What other destinations to visit before even considering the Galactic Starcruiser?

oh wow. That was almost a year ago. I think a lot of people on here already saw, but sure. I remember our beloved Dave posted on this TR right after he changed his name and I didn’t know it was him :face_holding_back_tears:

ETA FAIL on the link - I’ll just leave it and say it’s in La Cava and the title is They’re Real and they’re fabulous

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Oooh! This is my kind of thread. :smiley: Thanks for starting it @SneakyPete!

I think everyone vacations differently, so before I start blathering on, let me say that we prefer the outdoors, but with some “luxury” accommodations. Meaning, when we do longer than a night or two, we want to be in a cabin or hotel, not in a camper/tent. We like hiking, but then being able to come back for a nice restaurant for dinner, for example.

For National Parks, we LOVED Glacier and Acadia best. Those are the only two trips (besides Disney) that we’d choose to do again. We also enjoyed the 3 in Florida, but they were less immersive for us. Just a day or two at each one. We did Puerto Rico this last March, and it was excellent - Vieques was our favorite. Ireland was amazing, but not cheap.

For shorter vacations, we enjoyed Chicago, St Louis, the “North Shore” in MN (so, north shore of Lake Superior), Door County in WI, Boston. A long weekend, for us, in any of those destinations was enough.

On our to-do list is Asheville NC, New Orleans, some of the national parks in CA (We’ll do Yosemite, Sequoia and King’s Canyon next June). The wish list includes Vancouver, Portland, the Grand Canyon, Mexico, a train trip through the Rockies, Banff.

You’d asked about Hawaii - I did some research before last spring break and would want to do Kauai, but it’s pretty expensive and we weren’t ready for that long of a plane trip with our kids.
My kids have dreams of Europe, and while I’d also enjoy travel further away from home, work and school schedules, cost, and logistics just get in the way of that right now.

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I think any and all of them? I would say only a day or two on Oahu to do Pearl Harbor and then onto Maui/Lanai/Kauai if you are into beaches and the Big Island if you are more into hiking.

I’d love to hear about how you traveled, what your route was, where you stayed, how you planned the details/activities. It is so overwhelming to plan these road trips that we have tend to fall to the familiar cruises, WDW, beaches, and all-inclusives.

I would live out of my car (an early-2000s Cavalier, tres deluxe accomodations) in random places across the US for as long as I could off $6000 before I did the Starcruiser.

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We love travelling on the east coast of Canada. PEI is my favourite. We like to spend two or three days each in Charlottetown and the Cavendish area (Anne of Green Gables land) and you can also spend a couple of days each on both the east and west ends of the island. There are a ton of great inns, B&Bs and cottages.

We’ve also spent a week in New Brunswick in the Bay of Fundy area. You can get cottages near Hopewell Rocks and go kayaking there or stay further south and visit Campobello Island. Lots of great places to explore.

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Tom Bricker posited this exact question in his review…

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The problem is that was not my question, not even close. I don’t want to know what other vacations are worth $6,000 or if it is worth it. Yeah sure, I could get a suite at the Four Seasons and spend just as much.

No, my question was what other vacations are worth considering before even spending $6,000 on a two nights Star Wars cruise. Besides, that blog post is a bit naive, a Norwegian Fjords Cruise is nowhere near $6,000 for a family of four, more like $10,000 or $14,000 if you include airfare.

I guess I felt like these were pretty similar questions! I for sure would consider a Fjord cruise before doing the Starcruiser. But yes, I get that his calculus of 2 people vs. 4 is obviously different.

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Yes, I spent more on many of my trips like French Polynesia and China but you could do it for $6K if you didn’t stay in the Ritz or Peninsula Beijing like I did. I was afraid of hard mattresses and drop toilets in my hotel room so I went 4-5 star and consequently spent like $5K a person plus we did three weeks. But I included these places because they could certainly be done for $6K for a family in 3 star hotels and maybe 2 weeks instead of 3.

*I guess with flights to do some place out of the country you’re gonna have to spend more than $6K honestly because even a truly great flight deal is gonna cost $1K pp.

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They could mean all of them. The big island is actually named Hawaii, but that’s the only one I’ve never actually been to. Maui is my favorite, and I’d recommend Oahu for a generic first time visitor.

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We did Glacier for our honeymoon, and have been back a couple of time, but never in summer which I am dying to do. Acadia is also high on my list, just so far from Texas.

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Back when we were camping with grandkids for a month at a time we spent 3 nights at a provincial park near Ava, NB, if memory serves. Great visit and NB is a nice prelude to Quebec where we spent a few nights near Quebec City before going to a National Park (I think) for 3 nights in a very less English speaking area.

@gingerSnaps543222, our camping trips near Yellowstone or Bryce or Grand Canyon were way less expensive than the Western trip with my sister. We stayed in National Park lodgings which are very nearly Disney Deluxe prices and you have to reserve months out. :smile:
But when you’ve not got a month and aren’t a camper, lodging inside the Parks provides an inclusive experience.

Tho when we were camping, we often stayed just outside a national park at a rec area or forest service campground. Better amenities, larger sites, better prices and more wilderness.

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This is hard because I have no idea what air fares are like from the US.

I do know that it often seems like the fare for a return US - U.K. - US flight is about half that of the same journey starting in the U.K.

So if someone can give me an idea of a typical airfare from the US return to the Caribbean, Europe, Canada it would give me a starting point.

But I would think that you could have 1-2 weeks at any of those destinations with hotel and some excursions & meals.

This piqued my interest. A quick google search tells me there are over 120 islands. Which one(s) do you recommend visiting? How did you even get there? Just the airfare and stops needed seems ludicrous.

We went AUS–>LAX–>Papeete, Tahiti (aka the capital).

I would highly recommend a couple of days on Tahiti itself as it’s the biggest city for one but also it has an absolutely stunning inner road with several hiking trails, waterfalls and not a soul around for miles. We rented our 4X4 and did it ourselves and it was magical. A highlight of the trip. You can do guided 4X4 trips as well if you don’t want to drive on tiny winding roads on the sides of mountains.
Tahiti Inner Road:
Vallée de la Papenoo (Tahiti) - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (tripadvisor.com)

The favorite for me was Huahine (Sexy Woman in their local language because the island is shaped like a curvy woman). It was my favorite because it’s a large island with only 6K people living there. It’s much more authentic and way less touristy. We stayed in a 3 star lake resort that was a very good price point and you could take a 5-10 min walk along the beach or road and be in the main town (aka Fare as they call all the main cities on each island). It was just stunningly gorgeous, peaceful but also tons to do in the ocean itself to the inner island including ruins and shark snorkels and pearl farms and vanilla farms.
Huahine:
image

Then I like Rangiroa which is my first choice if you are a scuba diver. I did multiple dives here and saw wild dolphins and TONS of sharks, literally 1000s. We did pass dives into the atoll (obviously only do this when the tide is coming in) and there are reefs and fish everywhere. This was one of Jacques Cousteau’s favorite places to dive. It’s also very authentic and very very different from the other islands in that the middle of the island has long sunk of the fault line and is such a huge lagoon you cannot see the other side of the island across the water. It’s just a single ring left. There are uninhabitated motu (and one you can actually stay on without electricity though they do have a water desalinization plant for you to drink and bathe in the cabins) There are only like 5 or something cabins on this motu and its truly off grid.
Rangiroa:

Next up for me was Moorea. This island is a quick ferry ride from Tahiti so if you’re short on cash or time it’s makes for a good one/two punch from Tahiti so you don’t have all those flights you were concerned about. It’s like a 30 min ferry ride and you can see it from Tahiti. But it doesn’t have the big city feel Papeete does and you can go inland to the top of the volcano and get amazing views.

Last for me was Bora Bora which I found touristy, stuffy aka the people around me were rich and I didn’t feel like I fit in, and it was outrageously expensive compared to all my other locations. I wouldn’t say it’s anymore beautiful either, but it is pretty. If you want snobby french food and an overwater bungalow that costs $1500 a night at a Four Seasons without any real Tahitian culture and to be in a Western bubble…this is for you. It wasn’t for me.

There are so many other places like the Marquesas you can go to. We did 2.5 weeks but you could do a week if you stuck to Tahiti and Moorea. If you wanted to try Huahine or the atolls like Rangiroa you’ll need to take a short flight of which it was easy to book on the local Air Tahiti airline. You can book set loops that take you to a series of islands for a set rate.

BTW This is hubby’s and my favorite trip of all time. We chose it because I remember reading they get something like 100K tourists a year versus millions that go to Hawaii. It’s like a less touristy Hawaii.

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Same here. I could seriously use some Hawaii trip planning help!
Liners for Hawaii, anyone?

Throw Mackinac Island on the list. That’s a sweet trip to do before Starcruiser

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Ooooh, great question! My family just got back from almost two weeks in Oregon and I was truly blown away. Beaches, mountains, deserts, cities-we did a bit of everything and the scenery was some of the most gorgeous I’ve ever seen. You could definitely do it for under 6k-we flew in then took a road trip through the state and there were a variety of lodging options (we did a mix of splurges and motel-like places). Also didn’t seem as crowded as other summer spots.

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Mackinac Island! I had completely forgotten about this place. Definitely adding it to the list. I’ve been wanting to go there since that Christopher Reeve movie. We lived in Chicago for 12 years and we never got ourselves up there but I definitely want to go.

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It is VERY cool. And beautiful. I worked there for 2 summers