Wayfaring Day 11

July 11, 2025 Friday

David drives to meet up with Amy at our grandson´s house for a day or so. This afternoon we visited the downtown area near their home so our grandson could play and we could all have pizza and ice cream. Going to the downtown area is always a relaxing day even with temps in the 90´s. This was a late afternoon trip so the temperature was better after the sun began to set behind the buildings.

During some of the down time from playing with our high energy four year old we discussed the dates when my son´s team would be in Salt Lake City and Denver. Later in the evening David put together the trip using our new Frontier Airlines accounts and the ideas we have related to cruises. The airfare could not be purchased until the credit card arrived but the plans were made in anticipation of the card being used for as much as possible. The plan turned out to be a combination of flying on Frontier, finding Airbnb/Vrbo´s, Hilton Hotels, Independent hotels via Expedia, and Carnival Cruise Lines. Here is our plan for this trip which includes time in California, Mexico, Utah and Colorado.

We will fly to LAX on November 1 and stay 2 nights at a Hilton property in Long Beach.

On the 3rd we will leave on our Carnival cruise with stops in Ensenada and Cabo San Lucas. We return to Long Beach on November 9. We will Uber to our hotel in Anaheim which is walking distance to Disneyland. During these 3 full days we plan to do enjoy Disneyland and California Adventure. On the 13th we fly Frontier to Salt Lake City and check into our Vrbo. The Vrbo is near the basketball arena where our son´s team will be playing on the 14th and 15th. On the 17th we fly Frontier from SLC to Denver. Our daughter-in-law and our grandson will join us in Denver and stay at our Vrbo near Old Town Arvada. The basketball games will be on the 21st and 22nd. Our flight back home on Frontier will conclude the trip on the 23rd. Quite the trip and most likely not in keeping with our budget. We do not profess to be good at ¨Wayfaring" yet but hopefully we will learn as we ramble on throughout the year.

The travel costs:

Airfare on Frontier:

LAX - $156

SLC - $147

DEN - $186

HOME - $256

Hotel in Long Beach - $403

Carnival Cruise - $590 (less than $50 per person per day)

Hotel in Anaheim - $285 (OneKeyCash of $231 reduced the stay from $516)

Vrbo Salt Lake - $609

Vrbo Arvada - $1216

Total of Travel so far: $3848 for 23 days ($167 per day)

Over budget for sure and other costs have yet to be figured in.

The OneKeyCash of $231 was previously earned credit using the OneKeyCash credit card.

We have booked no excursions on the cruise and will have to add gratuity later but the cruise is pretty much within our desired parameters.

The airfare total is $745 which is okay but we were unable to take advantage of any of the really low Discount Den fares this time.

Of course there will be substantial additions to our total due to dining, transit and entry fees.

Using the cheapest transit options will help but we may be inclined to rent a car in Denver due to our other family members meeting us there. As for dining we are pretty good at keeping those costs pretty low. We share and do small plates and street food when we travel. By staying away from big ticket fine dining and looking for small and less expensive options we have found we can stretch our dining dollars while adding interest to our daily ramble. Once the trip begins we will keep a more detailed record of our spending each day.