Here's a story for the grandkids... "the swine flu ruined my honeymoon"

I probably don't even need to say this, but I'll say it anyway: I want to scream. What am I supposed to do with this?

As many of you may already know, our honeymoon is booked in Cancun. As in, Cancun MEXICO. For those of you who don't watch the news, MEXICO has been a hot topic these days, what with the street violence, tourist kidnappings, earthquakes, rampant police corruption and drug wars. And now, to boot, Mexico just handed us the proverbial "last straw" that sent our honeymoon from "it'll be ok" to "we need to change all our plans" - the only terrible plague that Mexico was really missing up to this point - a national pandemic. The swine flu has killed about 150 people in Mexico now, and there have been over 1600 cases reported throughout the country. The CDC and Homeland Security have issued a formal travel advisory stating that all non-essential travel to Mexico should be avoided. When it was just the street violence, we reasoned that it would be fine - that stuff was mostly going on in the border cities and not in the tourist towns anyway, and we'd just stay on the resort grounds and play it safe. But now there's a nasty and potentially lethal bug floating around in the air. Maybe it hasn't made it to Cancun yet, but will it? Who knows. Maybe this will all clear up in 2 weeks. Who knows. Or maybe it'll spread like wildfire and we won't just be ADVISED not to travel there, but travel there will be BANNED. Who knows. And if we wait it out only to find that that's the case, we'll REALLY be up shits creek without a paddle, and a week or two before our WEDDING, no less.

SO, here are our options. #1 - wait it out and hope for the best. OH, but wait, in looking around at our other options last night I stumbled upon some recent reviews of the hotel where we're currently booked, which enlightened me to the fact that last years' hurricane season f***ed up most of the beach along Cancun, and now it's too rocky to even walk along, much less swim in (review after review after review, and not just from angry people - some were just people saying "we're not big beach people so we really loved it, but if you're a beach person this isn't the resort for you"). WONderful. #2 - Re-exchange to Aruba, which is available with Ben's parents' timeshare for that week. And pay $164 to do it. This is a so-so option, only because the resorts available there are either not on the beach, or just not very up-scale. It's a tough pill to swallow, after having been looking forward to the SWEET ASS resort where we're booked now. #3 - Release the place we have now and book a "getaway vacation" (just a different booking mechanism through the time share company... I won't go into the details) in the Dominican Republic at a nice enough beach front resort, and pay $197 for that. It's a studio room (one room with a bed and a bathroom), with a queen bed (oh alright, I can handle that I guess).

OH, but wait, your plane tickets are non-refundable. At this point in time, AirTran is only waiving transfer fees to change flights if you're traveling before May 4th. This may change of course, if the pandemic continues. But if not, we're stuck with the $75 per ticket fee. Alright, so it's $150 extra. Plus the $164 or $197 to change venues depending on which one we choose. Not TOO bad given the circumstances.

OH, but wait, AirTran doesn't fly to Aruba, NOR do they fly to the Dominican. So for example, if we want to go to the Dominican (which is our preference at this point) we can catch a plane to San Juan, Puerto Rico (since AirTran flies there). This flight SHOULD stay within the same price range as our original tickets, but if it does get more expensive we'd have to pay the difference (plus our $75 transfer fee per ticket, if the travel advisory is lifted before then). THEN we get to hop another flight from San Juan over to Santo Domingo, DR. To the tune of another $650 round trip (total, including both of our tickets). Not to mention the fact that we get to hope and pray that our first flight doesn't get delayed and screw up our second flight, and not to mention the fact that the flight times work out such that we won't make it there til at least dinner time.

So, in summary, we will be spending somewhere in the neighborhood of an extra $847-$997 (depending on whether or not we get slapped with the ticket transfer fees), because of this MOTHER-LOVING FLU. I'm having a GREAT day.

I'm inches away from busting out the plastic and booking a cruise. No, MILLIMETERS.