new member with questions about next summer's possible vacation for family

[bythesea]

Great board! I am looking into making arrangements for our family's first vacation to the Caribbean. Have pretty much settled on Abacos Islands, possibly an Elbow Cay rental. We will be vacationing in the end of June. We live near Richmond, Va., so we could fly out of RIC, BWI or any of the DC airports. What carriers are best to look for specials (are there any at that time of year?) and what (approx.) am I looking at as far as RT airfare. Thank you all so much! I am sure more questions are forthcoming if you don't mind!

[Kimberly]

have you checked the FAQs here?

[steamboat]

Best advice for airline prices is look on Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia and other travel reservation systems and see what prices you get for your dates. You should notice that the various reservation systems give different prices for basically (or sometime exactly) the same route and timing so check them all. If you want to stay on a large commercial airline, then look for connections to Continental (actually Continental express or some other name but affiliated with Continental) or Bahamas Air in Fort Lauderdale (FLL) or Palm Beach (PBI) and American in Miami. The airport your trying to get to is Marsh Harbor (MHH). If you use an airline website, they may or may not show the connection to Continental, Bahamas Air or American since that depends on if their a code share partner. You can also try routing through Nassua and then connecting to Bahamas Air for the leg to MHH. If you want a charter flight, pick the charter company pick up location and then get the best price to get to that location. Be aware that if the first airline you fly doesn't ticket your whole flight, they may not be very concerned on helping if connections are missed or luggage lost. Note that US Air is no longer flying into MHH. If your group is large enough, it may pay to drive to Florida and catch a charter. We have a large group (and getting bigger) of 23+ people going to Elbow for a week in June 2005 and we've calculated and average cost of about $1500 - $1800 per person for the week (includes airfare, lodging, boat rental, gas/oil for boat and some meals out but nothing really fancy and does not count individual spending money for Nippers or other items). Some of our cost are variable but that included $500 for airfare (actually greater than that by about $100 for some of the people and less by that amount for others depending on departure location). If you have 10 or more people in your group, ask the airline about group discounts (may save 10-20% of each flight cost). Best of luck and if your planning on a June 2005 trip, better get going on plans since a lot of required items (lodging and rentals boats especially) get rented fairly earlier (we've been planning and reserving items since June 2004 for a June 2005 trip).

[dinghyboy]

We are also from the Richmond area and going for the week of March 26 to April 2nd, which is off course prime time Spring break and throw in Easter for good measure. It will be our first trip to the Abacos and I followed this board for months. I searched for weeks to get the best airfare. Everything from flying to Florida cities then using puddle jumpers to get to Marsh Harbor and Airtran to Freeport and Ferry and taxi to MHH. Part of the problem is flying from Richmond, as you know, getting anywhere other than Atlanta from Richmond is a problem.

We finally settled on American Airlines out of Washington National to Miami then MHH. I think the time we are travelling drove the fares up some. The final cost for 2 Adults a 12 year old and an 8 year old was about $2600. Interestingly this itinerary showed up on Orbitz, etc. for about $300 lesss (total) but one of the legs was not available. When I went to the American site, all legs were available and we were able to assign seats. It is an early morning flight, 6:30am, but I figure we can sleep on the beach when we get there at 11:50am.

I still think I could have flown there for a little less, but I think any savings that appeased my Scottish heart would have been offset by increased risk in delays, lost baggage, or long layovers. If had just been me, or even my wife and I, I may have taken that gamble, but travelling with the kids, I want this to be the trip of a lifetime, so I was willing to pony up the extra bucks to minimize the inconvenience. Will it work? Ask me April 3rd.

Looking forward to getting there. We have been fortunate enough to vacation in a number of Caribbean locations. We chose The Abacos to try and give the kids a flavor of the Caribbean before Mega resorts. I think we will find enough in the way of activities and natural beauty to keep all of us happy without feeling like we are in Disney-South.

Gavin

[BradW]

Although not an oldtimer, I've been down twice from the VA/MD area. BWI is convenient to our house, and both times we have taken Southwest down to Florida, once to West Palm Beach, once to Fort Lauderdale. We were booked from West Palm to Marsh Harbour on BahamasAir, but a delay caused us to miss the flight. The BahamasAir people were helpful in getting seats on the Continental Connection flight a bit later. We came back on Bahamas/Southwest with no drama. The last time, we took Southwest to Ft. Lauderdale and Continental Connection to Marsh Harbour, with no glitches. The prices were very close to the best price I could find on the travel websites, and the Southwest schedule was better for us. Grab a 7:00AM out of BWI, get to FL and get the early afternoon flight to Marsh Harbour w/ enough time to grocery shop and get an afternoon ferry to Hopetown. Book flights on SW directly at southwest.com. I have not used the charter companies.

Last time, my brother, his wife and 2 young children met us in the Bahamas, flying from Richmond. The schedules were not nearly as nice for them. No Southwest. The reasonable Richmond to FL flights all put them on the latest afternoon flights to the Bahamas. They wound up flying to Ft. Lauderdale on a late night flight from Richmond (midnight arrival) and catching the early flight to Marsh Harbour, napping at the airport. Bad move. A better move would be to take a flight to FL at a civilized hour the day before, pay for a motel, let the kids splash in the pool, sleep, then catch the early flight to Marsh Harbour. Yeah, more money, but my brother was a basket case for the first whole day in the Bahamas.

As for price, I think we paid around $470 each, round trip from BWI. Taxes, etc. may have been on top of that.

[chiquita]

My family spent a week last spring break on elbow key. This year we are going for 2 weeks. What a great place. We drove to Daytona and caught vintage air to marsh harbor. I think the flight was around $300 a person. Great little airline. We loved the Abacos. This year we are towing our boat to West Palm and dirving the boat across for a 2 week stay. Check out Sea Spray resort on elbow key.....nice people and great food.