Travel Plans 2026

Managed to get a few new credits this year at Universal Studios Singapore, also visited Tokyo Disneyland but did not ride anything. Thats enough travel for now.

Our first amusement park trip is usually BGW, but we are going to Great Adventure this Sunday instead to get our prestige pass processed.

We are going to Hawaii in May, and flying back to LAX. We are going to go to Sea World San Diego, and Belmont Park. We didn't get to visit on our fall trip.

Before the end of the summer we are going to Texas to visit SFOT, SF Fiesta TX, and Sea World. Depending on time we may try to hit smaller attractions like Kemah Boardwalk. These parks are new to us.

If you are going to San Antonio in the summer I would strongly recommend spending a day At Schlitterbahn, the best and most unique waterpark in the US. It’s a Six Flags park so your season pass and all its perks apply. It’s 40 min from SFFT in New Braunfels and it has 6 “rivers” (4 fed by cool river water, 3 splash down into said river) that are partial lazy rivers, but have rapid sections and slide portions. Those rides are 5 to over 30 min long and are so much fun.

Article that expands on the "Disney is too expensive" theme. Presumably flagged for me in part because of this thread.

https://www.deseret.com/opi...vacations/

For my family, we have always preferred national park trips. Have several more planned in coming years. Kids (and their partners) will join us on some of them.

Was Disney ever a "middle-class" vacation? I thought that's what we were growing up, and there was no chance we were going to do it. We did a lot of camping in state parks, where a site was like eight bucks a night back in the 80's.

The two times I visited Disney (age 6 and 14), they were day stopovers (bookended by two nights in an Orlando hotel) to Magic Kingdom in the middle of a 1 to 2 week Florida vacation staying at various beaches. The second trip when I was 14, Epcot was still fairly new and my folks had no interest (I didn't really either at the time). So yeah, Disney wasn't always the destination spot it is now, with its multiple parks, hotels, and vacation packages.

There has been a lot of upscaling in terms of vacations. When I was in high school 4 decades ago, didn't know many people who had been to Europe and no one who had been to Asia. Knew a lot of people who had never been on an airplane. Much less true for my kids and their friends. Lots of cruises taken all over the world. Trips to Europe, Asia and South America are a lot more common now.

I went to Magic Kingdom sometime in the early 80s. Day trip from St. Petersburg spring break trip with my parents/siblings. Next year it was a day at Epcot (it was a couple years old at that point). My siblings and I told our parents we preferred Cedar Point. And we never went to Disney again (for decades though I haven't been there since with my parents or siblings). Initially, Disney Florida wasn't the vacation resort that it is now. At one point later in the timeline, as we have discussed before here, it was something of the benchmark (at least for some people) or a rite of passage (particularly those with kids). Its what generates all of the "Disney Hates Poor People" articles. Article above notes similar happenings with other vacations as well that are adding more luxury opportunities. WSJ has an article today on increase in the number of American households worth in the 8 or 9 figures. Similar concepts.

Vater:

The two times I visited Disney (age 6 and 14), they were day stopovers... Magic Kingdom in the middle of a 1 to 2 week Florida vacation

Samesies. Until I was in my 20s and went with my girlfriend, I was never even there for a full day. We'd drive to Florida and stop in for a few hours on the way down and back. It was $3.50 to get in IIRC, which is about $17 today, and you'd buy tickets for the attractions. It was only the one park, so a Disney destination vacation was never even considered.

GoBucks89:

Trips to Europe, Asia and South America are a lot more common now.

Air travel has gotten a LOT cheaper when adjusted for inflation and today's dollars... It's not even close compared to decades ago to go overseas. A quick look puts a NYC to London flight in 1980 between $750-$1500 round trip... In today's dollars, that's $2800-$5950... I can book a flight out tomorrow for $709 round trip, non-stop. If you do at least a few weeks, you can do sub-$500 round trip.

Researching destinations/activities/hotels and actually making travel plans is far easier with the interwebs these days... Throw in the wide variety of flight options from major hubs with today's long haul aircraft that can get you to the other side of the world in less than 24 hours as a single stop (or non-stop)... Or the fact you no loner need silly things like travelers checks as your credit cards accepted most everywhere (or your phone tap to pay), no need for travel agents to book things for you, etc... The intimidation factor has dropped a lot over time, which is a good thing!

Having the internet to research, plan and book my trips is a main reason we have gone overseas so much... And often times, the cost is really not much different than a domestic trip. My favorite example was looking two years ago to fly down to Orlando for Horror Nights for the weekend and with flights, car, hotel, park tickets, etc... It was MORE to go to HHN than what we paid to fly to the Czech Republic and spend some magical days in Prague and Plzeň... No contest, there.

Agree with all of that. Deregulation had a huge impact on cost of air travel. And traveling today is a lot more convenient than it was way back then. Vast majority of trips I took as a kid involved 6 people piled into a car. Practical limit on how far we would go. Now the options are much greater. That has impacts on what were at one time some practical mainstays of travel.

And depending on what country you go to, you may make up for an expensive fight with inexpensive items in that country. I was surprised at both Japan and Singapore recently with how cheap things were to purchase (lunch, sundries, souvenirs, etc) compared to what I would pay in Orlando.

The funny thing is that if I go back to my first marriage in 2000, we went to Hawaii for the honeymoon. I don't see how we possibly could have figured that out without our AAA travel agent. More to the point though, when we left Kauai for the big island and hated it and the hotel, it would have been hard for us to pivot like that on our own. Very different times.

It's so much easier now. With the EU, you can freely travel between European countries without customs and with (mostly) the same currency, which you don't have to get converted because there are ATMs everywhere.

In general I've found that the conversion rate is much better these days. The first time I was in Britain, it was 2 USD for one GBP. Just checked and it's $1.33 now. That's lots more buying power once you're there.

You can rent a car and not worry about reading road signs because of your phone's GPS.

The French still hate us, though. :)

I marvel at how my dad drove into Washington DC without a GPS when I was a kid. He just knew his way around cities. I still get lost in Pittsburgh. :)

The wife and I just booked our HHN trip for her birthday. We'll be in Atlanta for a music festival so we're probably renting a car and driving rather than deal with the airport hassle. If we do I hope to stop at Fun Spot for their RMC.

In fairness, Pittsburgh is hard to navigate. I lived there for seven years, and still barely had half of it in my head.

What I always remember about Pittsburgh is that if you go the wrong way downtown, good luck since it's not a traditional downtown grid.

I also could never figure out the colored belt system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...elt_system

I don't think anyone here really knows what the colors mean either. I've tried to follow one when I was bored one day and missed a turn. That was that.

kpjb:

...which you don't have to get converted because there are ATMs everywhere.

If you need currency at all. I didn't encounter one place in my Northern Europe trip (UK, France, Iceland, Norway, Denmark) that didn't accept mobile taps. Capital One cards don't have any foreign transaction fees, so it all just worked.

Exactly. I was just living in Germany from July of last year to January 2026 and I never once needed currency. In fact, I never bothered to even get any the entire time I was there. Same goes for my recent trip through Asia.

That surprises me, actually. When I was in Italy a few years back, everything was tap to pay. When I was in Munich a couple years ago there were a lot of places that did not accept credit cards. Most restaurants, everything at Wiesn, lots of stuff around town.

I used the ATMs there quite often. What I learned was that if you use a generic ATM it can be expensive, but the ones in banks have no service charges and don't incur one from PNC here, either.