The Summer Vacay Part 1

There are always 3 stages to a vacation:

1. The first stage is the lead-up, where there is a countdown of your trip every day ‘t-minus 5 days until the Bahamas’ on your group chats and work calendars, and you daydream about sipping a frozen margarita by the pool.

2. The second stage is the vacation itself where you try to make the most out of your day and have time to eat an actual breakfast.

3. The third stage is the post vacation mode feeling where you spend the days after reminiscing about the live dance parties on the beach and the feeling of sunburn on your shoulders.

It’s Summer 2022, things are back to the new normal and a big trip with friends was at the top of my list. Being labeled as one of the ‘planners’ of the group puts you deep into the first stage of the vacation - perfecting the ‘lead-up’ to it.

So like any millennial, I took to social media to figure out what type of vacay we wanted to do. The location was already selected - The Bahamas - but when you add in 3 couples to the mix, it becomes really hard to make any sort of decision.

Bahamas Trip Poll

By creating a poll, I learned that in the Bahamas, food & drinks are veryyyy expensive because they have to import everything.

For example, if you do a vacation rental - your wallets will be empty on the grocery bill alone. And if you do a normal resort, your ‘incidentals’ can become quite stressful. With that in mind, I picked the top contender on this poll - an all-inclusive resort!

Note: we only had a quick weekend to visit so the travel time had to be minimal - so we picked Nassau for the location (did you know the Bahamas has like 700 coral islands?).

I know the lead-up stage is not everyone’s favorite, but a vacation is truly enjoyed when you pay attention to all three of these stages. You can absolutely pay a service to do the pre-planning but it will still require the basic question: what type of experience do you want to have?

Our ideal experience consisted of the below mandatories:

• Ease of Travel: nearby location to where we live + airport shuttle to resort

• Disconnect: leave phone and wallets in room since everything is pre-paid

• Multiple Dining Options: pick an all-inclusive with more restaurants than nights staying

• Privacy: Sandals Royal Bahamian offers a private island, limited to only guests of resort

• Soleil All Day: unlimited sunshine, obviously :)

With those core things in mind, the troops were rallied and the trip got booked! The best part of booking at a Sandals is you pay the ‘deposit’ first (think like a cruise), so it’s not as big of a commitment to convince friends, then you have a few weeks before the full balance is charged.

We then spent the next few weeks texting about what we were packing - the boys actually bought matching Melin hats and totally outperformed the ladies (more to come in Part 2). We all had to schedule covid tests and of course shared our ‘negative’ screenshots in the group chat, had a summer bbq the night before to ‘start the vacation early’, dropped off the kids and dogs, put our OOO on, and made our way to the airport.

That’s it for Summer Vacay Part 1 - reframe your mind to enjoy all the stages to a vacation. If you can appreciate the lead-up to your trip, just think about how much better the actual vacation will be! Have A Soleil Day :)