Do you have trouble planning vacations in advance?

[lyeag]

Hi! Being an army wife, I find it next to impossible to plan vacations far in advance due to dh's schedule. He is in command right now of a training battery, so we are basically on boot camp schedule. Add to that not know when or where we are going next, and I am scared to try to plan ahead. Do you just save up money and go when the opportunity comes up, or do you plan in advance and hope it works out? I would love to book rooms at Shades of Green, but I can't justify blocking up some rooms if I really don't know if we will be able to use them.

Any military insight would be great.

 

[Dcat2u]

In the past we try our best to guess the training/field schedule. We go ahead and book and make sure we know the cancelation policies. So far we have only once had to cancel due to a last minute PCS. Good Luck!

 

[lovemygoofy]

YES!!! We have severe problems trying to schedule leave. MY dh makes sure that his soldiers have taken leave before him and then have to make sure my schedule at work doesn't conflict. Being here at Campbell, there is always field problems and training missions they are doing, when they aren't getting ready to go around the world somewhere. Usually my dh will tell me about a month or two at the most in advance when he can take leave and then I begin the search for good deals to where we go. I think the farther they go up the pole the harder it is to schedule leave in advance. Good luck to you.

 

[lyeag]

Glad it is just not me. He was national guard for 10yrs and then returned to active duty. (he was prior enlisted) He has been back on AD for 3 years and during that time he has spent one yr in Korea, 6 months in Iraq and the rest in a training unit. The latest we've heard is that they are only giving about 90 lead time for PCS moves for his rank. We managed to make it to WDW for Christmas. (he told his Col. he PROMISED his wife to go after Iraq, and they wanted him to take a new command.) He had to really push to keep his promise. It was our first vacation in 10 years.

I think you are right, the farther up, the more complicated it gets!
Keep smiling.....

 

[katerkat]

Plan? Ha! We don't plan! So far we've had one leave completely cancelled, and three approved at the absolute last minute - I'm talking 3:30 pm on Friday. And that's all the vacations we've had since DH has been in. We've been talking about going away this weekend when he gets back, but so far his return date has changed four times, so... I'll book the hotel when he actually lands back here.

 

[jwsqrdplus2]

Planning around military deployments and training is so much fun, isn't it?? DH doesn't deploy in his current job, but he does travel a lot (7-10 days/month). Usually we know a couple of weeks in advance, but not always. So what I do is I block dates and times that he is not available. Sometimes because I need to travel with my job, and other times for vacation. So far, we have had to cancel one vacation.

Our upcoming trip is scheduled for the last week of Sept which we KNOW he will not have to travel during, so it works out well. Other than taking our then-first grader out of school for a week. Fortunately this is a military town, and the schools understand you take what you can get when it comes to family vacations even if it is during the school year.

 

[casndan]

I am having a horrible time trying to keep plans that I have already made at this point, My husband is supposed to go on leave on March 2nd and it is uh...Feb 18th now we have a plane ticket on hold and have already used 180 DVC points for a room at Boardwalk Villas, and I have paid for 4 day park hopper pass and bleh, Anyways, his leave is still sitting on his Colonels deks....bleh bleh bleh I just want to know so I can try to beg DVC to change our reservations around...but who knows