Economy affect your dive travel plans?

[HoustonDiver8]

In this bad US economy, housing slump, high gas prices, slumping stock market, higher food costs, & ever increasing airline fees. Has/will this affect anyone's dive travel plans?

And has this affect the dive operators down in Cozumel? Must assume that gas prices for the boats are also increasing there. Higher food costs probably means no more sandwiches, & hopefully not bottled water service.

Wonder if most airlines will also follow American Air's adding surcharges for now even 1st checked in baggage, in addition to their 2nd bag & fuel surcharges...

Comments?

 

[johnnc]

not me me and my family will be in coz july 19th for a week. diving with allison. we normally stay at f.a. but decided to stay at coral princess this time so we can have some meals in the room.

 

[Scott101]

Yes, its affecting my plans big time. Was planning on taking the wife to St. Maarten this year (I got Coz the last 3 years ) but ticket prices and add-ons are making that very prohibitive. We then decided to head back to Coz but now, flights there are just as high. Guess our big economic stimulus check will have to sit in the bank for a while. Its around $600 more to get anywhere this year for us.


johnc, I always dive with Alison also. She's great! Hopefully, if I can sell one of my kidneys, I will be seeing her later this summer.

 

[budaman]

Not here either..in fact, just sent off final payment for our trip to Tahiti in August. We used the trip to Cozumel as a test pack for that trip and it proved quite successful. Able to get by with one checked bag with dive gear & clothes and a carryon with emergency clothes, camera & video equipment,mask & regs each. Checked bag weighed in at 47Lbs & carryon at 22Lbs & under the 45" restriction and we still had clothes we didn't wear.

American has also announced a $15 charge for the first checked bag on domestic flights, which we will have to pay(depending on when it actually takes effect) because we are staying over in LA a night before flying on to Tahiti.

Mike

 

[deco_martini]

I just got back from a week in Belize. Going to North Carolina in August. Diving with the whale sharks in the Georgia aquarium in November. All of these flights were booked a long time in advance and the money to pay for trips budgeted then.

Next year's dive schedule is in limbo though. We did Coz in 2006/2007 and want to go back sometime. Cancun flights are usually reasonable.

 

[scubawife]

Travel to Mexico for the first quarter this year was up over last year...

MEXICO'S TOURISM REVENUE during the first quarter of this year totaled $4.24 billion, up 7.1% from the same period in 2007, the Tourism Ministry reported. The 5.7 million tourists who came to Mexico from January to March this year represented a 6.4% increase compared with the same period last year. Tourist spending also rose, by 3.5%, to an average of $830 per person during the first three months of the year.

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Airfare is getting insane. I've been looking for tickets from mid-July through August and prices are higher then they were over Easter or last Christmas, and $150+ more then what I paid last month. My Curacao trip for Oct was about $200 more per person on the air then last Sept. Hotel/dive package was the same though. I think dive operators and hotels are sort of over a barrel. With ticket prices going up, people will start looking for better deals at the destination and choose where to travel accordingly. If our land and diving costs start going up the way the airfare is, it will cut into our travel for next year.

 

[augie]

Fortunately the air fare for both trips I have scheduled for this year were bought and paid for long ago.

This time next year we'll be getting ready to send our oldest son to college, so vacation travel was likely out anyway.

Looks like we'll be doing a lot more local diving next year (and for a few years down the road if things don't improve in a big way...)

 

[georoc01]

What has hurt me this year was not the cost by the cancellation of flights to Cozumel. We lost our midweek direct flight and now the travel companies are running a Saturday-Friday charter instead.

 

[Spratman]

I cancelled my trip to Cancun the third week of June because of airfare. It would have cost my son and I about $2000 for round trip from Phila to Cancun. Last year, four of us flew for $1800.

I'm looking to book maybe the last week of August with some very good rates now.

 

[deco_martini]

What has hurt me this year was not the cost by the cancellation of flights to Cozumel. We lost our midweek direct flight and now the travel companies are running a Saturday-Friday charter instead.

This is why I fly to cancun instead of cozumel now. Its cheaper, adds 1.5 hours to your trip, and its more idiot proof. I had a flight from MEM-ATL-COZ get ruined by having the MEM-ATL leg get cancelled right before boarding because of a mechanical. When we got to the front of the rebooking line, they had reserved spots for us to Cozumel for the next day because it was impossible to make any connection to Cozumel at that point. I had to help the airline guy rebook us to Cancun and by the time he finished figuring out the itinerary we had to take a later flight than if we had been reserved by the airline to Cancun when we finally got to the front of the line.