How's The Economy Affecting Your 2009 Vacation?

[Missing B'dos]

Hey we went to the bar in your picture one time... we found it when we were looking for deer (we found the deer, too)... it was a cute little place!

[Snowparrot]

I wish I were in Trinidad or Tobago right now!!

[Missing B'dos]

Well, maybe Tobago, if you want a good beach. Trinidad is UNUSUALLY rainy this year, the crime rate is sky high, and we all afraid we gon' be soak for Carnival nex' week. Plus the King and Queen of Spain are arriving Monday, which means roads will be closed here, there and everywhere. Then the Summit of the Americas is here in April, which means weeks of things closed off here, there and everywhere! We have friends here from Barbados right now, and we wish we were back in Barbados... but we did just have a good creole meal on a quiet warm night of 80 degrees or so at a lovely traditional restaurant on the avenue. And we're going to see the kids at Junior Carnival tomorrow. It's a kind of take it one day kind of place.

Missing B'dos

[Elrod]

Found a good airfare and a great deal on an all inclusive resort in Cozumel.

It's a trip that we probably would have taken anyway, but the discounts make it even better!

[Bfan53again]

Hey we went to the bar in your picture one time... we found it when we were looking for deer (we found the deer, too)... it was a cute little place!

No Name Pub is just one of those "unique" little places that cannot be duplicated........and that pizza with a cold beer is heaven!

[Joetown Parrothead]

Not, already been to Puerto Vallerta for 2 weeks. Flipperstock in STL in March, Going to Vegas 2-3 times, Twice for Jimmy May16, Oct 17. Goint to Seattle for Jimmy on Oct 21 and maybe St Barts. Then we are going to San Antonio in July! We just are blessed in what we do with our time & income!

[Missing B'dos]

Things are looking up... now it's Tobago in March, Palm Springs in April (conference), Turks & Caicos in May (one of Jimmy's tournaments, pre paid and all inclusive) -- and also turtle watching in May -- and Grenada/Carriacou in June (pre paid group trip), and maybe California in early June as well. Tentative San Juan for July 4 but we may cancel that or make it an 'en route'. We could be back stateside by July but we just don't know where we gonna blow...

[pinacolada lover]

Unfortunately there will not be a vacation for us. Every thing has slowed for us as well as everyone else. Maybe next year!!!!

[Snowparrot]

Well, maybe Tobago, if you want a good beach. Trinidad is UNUSUALLY rainy this year, the crime rate is sky high, and we all afraid we gon' be soak for Carnival nex' week. Plus the King and Queen of Spain are arriving Monday, which means roads will be closed here, there and everywhere. Then the Summit of the Americas is here in April, which means weeks of things closed off here, there and everywhere! We have friends here from Barbados right now, and we wish we were back in Barbados... but we did just have a good creole meal on a quiet warm night of 80 degrees or so at a lovely traditional restaurant on the avenue. And we're going to see the kids at Junior Carnival tomorrow. It's a kind of take it one day kind of place.

Missing B'dos

Sounds better than 3 feet of unmoveable snowbanks!

Plus Pres. Obama is coming next week, which means 1 days of downtown closures, for a 5 hour meeting!
I went to Carnival in 1990, played Mas with Minshall!!!
I keep wishing I could go back, and I even have the place picked out in Charlotteville, Tobago... but it just doesn't happen.

Is Barbados home for you?

[Missing B'dos]

Minshall's not here anymore... he got famous and went to UK. Now the leader to be with is Brian McFarlane... but most people wanna just 'play', so they go for Tribe or Trini Revellers or whatever... the 'tourist' band is Hart's, but lots of expats play with them. We play with Jimmy's sports club, a "small band" of only 80-100 people (but it wins awards) which means we know everyone, can hop on our truck if we get tired and have a lot more fun. We also bought viewing stand passes this year for a popular club right across from one of the judge sites, so we can cut out, watch a while, use the bathrooms there, etc., if we need to, it's a limited number of people. PS This year we are pirates.

Charlotteville is really remote, but they've now finished the leeward side road up there as well as the windward. We like Blue Waters at Speyside, and Jemima's treehouse. No, we previously lived 2 yrs. in B'dos, then 3 1/2 yrs. in SoCal, now just over 1 1/2 yrs. in T&T, and we don't know where we will go next... all our 'stuff' and our Mustang are in long term storage...we've also lived in St. Louis, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Chicago, NYC, Boston, travelled in all 50 US states and about 7 of the provinces, and 23 countries or territories as well. We just decided early on in our lives that travel was more "take it with you" than big houses or fancy cars... Trinidad is just a little bit 'different'. We haven't lived someplace so Third World before this. This is related to Jim's job, we prob. have another 10 years of it, we figure we'll end up in the Carolinas -- not too hot, not too cold, near the sea, some mountains, and esp. SCarolina a "Caribbean soul", and not too far from the Caribbean, Florida and our scattered family.

[CoronaMargaritahead]

its not....

Will be crusin with the top down to Outer Banks, NC (Nags Head) in June with my large family

and

Vegas in July

I would go away somewhere possibly a cruise, however with starting my new job on salary in late may, I believe I will wait until 2010 to go somewhere remote.. I'm looking at Dubai though

[Missing B'dos]

Dubai is tanking -- haven't you seen the news. Go to Abu Dhabi instead. Don't go to either Guadaloupe or Martinique -- it may have not hit the American news consciousness much yet, but both are shut down and on the verge of serious revolution. I would choose Hawaii.

[Bfan53again]

Don't go to either Guadaloupe or Martinique -- it may have not hit the American news consciousness much yet, but both are shut down and on the verge of serious revolution.

I just read about this in USA Today (a small article buried on an inside page). Too bad for the residents of these lovely islands and I don't know much about the cause of the unrest. But such violence is thankfully so rare in the Carribean these days.

My prayers go out to all for a peaceful resolution ASAP............

[Missing B'dos]

Alas, it is NOT rare. Here on little Trinidad, we had 545 murders last year, one of the highest per capita rates in the world and far worse than nearly all US cities. In Antigua they had a horrorific murder of a newlywed British couple and a couple more killings since, in Tobago a murder of an elderly Swedish couple and a couple more since, plus robberies are up (Queen Latifah lost jewelry over New Year's weekend at Tobago's poshest resort), even little St. Kitts has more crime, and Jamaica has such a high crime rate it is a byword among the islands. Now the French islands. Puerto Rico (a part of the USA) just had an awful murder last week. There are pirates active between here and Isla Margarita VZ also. We here are now also under a yellow fever alert; fortunately we had our shots before we left the US.

The thing is, you don't hear about it up stateside. Why? Partly tourism, partly that the countries involved are so small, partly that US newscasts and newspaper coverage of anything outside the US is pretty spotty.

Safer islands? Grenada; the Grenadines such as Carriacou, Bequia, Mustique; Barbados; St. Lucia; Dominica; Nevis, Saba and Statia; Anguilla; St. Bart's and St. Martin/Sint Maarten, the BVI; and St. John USVI --- but not St. Thomas, and St. Croix has some problems as well. Turks & Caicos are the safest, the Bahamas out-islands, the ABC islands, Cuba but Americans can't visit there and it is safe for dire reasons.

Haiti is extremely unsafe, and in the DR you have soldiers everywhere. You will notice that most of the safer islands are smaller ones, where people know everyone. Check the US State Department site before you plan a vacation anywhere in the Caribbean these days. It didn't used to be that way, but now you have to. Don't expect the tourism people to tell you this.

We still love the Caribbean, but it's not the carefree place that lots of Americans imagine it is.

[Capt.KeyLime]

Every year my wife and I go to KW, FL for a week and a half for our Wedding Anniversary; we have been married for 2 years but we have been together for 12years. This year we are scrambling to do this, our vacation is not until August so I have some time yet, but still gotta save and count pennies and cross our fingers we can go this year. We rather go on vacation and spend the money we do have than to just sit home and think later “oh we should of went”, anyways we always come back broke lol...Plus I’m not going to let this shity economy ruin my fun…

Like Jimmy Say's "WE'VE GOT A LOT TO DRINK ABOUT"

[Bfan53again]

Every year my wife and I go to KW, FL for a week and a half for our Wedding Anniversary; we have been married for 2 years but we have been together for 12years. This year we are scrambling to do this, our vacation is not until August so I have some time yet, but still gotta save and count pennies and cross our fingers we can go this year. We rather go on vacation and spend the money we do have than to just sit home and think later “oh we should of went”, anyways we always come back broke lol...Plus I’m not going to let this shity economy ruin my fun…

Like Jimmy Say's "WE'VE GOT A LOT TO DRINK ABOUT"

I've had this same reasoning bouncing around in my head, too........life is short. I hate to postpone important stuff like vacations for another year!

[Bfan53again]

Alas, it is NOT rare. Here on little Trinidad, we had 545 murders last year, one of the highest per capita rates in the world and far worse than nearly all US cities. In Antigua they had a horrorific murder of a newlywed British couple and a couple more killings since, in Tobago a murder of an elderly Swedish couple and a couple more since, plus robberies are up (Queen Latifah lost jewelry over New Year's weekend at Tobago's poshest resort), even little St. Kitts has more crime, and Jamaica has such a high crime rate it is a byword among the islands. Now the French islands. Puerto Rico (a part of the USA) just had an awful murder last week. There are pirates active between here and Isla Margarita VZ also. We here are now also under a yellow fever alert; fortunately we had our shots before we left the US.

The thing is, you don't hear about it up stateside. Why? Partly tourism, partly that the countries involved are so small, partly that US newscasts and newspaper coverage of anything outside the US is pretty spotty.

Safer islands? Grenada; the Grenadines such as Carriacou, Bequia, Mustique; Barbados; St. Lucia; Dominica; Nevis, Saba and Statia; Anguilla; St. Bart's and St. Martin/Sint Maarten, the BVI; and St. John USVI --- but not St. Thomas, and St. Croix has some problems as well. Turks & Caicos are the safest, the Bahamas out-islands, the ABC islands, Cuba but Americans can't visit there and it is safe for dire reasons.

Haiti is extremely unsafe, and in the DR you have soldiers everywhere. You will notice that most of the safer islands are smaller ones, where people know everyone. Check the US State Department site before you plan a vacation anywhere in the Caribbean these days. It didn't used to be that way, but now you have to. Don't expect the tourism people to tell you this.

We still love the Caribbean, but it's not the carefree place that lots of Americans imagine it is.

Thanks for you insight. Guess I've been fortunate to visit the islands shown on your "safe" list.......