Your Choices Decide the Trip Your Teen Talks About for Years
Your teen has a few summers left at home. Get the seven choices that keep the trip from becoming a regret, plus the ones that get your teen saying "Remember when we...?" long after you're back.
Here's what to decide, in what order, before you click confirm. Cruise, all-inclusive, or Disney. The choices are the same. Every one of them has a clock on it, and most of the clocks start the day you make your first payment. Even with a teen who'd rather stay home.
A few of the 7 choices inside
- The one decision that has to happen before you pick a destination
- What to lock in before your first payment starts the clocks
- How to get your teen to buy in without a fight
"I've planned trips for hundreds of families. This guide pulls together everything I wish every parent knew before they clicked confirm."
Teresa Roddy · Certified Cruise Consultant · Certified Autism Travel Planner
7 Choices That Decide If Your Teen Talks About the Trip for Years
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"7 Choices That Decide Your Family Trip"
Free PDF · Read in one sitting
The 7 Choices, In Order
Each one takes about fifteen minutes of the right information at the right time. Here is a preview of the first three.
When You Book
The biggest money decision in the whole trip, and it happens first
Most families book when it's convenient. But timing is the biggest money decision in the whole trip, and it happens before you've decided anything else.
Inside the guide: The booking windows that matter, from 12 to 18 months out down to 30 to 60 days, and which weeks to skip entirely.
Cruise vs. Resort
Two great options with completely different energies
Both let you unpack once. But they have completely different energies, and if you book on price or a friend's recommendation, you can spend the whole week wishing you'd picked the other one.
Inside the guide: Six questions to ask before you book, plus the warning that "family friendly" almost always means toddler friendly.
How You Protect the Trip
What happens to your money if this trip goes wrong
Nobody wants to think about this one. So most families don't, until they're standing in a hospital room overseas opening a denial letter.
Inside the guide: The 14 to 21 day window that keeps the pre-existing condition waiver active. Miss it and the waiver disappears completely. No exceptions.
4 More Choices Are Waiting Inside
Where you sleep, how you pack, arrival day, and excursion days. Grab the free guide for all seven choices, in the order they need to happen.
Unlock All 7 ChoicesThe Problem With Doing This Yourself
Planning a family trip is a part-time job on top of the two you already have.
Vetting resorts & ships
8 to 15 hours. And "teen-friendly" is a completely different filter than "family-friendly." Disney is its own research project.
Comparing excursions
7 to 14 hours vetting operators, port types, and what to wear so you don't get turned away at the entrance.
Insurance & entry rules
Another 2 to 3 hours, minimum, on insurance fine print and entry requirements nobody reads until it's too late.
Or hand it to someone who already knows
Booking sites show you a room number and a price. We see deck notes, noise reports, real-time inventory, and which rooms to avoid. You answer questions about your family, and I do the research.
The Part Nobody Warns You About
Certified Cruise Consultant · Certified Autism Travel Planner · Accessible Cruise Planner
I fell in love with travel when I was 16, living in Norway as an exchange student. I spent that year traveling around Europe, and I was hooked. Growing up, my family took camping trips and did some exciting things too, like Disney World and Disneyland. Travel was never a question for me. It was part of who I was.
Then I had kids, and trips got harder. We still made them happen. Hawaii when my girls were two and four. A family cruise to Mexico, Belize, Roatan and Jamaica. I love every memory. I would not trade a single one.
But here is the part nobody warns you about. The planning was exhausting. I was working full time as an occupational therapy assistant and picking up PRN hospital shifts on weekends, just so we could afford to travel. I was missing my daughters' swim meets to pay for family trips. Missing moments with my girls to pay for time with my girls.
So I changed that. I became a Certified Cruise Consultant, a Certified Autism Travel Planner, and an Accessible Cruise Planner. Every family I work with gets the same thing: the choices made before the money is spent, so the trip actually delivers what they paid for.