![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Wednesday: travel planning
Oct. 20th, 2021 08:53 amOne of the later elements of trip planning for me (when an airplane is involved) is figuring out how we are going to get us from home to the airport. When I was only responsible for myself, I used to get a ride from a friend, or take a shuttle, but once it was four of us, including car seats, we drove ourselves, until one year when we really struggled to find a spot in central (I won’t park in an open lot in New England during the Snow Season(s) ever again. You know why.) and were directed to park in an illegal spot. It was fine; we were not fined and our van was not towed, but it nagged at me in the back of my head for the whole trip and after that, I found a car service (Boston Carriage, highly recommend) and used them from then on. Well, until our trip to California in February 2020. We drove for our June 2020 trip to Hilton Head, and for our April 2021 trip to Orlando, because it was still dead easy to get a parking spot, and I still had a lot of concerns about time in an enclosed vehicle with anyone else. Couldn’t really get around the plane part; could avoid the private vehicle part.
But we’re all vaxxed, and boosters are becoming a thing, and rates here are low, and I’m feeling like we could do car service again, especially since a lot more people are going to the airport and while I don’t _know_ that parking has become a nightmare again, I’m in no hurry to find out. Also, since R. has retired, we are contemplating longer trips, and that has the potential to make car service objectively cost effective. We looked up the current rates in central ($38) and did a little math, and then compared that to Feb 2020’s car service cost, and I was like, yeah, probably do car service for the next one. And in the spirit of, why wait until the last minute and then discover you should have done it sooner, I called Boston Carriage and had the usual extremely excellent customer service experience of arranging the rides there and back. And then I went and looked at the pricing.
It’s _cheaper_. By _a lot_. I’m not going to expect this to continue, because this could be some kind of weird rate, hey, thank you for coming back, it’s been terrifyingly slim pickings around here and we want you to love love love everything about this and come back and do it more just like you used to. But yeah, definitely cost effective this time.
But we’re all vaxxed, and boosters are becoming a thing, and rates here are low, and I’m feeling like we could do car service again, especially since a lot more people are going to the airport and while I don’t _know_ that parking has become a nightmare again, I’m in no hurry to find out. Also, since R. has retired, we are contemplating longer trips, and that has the potential to make car service objectively cost effective. We looked up the current rates in central ($38) and did a little math, and then compared that to Feb 2020’s car service cost, and I was like, yeah, probably do car service for the next one. And in the spirit of, why wait until the last minute and then discover you should have done it sooner, I called Boston Carriage and had the usual extremely excellent customer service experience of arranging the rides there and back. And then I went and looked at the pricing.
It’s _cheaper_. By _a lot_. I’m not going to expect this to continue, because this could be some kind of weird rate, hey, thank you for coming back, it’s been terrifyingly slim pickings around here and we want you to love love love everything about this and come back and do it more just like you used to. But yeah, definitely cost effective this time.