This is hopefully our plans for our Silver wedding anniversary in 2024... We started saving for it in May 2021.
4th January 2022, I told Scott that one of my dreams was to stay at The Beverly Hills Hotel in L.A for a couple of nights, so he suggested that we do that for our 25th anniversary, just the two of us (hopefully Cerys will be healed by then and I can relax leaving her at home). If this fantastic holiday happens we also plan to do a couple of days in Palm Springs (one of my most favourite places in the world). Nearer the time we will plan our journey and what and where we will visit.
As we went to California back in October 2022, pushing our Orlando holiday back another year, we had thought about going to Orlando in December 2024, but we thought we might not be ready to go this year, it will take a lot of planning and we haven't got our passports yet!, and the girls want to learn to drive, which will take up a lot of our time again. I have been feeling quite low on and off since late 2018, what with all the stuff we have been through with Cerys' years of illness and years of her recovery path, I have kinda lost myself and my purpose in life, plus I have been struggling with the menopause and over a year of painful sciatica and muscle spasms (I am not looking for, or expecting tea and sympathy, that's what mothers do, help their child through the best and worst in life, I would do it all over again if needed, put my life on hold to help any of my kids through such trauma), anyway, on 21st January 2024, Scott suggested doing something special, just me and him for our silver wedding anniversary, going back to Palm Springs again as I absolutely LOVE Palm Springs, although I do feel guilty not including the girls in such a fantastic break, they always come on holiday with us, so leaving them behind will be hard, but they are adults now, Jodie is 26 and Cerys 20, and of course Darren is still living with us and he is now 33, so between the three of them, I know they will be quite capable of existing without me for a couple of weeks, I just have to try not to worry too much about Hamish!
Our passports arrived 18th March 2024.
And, I got the girls starting driving at end January 2024.
16th March 2024, we started looking into it a bit more but the price goes up significantly during December so we are planning to go earlier, maybe October 2024.
18th March 2024, Scott found great flights departing 29th October to L.A and returning 12th November 2024, it was a good deal so we decided to go for it (we haven't told the girls yet!)
Now to start deciding on an itinerary so we can get hotels booked.
Sunday 7th April 2024, Scott got an email from flight centre to say that our flights to and from L.A had changed, instead of leaving Australia on the 29th October, we were leaving 30th October, meaning we had to spend the day and night in Sydney, the same on the way back, leaving L.A 11th November instead of 12th, so we are losing out on 2 days of our holiday!!. Scott phoned flight centre on Monday 7th April 2024 to see if another option was available as we were not happy with this change, they said they would have to contact the flight company, Delta Airlines to see if they had anything different and they would get back to him by email the same day, but never did.
Tuesday 8th April, Scott phoned Flight Centre again and had to go through the whole explanation again, the call handler put him on hold for over 20 minutes until he got in touch with Delta airlines, Delta told him that because there were no other suitable flights for the days we had booked for, they were happy to issue a refund for our flights, but it would take 12-18 weeks for us to get the refund back in our bank, Scott said he would discuss it with me as they couldn't transfer it to any other flight bookings and he would phone him back the next day.
That evening we looked online for alternative flights with a different flight company, we came across ones with booking.com, which were more expensive but we are getting an extra day, and it is for our 25th wedding anniversary!. We now leave on 28th October, leaving L.A on 12th November 2024. Scott phoned flight centre the following day to cancel the flights with Delta, now we have to wait up to 18 weeks for our refund!
April 2024, we haven't as yet properly started planning our route but we are hoping to do a different part of route 66, Arizona, as well as a few days in Palm Springs. We are not staying long in L.A, nor The Beverly Hills Hotel as we had originally planned, it was way more expensive than we would pay for somewhere to stay, not only that, but we had got a chance to look around it when we were in L.A in October 2022, as we have done most of the stuff that was of interest to us the previous trips, we are also not doing the theme parks, so that will give us more time to explore places we haven't yet been to.
We bought this book to help us plan and organize our trip.
19th April 2024, we reserved our plane seats, we went for the two on their own at the back of the plane, 57 J and K, that way we don't have to be seated next to someone and having to move every time they want to get up, we booked the same seats for the flight there and back. ( 24th May, I just found out that you feel more turbulence when sitting at the back of the plane!, so I will have to make sure I take plenty of ginger tablets and sweets with me 😕😜), but hopefully, I won't find it a problem 🫰🫰.
22nd April 2024, we decided on a hotel in Palm Springs, The Oasis Resort. We wanted to have a nice place to stay in Palm Springs as it is only the two of us and since we will be travelling on the road a lot, we will be mostly staying in roadside motels.
We booked it as there were only two rooms left at that price.
Only one room left now!
We got our hire car booked on 26th May 2024.
2nd July 2024, I sent Scott through a link to the Trixie Motel in Palm Springs where I definitely plan to have a cocktail (or two!😜) and maybe a snack.
27th July, we started planning our route.
Over the weekend of 27th July 2024, we booked another three accommodations for our travel in Arizona, one in Williams, Kingman and Holbrook.
17th August 2024, we booked our stay in Albuquerque and Tucumcari.
9th September, I booked to get my nails done, I have never had my nails done professionally before but have always wanted to, so I decided to treat myself and book an appointment the day before we go.
6th October 2024, we worked out more routes and places we wanted to visit.
We booked a place to stay in Monument Valley.
7th October 2024, we booked another two of our accommodations. The Guadalupe Inn, Santa Fe, NM, and Casa Blanca Inn, Farmington, NM.
We booked our hotel room in Monument Valley
Instead of going back through the same route that we came, we decided to go through St George in Utah, where we will be spending the night at the Red Lion Hotel and then heading to Las Vegas for a night before rejoining route 66 at Victorville where we are spending the night before heading back to L.A for our flight home.
It was a difficult decision deciding on which hotel in Las Vegas to spend the night, they are all just so fabulous, obviously the most expensive ones were immediately ruled out, but that still left a few to choose from. On the past two occasions we have been to Vegas, we stayed at Circus Circus and The Stratosphere. We choose the Luxor because I love anything Egyptian.
I wanted these for our Christmas table but unfortunately they were out of stock, so I emailed them in the hope that they would get them back in stock before we arrived and they emailed back to say they had just got them in again so I am hoping they will reserve a 6 pack so we can pick them up when we arrive in L.A on Monday.
I ordered the Palm Springs life magazines that I wanted and will pick them up when we arrive in Palm Springs on Monday.
23rd October, I collected our US currency that we had ordered a few days ago.
I got the ironing done.
And the packing.
27th October, I got my nails done.
And just to finish on not so much a positive vibe, Scott and I decided to go to Praties on Saturday 26th for a baked potato which resulted in me getting food poisoning, I woke up in the early hours of Sunday morning with horrendous stomach pains, diarrhea, along with retching, for the rest of the night and most of Sunday morning, the only thing so far I have had to eat is half a slice of toast and a couple of mouthfuls of porridge. Hopefully I will get a decent sleep tonight.
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