Reducing travel expenses....a primer....

sleep in your car. =)

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peace, love, coasters.

We actually bought a minnievan so we don't have to sleep in a tent all the time. Really handy if it rains. This also allows us to have one person driving while the other is sleeping in the back.

The cheapest food is what you have in the cooler in your car. In the summer it's always cold sandwiches but for cooler weather we have a power inverter that runs a microwave. Something hot is great in October.

Cold pop saves a fortune during the season. It doesn't take that long to go back to the car and at around 25 cents a can you save mucho bucks every day. It's worth the parking fee to have the cold drinks and food right out in the car.

Season passes make it much more tempting to stop in on a park when you are just passing by. It's a great break out of the van to stretch our legs. We get our Six Flags pass using credit card points.

Scott

Hey Scott....does Carol know you're using her SN....just teasing ya...;)

One warning about sodas in coolers. After a trip to Holiday World on a very hot day we came back to the car and I turned on the air-conditioning. Driving down the road towards the gas station, I started hearing noises coming from the back that didn't sound car-like. You guessed it, it was the sodas all exploding from the temperature change.
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Acronym: INTernational AMusement INstallation

A sampler of ideas. Take your pick ...

l. For your next vehicle, buy a minivan. Take out the rear seats and equip it for camping, or buy it so equipped to begin with. Most parks will allow you to park overnight in their parking lots, so you can just "camp out" in your van. The parks with water parks included or right next door offer showers and changing facilities, usually near the wave pool. Even if you have to buy a separate ticket, it's always cheaper than one share of the hotel room.

2. As has been mentioned, you have to "day hike," carrying food and beverage in a belt pack as if you were hiking out in the woods. Holiday World offers free beverages and Kennywood offers good food reasonably priced at the Pavilion, but all the others are overpriced and mostly fast food.

Place something (towel, swimsuit, t-shirt, etc) over the food and beverage and camera and film above that, so if the park prohibits bringing food in the park, you can open your pack and show the usher you have camera equipment and a change of clothes for the rafting ride or log flume.

3. Form a coop among a dozen amusement park lovers. Each of you buys a season ticket to a different park within a day's drive of your town. As the season progresses, you keep trading the passes around. The pass gets used all year, but unknown to the park it gets used by a different person each time. You get to go to each park for a fraction of what it would cost you otherwise. As this strategy is usually implemented, you need 24 or so people and each pair buys two passes. This means pairs of people make each trip, so you don't end up travelling and riding alone.

4. Well in advance, call the park and the hotels in the area and ask what packages may be offered. One or the other will usually have something. Last summer Busch Garden told us nothing was available but the Holiday Inn three miles away gave us three one day free passes to the park with a night's room. As long as you stay away from Mem Day, Jul 4 and Lab Day this works pretty well.

5. Well in advance, call the major hotels in the area and ask for standby rates. This means if the businessmen haven't filled all the rooms at the usual $180 a night rate, after 6 pm that night, to fill the room, they'll give it to you at a rock bottom cost of around $70. You risk showing up and having no room, but you get lucky often eouugh to make it worthwhile.

6. Organize a group of 15, 20 or 25 people (different parks require a different minimum). The organizer goes free, and everybody else gets a significant discount. Hotels also give group discounts.

7. If you have writing or photographic skill, go to your local newspaper. It doesn't matter if it's a weekly, small daily or major city paper. Suggest they allow you to write a weekly column on parks, or submit weekly photos of parks. Remember papers need filler--just pick one up and notice how much totally irrelevant copy and photos are included. If you can talk them into it, then use their stationary and write the parks, telling them which date you're coming on, and requesting two press passes. (One writer and one photographer, or one writer/photog and one driver are common.) Afterward you'll need to send the park the article or photo you had used. Once you set this up, you can continue it for years. It doesn't matter if the paper actually pays you or not; the pay is the press pass. Any per inch pay you receive is icing.

But you have to keep your end of the bargain to the newspaper and the park. At the end of the year you can also tax deduct your gas and lodging.

8. Research the parks you pln to visit. Find out which major hotel chains are in their vicinity. Then contact the regional offices of those hotels and apply for a part time consumer analyst position. This means you'll register in advance and pay the usual rate, eat in the restaurant, then fill out a detailed report on how the service and facilities were to make sure the quality is in keeping with franchise standards. There are people doing this full time, and people doing it part time. About a month later, you get reimbursed for your room and meals. You may or may not be paid an additional stipend.



There's nobody out there who would be interested in all of these ideas, but if any one of them appeals to you, go for it.

See you on the lift hill.

I don't think I'd risk it on smuggling the food in or trading Season Passes. I have seen people doing both get busted. With the food, they usually just make you take it back to the car, so all you've lost is the time. For the Season Pass, though, they will take it and not let you in the park without a full priced ticket. Some Kids at SFoG lost theirs in this exact way on one of my visits last season...

The other ideas are good ones, though

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rollergator said:

Hey Scott....does Carol know you're using her SN....just teasing ya...

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Gator,

Does this mean I've been hijacked?

Carol

I had season passes last year at CP and stayed at the Breakers Express, Priceline was a ripoff, as the hotel was 5 miles from the park and 5dollars less...If you want to stay at the Breakers, ask for the old section..BE is the cheapest place to stay in Sandusky, try to book early!

Bump. Anyone pick up any good travel tips this season?

Yeah, work for a hotel. You can't beat the $15 employee room rates almost anywhere in the country. It is a great perk!

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ApolloAndy said:
Bump. Anyone pick up any good travel tips this season?

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Yeah, Andy. Hang with me, and I will pay for everything, and bring a bottle of Wild Turkey just for giggles. ;)

Okay. Travel tips that don't involve little big Rob.

Hey now... I didn't start that rumor! Blame Corey or some other drunk for that one. ;)

Anyways, just hang with me. You know you want to, and nobody is quite so dangerous. You might even get arrested, and I always pick up the tab. Well... usually.

I'm a little late to the party, but try TravelAxe. It's a hotel rate search engine that has coverage in most large US cities. It originally started as a Vegas only hotel search, but has since grown.

You specify your dates of stay, and city you wish to stay in. TravelAxe will then search several websites, and display all the rates for every hotel available in that area.

If I have one complaint about TravelAxe, it's that it requires a software download. On the plus side, they don't spam, or install spyware, sell your email address, or anything like that.

I've used TravelAxe for the past year for Vegas trips and amusement park excursions, and had very good luck finding good deals. Also, it's 100% free. You pay no fees for using it, and it's a free download.

http://www.travelaxe.com/NewSite/Information_Overview.asp

Jerry

I'll give TravelAxe a thumbs up too. We are planning a trip for next March that will include LA and Vegas and the price quotes on some of the 5 star casinos in Vegas are shockingly reasonable if not low from TravelAxe. You get quotes from about 12 different travel sites, just have to watch the cancellation restrictions.

The one things that helps us with airfare is having an airline credit card. You get a mile for every buck charged and we use the credit card for almost everything instead of using the debit card or cash. We got two free tickets on USAirways to LA for our March trip.

My husband travels for work so not only is he signed up with just about every airline, he is also a member of Holiday Inn Priority Club and LaQuinta club. LaQuinta runs specials throughout the year like, stay 3 nights within a certain period of time and get a free night stay. We are using a free night at the LaQuinta in La Palma, CA (not far from Knott's) on our trip next March. We have yet to find a bad LaQuinta.

If you are a government employee (or the daughter of a retired gov. empl. :) ), some car rental companies offer pretty nice discounts. You need a special code and phone number in some cases when booking. This discount will save us almost $40 on our car.

I have heard of the great deals people get on Priceline but just can't bring myself to reserve a room without knowing what hotel it is. Call me kooky.

For our "local" trips which include overnight stays, we camp. We bought a used pop-up camper 3 years ago and it has already more than paid for itself. Between the savings on hotel rooms and food, you can't beat it. Now if only they would make more fuel efficient vechicles to pull said camper...

If you can consider spur-of-the-moment trips, check the "last minute weekend" packages at www.site59.com. You can find some pretty good deals for the next two upcoming weekends, and search by date to see what cities come up and which interesting parks are near them.

If you live in a hub city, your airline may offer a portal to this underlying database, with benefits. You'll only get that airline's flights, but that is probably true anyway for a hub. For example, Northwest usually gives 500 bonus WorldPerks miles for last minute deals booked through their site.

This is ver cool, guys I had not thought about lots of this and I thin kit will save me loads of $ next time I travel! Sweet!!

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chris said:
I encourage others to explore the benefits of a 'sugar daddy/momma.'

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Haha! I just saw this one and laughed out loud. (Someone on another post said I have to spell out all words, so I dont know if its okay to abbreviate that like some people do.) but I thought it was funny enough to tell you it was funn even without the abbreviation and the resulting extra time typing it all out!!!

....scared now.

I can't tell whether to laugh or cry....or both.