Tell Me Something Good – Flexible Travel
i should be sipping on a virgin margarita right now in tulum, mexico celebrating our friends’ wedding but i am not. thanks to the zika outbreak, we had to cancel our trip to mexico for our good friends cassie and lyn’s wedding.
we saved up money and booked our trip back in january – literally 5 days before the zika outbreak became worldwide news. then we started receiving emails and phone calls from our family members about how pregnant women shouldn’t travel to a long list of places. then i remembered, “oh yeah, i’m pregnant, that means me!”
then i cried. then i got very angry and disappointed and sad and all the emotions. our friend cassie is also our fantastic photographer and we have been friends with her for over a decade. plus, we share so many friends in common that we were very sad not to be able to play on the beach with everyone. we really wanted to be there to celebrate her commitment and love to the amazing lyn but of course – our baby’s health had to come first.
then we learned how important travel insurance can be in a very small amount of cases. the travel agency we booked with initially wouldn’t refund any of our money (almost $2,000, which took us a while to save up) which made me furious. even after my husband explained our situation with zika, newly pregnant, etc… the woman straight up said, “oh we don’t even refund people when their spouse dies and won’t be making the trip.” can you believe that?!
i promise the something good is coming…
thankfully i’m married to a calm and level-headed man (unless you kick him in the shin, then he gets real mad) and he continued the fight to get our money back. after a few weeks of going back and forth with the travel agency, getting letters from my midwife saying i was indeed pregnant and they do not recommend me traveling there – we finally got 3/4 of the money back so yay!
our flights were another story. we used some hefty vouchers we got after taking a trip to see my in-laws. we figured that we wouldn’t be able to get the vouchers back since the trip was booked, we had no travel insurance and blah blah blah. turns out delta airlines was incredibly helpful and understanding! they immediately reissued our vouchers for future travel and wished me a happy pregnancy. how awesome is that?!
we were planning to use half of the mexico trip as our ‘babymoon,’ which is like a honeymoon but it’s before your family of two becomes a family of three once you’re knocked up. i reaaalllly wanted the beach but everywhere is infested with zika, which immediately made me think of all those women who live in those places and just have to do their best to protect themselves and their babies.
then we decided – HAWAII! we were able to use our delta vouchers on two tickets to hawaii (heeeyo!) and i partnered with some fun hotels out there (more details soon) and the people at delta helped us book upgraded seats (all the virgin cocktails i can get my hands on – so soda). we leave on sunday and get back on friday!
so many good things are happening, even if it initially felt like a super crappy situation. we still feel lots of sadness about missing our friends’ wedding but of course they understand and promised to do lots of dancing and cookie eating on our behalf. i am feeling incredibly grateful that we are still able to take a tropical trip together to celebrate, walk on the beach and imagine our evolving future!
we plan to attempt recreate this photo while there (and also note that i absolutely put my husband’s nipple on our christmas card that year):
also, i haven’t been on a plane this year (!)Â so feeling extra grateful for that.
oh and to follow up last week’s ‘tell me something good‘ – look what our neighbor delivered! i can now host a party for 50 people and everyone will have their own cloth napkin!
now it’s your turn – throw some goodness my way about what’s happening around you!
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Courtney {alkeks abroad}
April 29, 2016 at 5:38 am
Yay you are going to have so much fun in Hawaii! We were procrastinators so we hadn’t booked our flight from Houston to Mexico yet when the whole Zika thing came out. We had booked our trip back to Houston through Trav’s work and he had secretly upgraded us to business class for the 15 hour flight since it was going to be our last trip home sans baby. Since the flight wasn’t directly to Mexico they wouldn’t do anything for us and we had to pay a fee to cancel.
I can’t wait to read all about your trip AND all your dinner parties for 50 !
Courtney {alkeks abroad} recently posted…Recipe Recap: April
chelsea
April 29, 2016 at 8:24 am
curse that zika virus! that’s super sweet he had even booked an upgraded ticket to business class – what a guy! sorry you had to pay the cancellation fee – uggggh.
at least we shall not risk anything to ur growing babes!
Elyse
April 29, 2016 at 6:51 am
I’m sure you’re going to have an AMAZING trip to Hawaii! I can’t wait to hear all about it and your HUGE dinner parties you can now have!
Elyse recently posted…Thankful Thursday: Small Stuff
chelsea
April 29, 2016 at 8:22 am
haha i don’t even think i know 50 people here who would show up to a dinner party haaaa!
Claire
April 29, 2016 at 7:26 am
Isn’t it so crazy (and wonderfully so) that sometimes when news is just at it’s worst (*cough* missing Cassie & Lyn’s wedding *cough*) it has some funny way of turning out, even though it is not what was anticipated (and frankly feels like nothing good can come out of the situation)?
This is such a great example of that. Both you and Ryan handled the changes like champs and with so much honesty. Go Chelsea, Ryan and Bavery!
Something good over here…I am doing a surprise trip to see my friend, which was planned/coordinated/paid for by her lovely BF, because she is missing her gal pals (what do you call it? Soul Friends?) in her new city. So looking forward to it!!
chelsea
April 29, 2016 at 8:21 am
yes so so thankful the situation worked out in our favor! you are right claire 🙂
oh my goodness that is SUCH good news on so many levels about your surprise trip! those soulfriend-ships are so rare and important so i’m glad you are getting to do this! plus, so sweet of her BF to organize it all!!!!
Claire
April 29, 2016 at 2:40 pm
yes yes, so rare!!
Have a wonderful weekend 🙂
Audrey
April 29, 2016 at 7:27 am
I was ready to come down here and tell you how absolutely totally insanely jealous I am of your Hawaii trip (and I still am), but you definitely worked for this trip and totally deserve it and I know you both will have the BEST time! So have SO. MUCH. FUN.
(I’m so glad the airlines were so good to you!)
Also, I wish we had all those cloth napkins- we only have a few so we use them for fancy parties, but if we had more we’d use them all the time to help with the environment! (Maybe I should invest in some, lol!)
Audrey recently posted…My Family
chelsea
April 29, 2016 at 8:20 am
thank you we are reallllly excited and so ready for a beach vacation (it’s snowing right now in CO!)
i will TOTALLY send you some cloth napkins because in no way do we need this many! i’ll tweet you photos!
Amanda
April 29, 2016 at 9:35 am
Oh Hawaii! I’m so jealous! And kudos to Ryan for getting a good chunk of your money back. How ridiculous to not give refunds for special circumstances!
Amanda recently posted…April Favorites
chelsea
April 29, 2016 at 2:35 pm
oh my goodness how grateful i am for his communication skills and knowing how to get what he wants because i was panicking over losing that much money! agreed that it’s nuts they wouldn’t easily give refunds for certain circumstances!
Nina @ Hugs and Lattes
April 29, 2016 at 10:18 am
HUGE Bummer about missing your friends Mexi-Wedding. But HOORAH for going to Hawaii!! That’s going to be so fun. Enjoy all the soda. <3
Nina @ Hugs and Lattes recently posted…Are You Inspiring?
chelsea
April 29, 2016 at 2:36 pm
hah oh give me all that soda for suuuure! i am very thankful it all came together and we get to go play in the sun (it’s freakin’ snowing here right now)!
Jennifer Haston
April 30, 2016 at 9:09 am
oohh, you are so fancy now!!! I love that something started out so crappy but the neighbor thing turned out so great.. Kind of like your wedding story.. It’s a big deal to miss someone’s wedding but there are times when it just can’t be helped… It really sucks when you can’t be there for someone.. Something similar happened to me. I had bronchitis and my Mom was recovering from lymphoma (all cured) and my friend Erin who is much more like my sister, was getting married and I was all set to go to the wedding, but because I didn’t want to risk my Mom’s health with the bronchitis or make my friend sick… so I didn’t go.. It KILLED ME! Funny thing happened, Erin was scheduled to be my bridesmaid a few years later… and she got pregnant so she couldn’t travel and be there and she was upset.. and I told her, you know what, I think this is great because there is no guilt about either of us missing each other’s weddings.. we will just make up for it at some time in the future.. And a few months before I got married (when my stress was at it’s ZENITH” we had a girls weekend with massages and pedicures and all girly stuff. It was amazeballs covered in awesomesauce to just have that time. I am sure you are already planning this but maybe you could fly your newly married friends somewhere to meet in the middle and do a “wedding celebration weekend” after the wedding and after the baby is born.. So they can meet the baby and get a special visit… I know you two are creative so will think of something great. My friends who live in Portland actually couldn’t make the wedding and offered us a free trip to be determined so we could some see them.. It was one of the best trips I have ever taken and so relaxing to see them AWAY from the wedding crazy. I know this very long but in hopes that this will help you, I wanted to share. Jeremy and I both work in professions that for a long time we couldn’t celebrate holidays on the holiday (retail/customer service) so we got very used to “making up the time”– so my tell you something good is this super duper awesome Debt-Free Road Trip we leave for today. I am SO EXCITED! It’s so great to have a plan to spend some time with my boo. (I normally don’t call him that.. but I know you call Ryan that… so it felt right.. ) Enjoy your trip! HUGS!
chelsea
April 30, 2016 at 8:18 pm
i am so so so excited for your big debt-free vacation! wooohoo! well done team and it sounds like you are going to have so much fun with your boo 😉 safe journeys to you!
thanks also for sharing about your how you and your friend basically ‘canceled’ each other out in terms of wedding guilt – ha! you’re right that it does all work out! totally loving your idea of meeting our friends elsewhere! thankfully they happen to live colorado so we could all go frolic in the mountains and shout from the rooftops their love! thank you for sharing that 🙂
have so much fuuuun!
Shari Berry
May 2, 2016 at 3:11 pm
Chelsea – there is already a plan, we just don’t always have it figured out! So excited to hear your baby news – congrats to you and Ryan!! Our daughter Chelsea and Oliver had a baby girl in December and she is such a joy, happy to be heading to Vancouver this week to spend time with them. You and Ryan will find an opportunity to create “another special time” with Cassie and Lyn. Enjoy every minute in Hawaii – my second paradise next to Vancouver Island.
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