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Are you canceling your travel for the solar eclipse?

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Are you canceling your travel for the solar eclipse?

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Old Apr 2, 2024, 10:46 am
  #1  
nsx
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Are you canceling your travel for the solar eclipse?

The forecasts are very discouraging. I'm probably going to pull the plug on my trip, although I have the advantage of being able to do so at the last minute, almost literally.

If you want to try your luck and you haven't already booked a hotel in Texas or elsewhere along the track, you should be able to reserve a room now. I predict that air travel prices will come back to nearly normal over the next few days.

The people who booked the eclipse flights are looking smarter now, even though the experience from inside a cabin is inferior to being in an open field under clear sky.
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Old Apr 2, 2024, 11:09 am
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Thinking about canceling. Have bookings for SAT area but the weather isn’t looking good.
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Old Apr 2, 2024, 2:38 pm
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Originally Posted by nsx
The forecasts are very discouraging. I'm probably going to pull the plug on my trip, although I have the advantage of being able to do so at the last minute, almost literally.

If you want to try your luck and you haven't already booked a hotel in Texas or elsewhere along the track, you should be able to reserve a room now. I predict that air travel prices will come back to nearly normal over the next few days.

The people who booked the eclipse flights are looking smarter now, even though the experience from inside a cabin is inferior to being in an open field under clear sky.
Honestly, saw the last one from the plane and it was amazing! You can see the entire shadow of the eclipse approaching on the ground below then it's dark and just as quickly out the other side.
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Old Apr 2, 2024, 4:26 pm
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Yes, thinking of canceling my planned DFW flights and instead trying my luck somewhere up northeast, like Vermont. Long drives instead of flights.
Kicking myself for not having stuck to my original plan of flying to Mazatlan for this.
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Old Apr 2, 2024, 6:14 pm
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Originally Posted by aroundtheworld76
Honestly, saw the last one from the plane and it was amazing! You can see the entire shadow of the eclipse approaching on the ground below then it's dark and just as quickly out the other side.
I bet it’s even better from space, but that’s still pretty expensive.
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Old Apr 2, 2024, 7:57 pm
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I changed my LAX-IAH ticket to LAX-BOS ($160 fare diff). Plenty of cars at BOS and rooms in New England outside totality.
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Old Apr 2, 2024, 10:49 pm
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Because I am in Chicago, I am not paying close attention. And I am genuinely sympathetic for anyone who is looking forward and may not see it, or especially for anyone who will lose money. I also think it will serve the greedy hotels right if people do cancel. I completely get surge pricing--to a point. But when a place like a Motel 6 or Super 8 is charging $500-700 a night when it's normally under $100 (or thereabouts on both ends), it's rotten--especially the places out there canceling people's points bookings.
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Old Apr 3, 2024, 5:45 am
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Cancelations or lack of interest may explain the drop in flight prices for Sunday and early Monday to Toronto. I have a business commitment in Florida this weekend and when I tried to book a Sunday evening return a couple of weeks ago fares were notably higher than they are now.
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Old Apr 3, 2024, 1:10 pm
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We're heading to Springfield, MO on Sunday. Still plenty of hotel rooms at normal rates with normal cancellation rules.

2.5 hour drive from Springfield to a couple state parks within the totality zone. Traffic approaching from the west should be a lot less than approaching from north or east.

Right now, most weather services list Poplar Bluff, MO (the town closest to where we plan to hike during the eclipse) as "mostly sunny". We have until Friday night to make a call on our current hotel room, but if it's iffy we could almost certainly cancel and rebook it Sunday if necessary.
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Old Apr 3, 2024, 1:21 pm
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Originally Posted by Bandicoot
Yes, thinking of canceling my planned DFW flights and instead trying my luck somewhere up northeast, like Vermont. Long drives instead of flights.
Kicking myself for not having stuck to my original plan of flying to Mazatlan for this.
I'm flying into MZT. The weather forecast is pretty cloudy- although not stormy like Texas it isn't looking ideal. Still - I'm in at this point. Hotels are non refundable now. Going to suck it up and head down there.
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Old Apr 3, 2024, 1:37 pm
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Into CLE and out of CAK same day, mileage tickets so refundable, and no hotels or cars booked. Will decide on Saturday night whether to cancel
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Old Apr 3, 2024, 2:42 pm
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Flying to Dallas on Saturday. I can cancel my hotel until Thursday. I chose there since I have friends to visit with, so the whole weekend trip won't be a waste. I'll be pretty disappointed if it's cloudy, but it doesn't seem the forecast is much better elsewhere, at least elsewhere that's easy to get to. Yeah, could fly to Boston, but I can't imagine how bad the traffic would be trying to drive from there up to the totality zone.
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Old Apr 3, 2024, 8:18 pm
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I cancelled DCA-DFW tonight. Feel genuinely sorry for the people who didn't make refundable/points bookings for this one. Planning to drive to either Columbus or Syracuse at this point; leaning slightly in the direction of Columbus (which still has cheap hotel rooms, by the way) since it should be fairly easy to relocate anywhere in Ohio or even across the border into Indiana if we can hit the road early on eclipse day... something tells me that the roads will be a little less crowded in that direction than the areas of the path of totality that are closer to the large cities of the Northeast.
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Old Apr 4, 2024, 9:52 am
  #14  
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It's noon EDT on 4/4 and I am cancelling my Hyatt Regency Indianapolis award stay (4/6-9) if anyone is interested in new award inventory. Since flights are opening up with the poor weather forecasts, I am going to attempt a same-day standby roundtrip to IND. Fly in, possibly see eclipse, fly home. Total time in IND: 2.5 hours.
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Old Apr 4, 2024, 6:48 pm
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Originally Posted by LAX2Anywhere
Thinking about canceling. Have bookings for SAT area but the weather isn’t looking good.

Update: Cancelled while we could still avoid any cancellation fees. Since we saw the 2017 eclipse didn’t want to risk going on a cloud-watching trip.
We’re going to go to SAT later in the year. (I’ve been there several times, but for work.)

Last edited by LAX2Anywhere; Apr 4, 2024 at 6:49 pm Reason: Typo
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