As for the time of year, I have found that
April is the best month for flying to the Caribbean. It’s either the end of the high-season or beginning of the low-season (hotels costs less).
It also has helped that we were ‘returnees’ to the
Hideaways in the Bahamas, the
Osprey Beach Hotel in the Turks and
Paradise Villas in the Caymans as they
ALWAYS give our group a
GREAT RATE (much less than if you went on your own). And I don’t mind going back to an island I like…I’m still houseboating at Lake Trinity (in Northern California) going on my 29th summer this year (2013).
As for accomodations, we only had reservations at the front end of the trip (Grand Turk & Virgin Gorda: places I've stayed before) since I knew that I wanted to be on Grand Turk for three (3) nights and
Virgin Gorda for five (5) nights:
WE LOVE VIRGIN GORDA!!!. After that, we were free to fly where we wanted and stay as long (or little) as we wanted. We used
hotels.com to look for rooms, and we made the reservations the night before we left the island since we already knew (weather-wise) if we'd be leaving the next day. The room rates dropped a
LOT when making the reservation the day before!
Prefilled-out forms for both
General Declarations (GenDecs) and
International Flight Plans saved lots of time too! I took 120 GenDecs and nearly used them all. 50 flights plans were more than enough. Here's a copy of a GenDec and International Flight Plan (X's mean: I don't have this):
And
MANY THANKS again to Jim Parker at
Caribbean Flying Adventures for answering all the calls and e-mails on flying the Caribbean!