Question...

[diftw]

We are 7 years away from retirement and believe we will want to snowbird. Have any of you had to cancel your snowbird plans due to not being able to get out at the time you picked to leave? I’m sure we wont want to leave until after Christmas.

Thanks.

[Thunder_Mountai]

My wife was a 30 year educator. So, our timing for spring RV trips was out of our control. Several times our departure was delayed by snow or we had to cut it short a day or two to run ahead of a incoming storm. One spring we had almost 5' of snow. Couldn't get the RV out of storage. What a pain.

Now that we are retired we pick a departure date and start to monitor the weather. We still often leave a day or two early or late to get ahead of the storms, but there is no pressure.

Each year we seem to leave a little earlier for Arizona. Our limiting factor is the heat. We watch to see when the heat breaks. This year it was still pretty hot when we arrived in Tucson in mid November. On the return we start watching the Colorado weather around mid March to look for a weather window. We have a couple of hunker down places between AZ and CO in case of bad weather.

[MarkTwain]

MarkTwain wrote:

diftw wrote:
We are 7 years away from retirement and believe we will want to snowbird. Have any of you had to cancel your snowbird plans due to not being able to get out at the time you picked to leave? I’m sure we wont want to leave until after Christmas.

Thanks.

Another consideration is the reservations you make. Read the fine print in the RV Park's reservation policy. Will the RV Park give you a total refund, partial refund or no refund but instead will only roll over your reservation to the next year in the event circumstances delay or postpone your reservation??

X1, always check the reservation policies BEFORE you make the reservations.

[homefor2]

happycamper1942 wrote:
Last year we had a reservation in Casa Grande RV Resort, Arizona for the month of March, and were planning to leave a week earlier for a leisurely drive down from Vancouver Island, When it came time to leave, we decided to postpone for 2 weeks due to the very heavy rain, which flooded the I-5, two dams were in danger of bursting etc etc. We contacted the RV park and were able to postpone for two weeks without any problem. We also contacted the Canadian Snowbird Association and postponed our health coverage, again without any problems.
After 2 weeks the weather was still crappy, this time strong winds and advisories not to drive RVs so we decided to cancel altogether.
We explained the situation to the RV park, they fully understood and refunded out deposit minus a $50 handling charge.
We also cancelled out health insurance, and got a refund minus $50 per person without any problems.

All that and you call yourself "happycamper" lol

[happycamper1942]

Last year we had a reservation in Casa Grande RV Resort, Arizona for the month of March, and were planning to leave a week earlier for a leisurely drive down from Vancouver Island, When it came time to leave, we decided to postpone for 2 weeks due to the very heavy rain, which flooded the I-5, two dams were in danger of bursting etc etc. We contacted the RV park and were able to postpone for two weeks without any problem. We also contacted the Canadian Snowbird Association and postponed our health coverage, again without any problems.
After 2 weeks the weather was still crappy, this time strong winds and advisories not to drive RVs so we decided to cancel altogether.
We explained the situation to the RV park, they fully understood and refunded out deposit minus a $50 handling charge.
We also cancelled out health insurance, and got a refund minus $50 per person without any problems.

[Parrothead_Mike]

In the past I've used Weather.com to monitor weather forecasts for cities along our route from MI to FL: I-65, Indianapolis, Louisville, Nashville, and Montgomery, AL. I also watch our destination, Crystal River, FL. I check these locations weeks in advance almost daily and watch for a stable weather trend.

We have used a "window period" for our departure date. For example if we wanted to be at our destination on January 1 I'd be looking for dates from December 25 to December 28/29. One time a few years ago I saw the weather changing on December 27 in SW MI so we left on the 26th. If you try to pick a specific date rather than a window period you may get caught up in a weather condition that isn't good.

Also, if you think you will just wait out the bad weather you might wait a lot longer than you had planned.

We now leave MI after Thanksgiving to avoid the after Christmas period and have had great weather conditions the past two years.

[2gypsies1]

The weather will change in 7 years! 🙂

[Chuck_thehammer]

with snow plows and salt... depart when roads permit...

I get out November first or so... return April sometime...

a few years ago.. I departed on January 02... south of OHIO, I was fine. to Florida..

Family is happy without me/us....

[bucky]

Why too old of course. May we all be lucky enough to get there also.

[Lwiddis]

My question is how old is 2oldman?

[Dutch_12078]

We leave our upstate NY site for Florida the first week of January. Our non-reserved stops along the way give us enough flexibility that we can adjust a day or two one way or the other if needed for weather issues. In the past 5 years though, we've only stayed an extra day at an overnight stop once due to weather conditions, and we've never had to change a reservation.

[MarkTwain]

diftw wrote:
We are 7 years away from retirement and believe we will want to snowbird. Have any of you had to cancel your snowbird plans due to not being able to get out at the time you picked to leave? I’m sure we wont want to leave until after Christmas.

Thanks.

Another consideration is the reservations you make. Read the fine print in the RV Park's reservation policy. Will the RV Park give you a total refund, partial refund or no refund but instead will only roll over your reservation to the next year in the event circumstances delay or postpone your reservation??

[2oldman]

Everyone on here has a 'question'.

[MWJones]

diftw,
If you are worrying about small things 7 years before time and not even sure what you will do - you will be a basket case when the time gets here.

[Lwiddis]

Since you will be retired, go with the flow. Ease up. Leave when the storm passes.