Chapter 1

Never forget that anticipation is an important part of life. Work's important, family's important, but without excitement, you have nothing. You're cheating yourself if you refuse to enjoy what's coming.
- Nicholas Sparks


Getting home from our first trip to Negril at the end of 2011 was a bit of a shock to the system. We woke up that Sunday with snow outside and the dawning realization that there was in fact only one full weekend left until Christmas, which we were hosting. There was not a single decoration hung and not a meal planned. So we got up, put on our winter gear and made our annual Christmas tree pilgrimage.

It was February before I recovered from the season. I had one big thing on my mind and that was getting back to Negril. The boards at this point where starting to light up with talk of April gatherings. There was bash, a magic bus and a flop off. I really wanted to join in the festivities, so I set to planning our return. It wouldn't be April, but it could be November.

I was excited to discover that Westjet had their early winter schedule out and they appeared to be adding a second direct flight on Wednesdays. That opened up the possibility of a 10 or 11 day trip. My father had requested our presence at a family reunion in Northern Saskatchewan that was going to eat up two vacation days in the fall. That left three days that could be added on to our week in Negril.

The stars were all aligning.

I started in on Sunshine to get his vacation approved early, because when I saw a fare in our price window, I wanted to jump on it. Basically at the same time as he got his vacation approved, Westjet revamped their schedule - no more Wednesday direct flight. We talked about it and decided that Negril was more than worth a connecting flight. We would travel down through Toronto but we could still take advantage of the direct flight home.

If you are really paying attention to flights for a particular set of days, it is amazing how much the fares can fluctuate. It is crazy even how much two flights from the same airline on the same day can have differences in the hundreds of dollars. Westjet seemed to be using fares to push people onto a flight that didn't get into MoBay until 7pm. I wanted to be there for sunset, but I wasn't willing to pay an extra $500 to do it.

At least 2 people suggested on the board watching one way flights on multiple airlines. They were so right.

One Friday afternoon mid-August I was at my desk trying to kill time for before the weekend. My work neighbor started talking about booking flights for her vacation and I popped onto Air Canada's site. Their roundtrip was no deal, but the trip down was cheaper than any I had seen and it was scheduled to arrive with plenty of time to sunset. Westjet actually had a seat sale on, which put the whole trip into our fare window.

So I pushed the button and it was good.

A week before departure my cell phone rings and who is on the other end? Air Canada customer service, informing me that their schedule has changed and they have rebooked us on the Winnipeg-Toronto flight the night before and they will be putting us up in a hotel overnight in Toronto.

I know for some people this could be a real issue with shuffling kids and jobs and pets. For Sunshine and I this was big woo-hoo moment. I don`t get to Negril any sooner, but my vacation starts when I get to the airport, so I just got an extra day of vacation on someone else's dime. We hatched a new plan. We'd get the airport in Winnipeg in plenty of time and have a nice dinner. With a small bottle of rum tucked in our suitcase, we could suitably toast the start of our vacation in Toronto and arrive not too worse for wear midday in MoBay.

It all sounded like a rather dignified way to travel.