OKI 5 is on the horizen...

Well, as the important people know, OKI 5 is in the works!

While we loved The Shipyard last time, we plan to rent Sea Mist again for OKI 5. Sea Mist is the house from OKI 3 and is by far the BEST house on OKI so far.

At this early date there isn't really much to say, other than we plan to go in August or September of 2009, Sea Mist is the house, and so far we have more people tentatively going than we know what to do with!

14 months until the magic continues!

OKI Ahoy!

2 DAYS!!!!!!!!

I doubt very much that anybody is going to read this, but I wanted to update the blog one last time before we left. It just seems lame to have the most recent post be back in May…I dunno. I guess it really doesn’t matter but I wanted to post one last time before we left.

Price Breakdown:

Hotel: $25
Car Rental: $50
Gas: $22
Groceries/Misc: $28
TOTAL PER PERSON: $125

Flight Info:

Friday, July 27:

Flight 5260
Departs MCI 10:01am
Arrives CVG 12:40pm

Flight 5537
Departs CVG 3:05pm
Arrives ILM 4:39pm

Saturday, August 4:

Flight 4583
Departs ILM 4:19pm
Arrives ATL 5:53pm

Flight 1650
Departs ATL 9:25pm
Arrives MCI 10:29pm

You'll notice we have a big layover in ATL (Atlanta) for the flight back from OKI. Maybe we can meet up with Greg and have dinner/drinks and stuff!

The beach will be a blast. I’m UBER excited at this point. Let me know if you have any questions/concerns. But I seriously doubt anybody is even going to read this before we leave.

Oh, well. See you on the beach!!!!!!!!!!!!


Eric

UPDATE

Just a reminder that the 2nd Payment for OKI is due to Jen and Eric by the FIRST WEEK IN JUNE.

If you don't get us your money in time, we'll have to kill you. Or we just won't invite you again. So pay up and give me my money!!!!!



The payment due PER PERSON is $184.41 so have that ready.

Don't forget. Nah, you're not gonna forget.

Flight Info and Car Rental Shit

Here is the flight info for the people leaving out of Kansas City:

Fri 27-Jul-07
Kansas City (MCI) Depart 10:00 am Terminal B	to	Cincinnati (CVG) Arrive 12:43 pm Terminal 3	539 mi (867 km) Duration: 1hr 43mn	DL Flight: 5260 Operated by: Comair
3Economy/Coach Class ( 03C, 03D ), Canadian Regional Jet 700
Please check in with Comair. If checking in at a kiosk, use your name rather than confirmation number.
Cincinnati (CVG) Depart 3:05 pm Terminal 3	to	Wilmington (ILM) Arrive 4:40 pm	500 mi (805 km) Duration: 1hr 35mn	DL Flight: 5537 Operated by: Comair
3Economy/Coach Class ( 04C, 04D ), Canadair RJ
Total distance: 1,039 mi (1,672 km) Total duration: 3hr 18mn (5hr 40mn with connections)
Sat 4-Aug-07
Wilmington (ILM) Depart 6:15 pm	to	Atlanta (ATL) Arrive 7:43 pm Terminal S	377 mi (607 km) Duration: 1hr 28mn	DL Flight: 4597 Operated by: Atlantic Southeast
3Economy/Coach Class ( 10C, 10D ), Canadair RJ
Please check in with Atlantic Southeast. If checking in at a kiosk, use your name rather than confirmation number.
Atlanta (ATL) Depart 9:25 pm Terminal S	to	Kansas City (MCI) Arrive 10:29 pm Terminal B	693 mi (1,115 km) Duration: 2hr 4mn	DL Flight: 1650
3Economy/Coach Class ( 14C, 14B ), MDC MD80, 70% on time

Here is the car rental info for the KC crew:

Avis
Premium car rental
$238.36
($47.67 per person)

Pickup: ILM (Wilmington airport)
11:00am
Drop-off: ILM (Wilmington airport)
11:00am

Confirmation #: 44291480US2


I don't have much else to say right now. We're pretty much good to go, at this point. Dave, if you want to send us your flight/car rental info so we know when you are coming down and can coordinate, that would be great.

Hasta.

TRAVEL PLANS

Ok gang! Here is the deal.

We are buying our plane tickets this Friday, 3/23/07. We HAVE to, or we're going to pay $250 even if we fly out on Friday instead of Saturday. The rates that I looked at yesterday have already started to change!!! We checked Wilmington's "site" and there is no special event that we can find for that weekend. The rates are just...going up, for some reason. Argh.

SO...we're buying tickets on Friday. Plan on that. Jen and I have to wait until Friday because that is payday. If you do not want to wait, that is fine. Here is the plan we think would suit our needs perfectly:


FLIGHT

CLICK HERE FOR LINK

Delta flight 5260
Departs MCI (Kansas City) @ 10:00am on Friday, July 27th
Arrives ILM (Wilmington) @ 4:40pm* on Friday, July 27th
*layover in Ohio

Delta flight 4424
Departs ILM Wilmington) @ 10:45am on Saturday, August 4th
Arrives MCI (Kansas City) @ 2:07pm on Saturday, August 4th

Total flight cost (roundtrip): $200.60

This is the ideal flight, we think. Right now the current ticket price for round trip (including taxes and fees) is $200.60 according to www.travelocity.com . We will be booking these flights on Friday morning, unless anybody has an objection. Feel free to check for lower rates, but I doubt you will find them. $193 is the lowest out there, but that has a flight leaving Wilmington on Aug. 4th at 6:00am in the bloody morning, so screw that. I'll pay the extra $7 to sleep in.


HOTEL

CLICK HERE FOR LINK

Since we will probably be staying overnight in Wilmington (Oak Island has NO hotel listings online that we could find), we looked for local CHEAP hotels in the area. Here's what we found:

Super 8 Motel
3604 MARKET ST Wilmington, NC (4 miles from ILM airport)
$62 per night


CAR RENTAL

CLICK HERE FOR LINK

Here comes the bad part. Jen and I looked into cab services, shuttles, and local OKI car rental places. Zip. Nada. Zilch. Crap. It looks like we'll have to rent the car in Wilmington, and drive it to OKI. This was the car we thought looked best, based on price and luggage space. We found this using www.travelocity.com again (they just have the best rates right now).

We don't think we need 2 cars, this year. We'll just squeeze everybody in and make do with the comfort factor (if there is one) for the 45 minute drive to Oak Island from Wilmington. Once we get to the island, we'll have 2 cars (Dave will either have a rental if he flies, or his own car) and space won't be an issue for traveling around the island, or if we head up to Myrtle Beach or something.

AVIS
Oldsmobile Alero* (or similar)
$194.65
($38.93 per person)
*5 passenger seating, 5 pieces of luggage...according to Avis


That is the short and skinny of our plans, at this point. The flight is the only thing we have to decide NOW; the rest can wait until later. If everything looks good and you all agree, we'll go ahead and count this as our plan and do the necessary things. Jen will reserve the rental car, and Friday we'll buy our plane tickets and then as we get closer to OKI departure we will deal with the rental car.

Let me or Jen know what you think of this plan BEFORE this Friday. Call me or reply to this email.

If you have any questions, let me know. Blah blah blah you know the drill.

I'll be posting this on our OKI site, too.

Oak Island!!

Eric & Jen

I'm SO tired of talking about money, Christine - updated

There has been a request to paint the whole picture so people can save the appropriate amount for OKI. Not a bad request at all! Here are my best approximations, but as we know from the house payments, sometimes an approximation isn’t as close as we’d like.

House	Car Rental	Airfare	Groceries
$ 349.41	$ 44.00	$ 188.00	$ 30.00	$ 611.41

We estimate that the total cost, including flights, car rental, and house rental will be around $611 per person, plus gifts and seafood. This is just an estimation, so don’t hold this as Bible truth or carve it into your arm, or something. Not that you do that, of course.

Freak.

AIRFARE: I’ve been watching the ticket prices since August, and they haven’t really fluctuated at all. It’s been staying just under $200. Right now, it’s $188, taxes included. That’s something that we’ll each purchase on our own as we want to. The flight on United leaves MCI at 7:15am, and arrives at ILM (Wilmington) at 12:09pm.

CAR RENTAL: Car rental prices also haven’t really moved since August. We’ll rent one car, and it’ll be $170 for the rental, including tax. That breaks down to $34 per person, plus $10 per person for gas. In the past (last year excluded), car and gas money has been due the day of the trip. We’re going to do it that way this year, to avoid anyone getting cheated out of money (Erin). I’ll just put the car deposit on my credit card (I promise Erin, this year I understand the whole deposit thing!!), and when we return the car I will use the cash everyone gave me on the 28^th to pay the bill. If we use less than $50 in gas, I’ll give you the cash back at the end.

MISCELLANEOUS: I am having a hard time estimating how much we spent on groceries the last few years. I know that we have to purchase all of the paper goods, like toilet paper and paper towels, all of the spices and condiments, etc. in addition to the food. I don’t remember it being a lot of money, especially since we tend to buy the cheapy brands (since it just don’t matter!). So…I guess I’d estimate that it’d be somewhere between $1 and $1,000. I’m thinking it may have been around $30 a person last year. As far as gifts, that’s personal discretion.
Also, if you love seafood, most people went to the fish market every day and bought fresh seafood. So keep that in mind as another possible expense.

I know Christine will be spending a lot on gifts for me!

If you have any questions, let me know blah blah bliddy blah.

-Jennifer L. Meyer
Senior Accounting Executive
OKI 4 Vacation, Inc.

2nd Payment Update

Ok, kiddies. The 2nd payment of $1234.40 is due the FIRST WEEK IN JUNE so be sure to get your payments to us, by then. I have included a breakdown of what is owed and by whom. Please note that this was a real pain in the butt and needless to say I'm not in the mood for your crap if you don't like the way it looks or whatever. The numbers are right, and everything is kosher so don't worry.

Click here to view the payment breakdown

You'll notice that even though our TOTAL paid each is the same, that Payment #2 totals are different for Jen and myself. That is because we paid the reservation fees on the two houses we had reserved back in the day when we started this whole adventure planning session. So we included that in the total, and made sure that everybody pays the same amount.

You'll also notice that Jen and I are paying an extra 3 cents. That is because for SOME REASON BEYOND MY COMPREHENSION the totals weren't adding up and I so I just said eff it, and gave myself and Jen the extra $0.03 and called it a day. So….shuddup.

I do feel the need to apologize to everyone, though. This is a unique year...the taxes and fees were much higher than in the past, so I was off by about $30-50 when I estimated everyone's payments in the beginning. I estimated everyone paying $300-320 total, and it's ending up to be $350. I also promised a lower second payment, which didn't happen because OIA changed their policies. See, normally they made us pay all the extra rentals and ALL the fees with the first payment. This year, the extra rentals went on the second payment and the fees were split evenly between the two payments.

So, sorry that the 2nd payment isn't what you might have been expecting to pay. All I can say is…OIA can't do math, and we can't do much about it. But please know that we are not happy either and so your frustration is shared. The total amount is the same, but the fees are higher and their payment schedule is lame (in that the two payments aren't equal halves).

ANYHOO…the 2nd payment due is $184.41 per person ($368.82 per couple) that is due to Jen and myself NO LATER than the FIRST week in JUNE. Did you hear that, Dave? First week in June. Write it down, take a picture...whatever it takes to remember. lol

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Reservation fee: $28.25
Payment #1: $1155.00
Payment #2: $1234.40
Reservation fee #2: $28.25
TOTAL: $2445.90
Total per person: $349.41

Total due for Payment #2 (per person): $184.41

Thanks all! Looking forward to OKI and our vacation! Only 182 days left! Wooooooo!