Group Getaway

Hi!

I shared my post yesterday about all the fun we had on our 30A vacay last week, and today I’m sharing some of the logistics as far as traveling with a group.

Tip #1: Travel with people who you enjoy spending time with…haha.

I truly feel blessed that we are 2 for 2 traveling with this group for an extended amount of time for two fall breaks in a row.

Here’s a few of the logistics:

Lodging:

One of the families took the lead on renting the house way back in February. Since we had rented the year before, we got a bit of a discount on being a returning customer. That family paid the first half of the down payment, and we reimbursed via Venmo.

Again, the second half was due in August, and we paid our shares via Venmo to the lead family. Then, they also paid for the golf cart, which is optional with this rental, a couple weeks before our trip. We reimbursed via Venmo again.

Planning:

The moms met beforehand to plan the meals and groceries. Last year, we all got together, and it took some time to plan everything. This year, I wasn’t able to meet up with the ladies, but it was basically a “rinse and repeat” of last year.

We collectively placed an Instacart order of quite a few things we needed like milk, cereal, eggs, chips, etc. Then, we divided up other items like trash bags, ground coffee, paper plate, board games, chips and salsa, coffee pods, waffle maker, and more to bring as well.

One of my friends had the family list from last year, so we just pretty much kept it the same.

We reimbursed via Venmo for the Instacart order.

We had a plan of grilling out the first night and making tacos in the slow cooker the second night. The third evening, we met up at the food trucks in Seaside after happy hour. The fourth night, the parents went out and the kids had pizza. Then, the last day, families did what they wanted for lunch, and we just cleaned out the fridge for dinner.

For breakfast, we did something different every morning. We had waffles in waffle maker, pancakes, cinnamon rolls, eggs/bacon and other items. I don’t feel like I was a big help with breakfast, but the kids were fed thanks to the other moms.

For the beach, we had sandwich stuff, chips, and fruit.

One dad made a Publix run most mornings for odds and ends, and we just tried to keep track of that to reimburse or buy something the next round.

Rooms:

As far as rooms go, there’s a primary bedroom upstairs that also has a secondary room with bunk beds. One family has a boy my kids’ age and two younger girls, so that room made the most sense for them.

Then, there’s a Jack/Jill bathroom that connected two bedrooms. The boys were in one room, and Travis and I shared the other room. One of the boys went to the primary bed/bathroom with his parents as needed. We figured, it made sense for Travis and I to share the bathroom with Hayden. There was one other full bedroom and bathroom upstairs as well as downstairs, so that covered the other two couples. Then, the girls had the carriage house with three beds and a full bathroom.

Venmo:

Obviously, Venmo was very handy for this trip for both paying for things in advance and to reimburse. The night we ordered pizza for the kids, it was $10/kid, and we all just paid immediately, so we didn’t have to keep track of that anymore.

I’ve heard of the “Splitwise” app, and maybe that’s something we can use in the future. I think everything came out pretty even. We tried to follow up at the end of the trip to make sure.

Since we knew the kids would be on their own a bit, we put about $100 on their debit cards, so they could pay for ice cream, food truck, etc. when they went to Seaside. I’m really glad we did that.

Activities:

There are some families that want to stay at the beach all day while others are good for a few hours. We just went with the flow the best that we could. One dad was at the house quite a bit for work, so he didn’t mind coming back and forth a few times with the golf cart to pick up. The house came with quite a few bikes, so the kids could bike back and forth to beach or back and forth to Seaside as long as they were together and we knew where they were.

The neighborhood has two pools, so those were options for our kids too. We laid out the rules/expectations and they knew if they broke the rules, all would suffer a consequence.

The fishing trip happened because another friend of mine was in Destin, and her husband wanted to fish. Our guys were interested, so they organized that.

The moms and dads each had a happy hour as well as a combined one too.

There are definitely things that we all think are important, and I think we all do a good job respecting that. By now, they know I love a beach sunset (I’m sure I’m not the only one), but it’s also fine with me to only go a couple nights.

Others want to go to happy hour. Some want to play pickleball. Some beach most of the day while others are fine with just a couple of hours. Some of the boys love to fish while others don’t as much. I think it helps that our kids are mostly older, so they had a bit more freedom and flexibility this trip.

Thoughts:

I’m so very thankful that we’ve had two successful fall breaks with this same crew.

I know our kids will look back on these trips with great memories. I’m not sure what next year’s plan will be. With fall high school sports and what the expectation of those might be, this might be it for at least a bigger vacay in October….but who knows?

Let me know if you have any other questions about our group vacay. We don’t have all the answers, but I’m thankful we are all still friends at the end of it. 😉