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we’ve barely settled in from our last holiday and i’ve already been booking for the next one, this time for the christmas holidays. we figured there’s not much sense waiting for airfares to fall; most likely the prices will go up instead of down anyway, and since we are not that flexible with the dates (jan’s school starts on the first monday of the year), we’re can’t afford to gamble with last minute bookings. i tried to look for online coupons for airlines, but nada. we shelled out quite a princely sum and we haven’t moved an inch yet. but i’m sure this holiday will be oh so worth it!

now that mia is 2, she’s no longer entitled to infant airfares, but thanks to budget airlines that fly within asia, it’s still affordable. however, for long-haul flights, travel for a family of four is no longer a joke, budget wise. some airlines still offer child fare, a discount of about 33%, but still, we now have to dig deeper every time we travel as a family. we can’t pack ourselves in stainless steel drums and sail across the ocean, can we?

we’re planning a major holiday by year end and i anticipate it’s going to make a big dent in our savings, ack! for inactive mileage club flyers like us, the airfares alone would cost us more than 5 grand (S$)! ouch!

in addition to that, we’ve trying to sort out [lans for jan’s mid-year school break. the flights have been booked but well, we’ll see if all the plans pan out. ahhh, uncertain times!

these recent episodes with illnesses (mine, hubby’s, the kids’) make me want to pack up and escape. i’m starting to imagine that i’m breathing in stale air, stuck in a densely-populated city that sees many travelers from flu-infested cities in the northern hemisphere.

dominican republic vacations are out of the question, but i’ve been thinking hard if we should bite the expensive airfares to manila. with the thousands of OFWs going home for the holidays, december is the most expensive time to fly to manila, it seems. gawd, i so want to fly home, if just to catch up on sleep and not have anything kitchen-related to do for a couple of weeks.

but i’m foreseeing a number of major expenses when the new year comes in, and my left brain (purportedly the logical side) says that an unplanned trip right now is just not going to cut it. and my right brain (allegedly the imaginative side) can’t come up with a way to make it happen. sigh.

the following is a paid review.

of late, i’ve been receiving many travel offers by email and ironically, if i were interested in making travel bookings, it would probably take me longer than ever to find the cheapest offers. i wish there was something as comprehensive as travelgrove that caters specifically to asia.

travelgrove is a meta search engine that helps travelers find the best deals on airfares, hotel rentals, car rentals, cruise deals and vacation packages. basically, they look for deals from companies and other travel websites and gather them up, so users can compare prices and choose the better deals. so you get to see all the best deals in just one place.

fancy a 4-night carribean cruise this fall for $199+? or fly to new york for as low as $153! or how about browsing the latest offers for flights to manila? these are just samples of the good travel offers you get to see, without trawling the entire web. cool, eh?

i wish there was something like this with focus on asia. would be handy for those times the travel bug bites and you’re looking for a getaway without breaking the bank!

a few days before we were set to fly to thailand for a week’s holiday, i was so close to canceling the trip. not only is thailand included in the list of countries with community spread of swine flu, it was also jan’s last week of school holidays, so if he does fall sick, he would have to miss the first few days of classes, which i consider very important in setting students off to a good start. i was chastising myself for not having considered these before i made the bookings, but then, at the time, there wasn’t a single case of swine flu in southeast asia. how was i supposed to know it will spread like fire, and from zero, the number of cases here in singapore has ballooned to about 700 in a span of just a month!

and although we were armed with hand sanitizers and N95 face masks, i felt so heavy about the decision to push thru with the trip, knowingly putting my children at risk, for a reason as frivolous as having a vacation. it was an unnecessary travel we could have easily skipped.

it’s been a week since we’re back, and i think i can now safely say that we have made it unscathed. both hubby and jan have been ordered to stay away from their office and school though, as a form of quarantine. jan has been receiving lessons and worksheets from school which we work on at home sans the classroom desks. it helps to at least keep him busy, instead of just whiling away the week.

we are scheduled to fly to the philippines in september. but if the swine flu alert does not ease up until then, we might just have to skip it altogether. good thing we got those flight tickets dirt cheap, so it’s not a lot of money thrown away!

am not sure how it started, but for the past several years, i’m the one appointed to make the family’s travel plans. perhaps one reason is that techno-bobo as i may be i’m more comfortable making online bookings than hubby is. when i was still writing a travel blog, i was more kept abreast with travel deals, new destinations to check out, new things to try. booking well known chain hotels is easy; it’s just a matter of having the budget. but there’s no challenge in that. it’s in getting good travel deals that i get a kick out of. there’s more excitement in booking a less known hotel in a spot where not everyone else has been to, and finding that you’ve made a wise choice adds to the satisfaction of knowing you’re having a great time for less $$$. so for me, travel starts as soon as click tripadvisor, scouting for well-rated but lesser-known resorts.

so budget travel addict as i am, how could i pass from cebu pacific’s recently concluded promo?

imagine, 599 pesoses for a flight to manila! holiday invitations don’t get more tempting than that! what’s more, a quick check at the school calendar confirmed than jan has a week’s break in the travel period stipulated. click, click, click, done. i’ve booked the entire family for a flight to manila for the price of one person! i’ve no idea yet what we’re going to do once we get there, but i’ve ample time to think about it.

first, there’s jan’s semestral break to plan and think of. it’ll drive us all nuts if he bums around for an entire month! esep-esep…

booking travel accommodations has become a tad bit more complicated now that we’re four. if we are to have a fairly good night’s sleep, we now need to order an extra bed for jan. most hotels now provide baby cribs free of charge, but after seeing the (dubious) state of the baby cot and beddings we were offered during our last trip, i’ve been considering getting a travel cot for mia. i was considering something like the tent-like kindercot, until i came across the baby bjorn travel cot light. this has got to be the coolest travel gear for babies ever. it’s the size of a normal luggage, so you can easily check it in as such, weighs only 5kg, and yet transforms into a sturdy 1-meter bed, in less than 10 seconds. coolness! watch this video:

if you know someone who is expecting a child and loves to travel (even if it’s just to the in-laws), this is the perfect baby shower gift!

i’m a beach holiday kind of person and i’m lucky because here in southeast asia, it’s beach climate pretty much the whole year round. a holiday in Branson, missouri is not my cup of coffee, and if i were to travel to the states, this is a destination that will miss my radar for sure. would be different if i lived there, perhaps. if a laid back, country holiday is what you’re looking for, perhaps branson is just right for you.

Branson is said to be the live entertainment capital of the world (or maybe the people who coined that moniker just haven’t been to malate, manila) and you can book holiday packages that already include tickets to some of the shows. there is a variety of lodging options to choose from — from luxury hotels such as the welk resort and grand oaks, to picturesque cabins at grand mountain, to private and cosy condo units. kids will also be spoilt for choice on the fun attractions available: the titanic museum, ware rides, go-kart, mini-golf, imax, and other nature-inspired activities. the ultimate offering for the more gutsy ones, though, is the silver dollar city theme park:

Nestled in the forested hills just minutes from Branson, Silver Dollar City has everything you could want for a family vacation. Take a remarkable journey back in time to experience true, old-fashioned Americana and Ozark splendor. Silver Dollar City boasts over 30 rides and attractions and is home to the amazing Marvel Cave, but what makes this theme park truly unique is the dozens of craftsman that practice the same skills used by the residents of the Ozarks who lived here in the 19th century, from baking to metal crafting.

it’s definitely a different league from disneyland, but should be very educational as well as entertaining.

i’m an escapist. in the past, whenever i’m under stress, i get sleepy. it’s probably my way of shutting out the stuff that troubles me. unfortunately, these days, i have no control on when i get to sleep, and for how long. but it doesn’t matter; i’ve found a new way to de-stress: surf the web for flight deals and cheap hotels. i get to escape, if just virtually, by being an armchair traveler.

so imagine my excitement when i chanced upon cebu pacific’s latest zero-fares promo (still ongoing as of writing). i immediately concurred with hubby and we decided i’d fly to manila with mia. click, click, click, type, type, type. input credit card details, and where i expected to see a confirmation page, there was another step asking me if i want my cc to be charged in euros instead. fine, proceed. and then….. payment declined!

huh? a gretchen barreto moment? well, i’ve been trying the last 2 days to book flights, and the system still rejecting my credit card. or is it perhaps my dsl connection? in the meantime, almost all promo fares are being snapped up. finally, i called the local booking office today and apparently, the system’s been that way for over a month now. ahhhh, so it’s not me, not my pc, and definitely not my visa. they proceed to tell me that the only way to book flights is thru them, but i need to pay additional S$30 service charge. plus my cab fare as i need to go to their office in person for them to make the booking. hello?!?

S$30 for something i could have done myself if their website was functional. what kind of crap is that?! to launch promo fares exactly at a time when your website does not permit travelers to make the booking themselves online?

stupid? or sneaky?