Anyway we had an absolute ball. So much fun. The cruise was amazing. We met so many nice people. Just talking to people from various walks of life makes for a good time and you can meet some very interesting people this way.
The cruise itself was a blast. The excursion from the Cruise in Key West and Cozumel Mexico were so much fun. Actually we went to the Tulum Mayan Ruins which was a bit of a trek but so amazing. I so could go on another cruise and soon
After the cruise we stayed in Miami for a few days afterwards. That was also a lot of fun. But very hot. Well it wasn’t the heat that was getting to me it was the humidity.. standing outside just having a beverage resulting in coming inside sweating.. BUT Miami is a gorgeous place full of culture and inspiration and the beaches.. oh the beaches.. I wasn’t sure I would have fun in Miami but I would definitely go back there again.
Over all it was an awesome trip and once again I came home with money (about $100.00 American) both the BF and I had a very strict budget while we were there. Miami is a very expensive place but we manage surviving on $60.00 at day each. A friend of mine told me I
should write a book or something about how to have a killer vacation on the cheap (not a bad idea but I am way to busy right now to do most things in life,) but for now I will post my budget tips for this particular cruise.
All in all we had saved about $2,000.00 spending money for this trip. Before leaving we sat down and worked out what excursions we wanted to do from the cruise. We decided on the Tulum Ruins in Mexico as nothing in Key West appealed to us. We had more fun just walking around Key West enjoying the site. So we used the travel fund to pay that in advance. We also had a look around for things to do in Miami. We found tickets to Monday Night Raw (the wrestling) tickets for a segway tour, (which we got cheaper with an online coupon) and tickets to the Lemur Experience at Jungle Island (a little zoo in Miami). Those tickets were a little pricey but WELL WORTH the experience of being jumped on my baby Lemurs. Those
were also paid in advance.
After paying for all that and changing the rest to American we have about $1500.00 American. So we sat down and worked out that we should keep $100.00 aside to pay for cabs (to and from Airport/hotels/port of Miami etc), $200 aside for Mexico and the rest will be divided between us which worked out to be $60 per day each. Not bad..
CRUISE
The cruise food was included with the trip which helped out a lot in savings. However booze was not and it was very expensive to drink on the cruise. 4 beers cost $25.00 plus tip. So, although we did drink we didn’t really go crazy. Have only $60.00 a day didn’t go far if you wanted to drink. Actually we both did pretty good. Only day I would only spend 30 and then I would use that to pay for the next day. Once the money was gone it was gone. The BF was also very cautious about his money knowing full well once it was gone so was the fun. We did still have a great time..
Once smart thing we did was every time we purchases something we put the money aside in our room. On the Sunday night (the night before we got back) we went to the machine
and put all the money onto our account. So instead of getting a $350.00 or whatever bill we only paid $22.00 which was cause we purchased a souvenir photo. There were a few gloomy faces from people who received their account bill
MIAMI
This one was little trickier as Miami is an expensive city. Still only have $60 a day each really doesn’t go far when you have to pay for food and everything else. BUT we were staying in a hotel that was also a hostel. Which meant it has a fully equipped kitchen, fridge and place to cook. So that is what we did. First we found a great little café around the corner with full breakfasts for $5.00. That was great… after breakfast each morning we hit up the corner market and got our meals for the day. We had things like chicken, salad, steak (we bought a small bottle of bbq sauce which we shared with a nice couple at the hotel) and even fresh pasta and sauce. On average we were spending about $20 on the entire day’s meal for the two of us. Then we bought snacks for the room and we bought with us a little fold up cooler and bought ice and kept cold drinks in the room to.. Again we kept the drinking and shopping to a minimum. We did have two times were we went out for a meal.. I think lunch one day and dinner another day but its vacation… you have to splurge somewhere. It also helped that we had paid for all our activities in advance and then spent the rest of the time at the beach or by
the pool (which is free)
It’s the little things that make a difference when it comes to saving money on a holiday. At
first the BF was all against cooking at the hostel/hotel because he was all like “we can cook at home why cook here when we can eat out” but when he saw the prices and how much money we were saving just by spending a few extra minutes shopping and cooking the meals he was all for it. In fact he suggested for our next vacation we do a similar thing :)
Overall we had a great time. I love vacationing so much and seeing what the world has to
offer.
Time to start saving for the next one.
NOTE: ill add a few pictures when I get home..