Cost Report #3 - Ocean City, MD

Today's post is a continuation of our cost report series.  We are back from our trip to Ocean City, MD and we have tallied up the actual costs.  The trip report can be found here. 

Hotels:
Holiday Inn Suites Ocean City
The nightly cash rate is roughly $535 during the peak summer weeks.  The total for our 5 nights should have been $2,675 just for the room!  That is a ton of money.  Luckily IHG hotels, which the Holiday Inn hotel chain falls under, has great offers to buy discounted points throughout the year.  We took advantage of the USTA's Daily Getaways annual deals.  I purchased 200,000 points for $1160.  That was enough for 4 nights.  The 5th night was booked using points I have accumulated of the past year staying at IHG hotels.

Marriott Residence Inn Salisbury, MD
This one night stay cost us nothing since we used our annual free night reward for being a Chase Marriott credit card holder.  We stayed here on the way to the beach.  It was only a half hour from Ocean City and much less expensive compared to staying on the beach.

Total cost for hotels - $1160

Food and drink:
As our kids continue to get older our food costs continues to rise on vacations.  Here is a breakdown of costs for our family of 5:

Fish Tales - $102
Seacrets - $92
Hotel lunch at the pool - $42
Ice cream at Dumsers - $15
Higgins Crab - $95
Dinner on the boardwalk - $52
McDonalds on the road - $19
Panera on the road - $16
Sheetz on the road - $22
Groceries (Walmart) - $130
Beer & Wine - $42

Total Food and Drink cost - $627

Activities & Souvenirs:
Mini Golf - $29
Souvenirs - $30

Total A&Ss - $59

Gas for Mini Van:   $247

Total cost for the trip - $2,093

I was surprised this trip cost over $2000.   We usually try to use points for hotels but we have been saving them for next summers' trip to Hawaii.  Overall for a 6 night trip the cost wasn't outrageous.  I'm hoping our trip to the Caribbean in the fall will cost much than $2000.  Stayed tuned for more information on our upcoming trips.