Summary of Ziyad's post & My Thoughts

Ziyad,

I understood Soren concerns. There are forces beyond his power, such as his schedule that prevent him from enjoying fully this trip.

On the other hand, I am kind of confused by your post. Let me see if I can summarize it:

"I will only go to a Mangrimage if it comes to me."

In other words, your budget and time will only allow you to go to a place that costs less than $250 to get there?

I was looking at tickets from Friday - Tuesday morning from Philly or Newark to Miami and there were plenty around $250, which is less than Ben and I will have to pay...

What I propose is a four night trip, 3 nights of debauchery (Fri, Sat, Sun) and one of relax (Mon). Realistically, we are not going to be very productive on Monday regardless. Ben and I were looking at tickets, were we can be back to work by noon on Tuesday. They are there.

If you are short on time and have only three nights, come from Sat-Tues and there are tickets under $300 for that as well...

In other words, the cost argument is being blown out of proportion.

So let's face it, from the first email we always knew that doing a Mangrimage was going to be tough. There were always going to be people who could not make it.

Let's just try to make this work and create a memorable experience.
Let's not get back to the drawing board.

I don't think we should be waiting for ticket prices for the Superbowl to commit. Realistically, they are not going to be cheaper than $500 in the best case. The longer we wait, the higher the prices of airfares are going and the more likely that we would have missed a great opportunity to get together.

Let's assume tickets don't come through, what is the worst thing that could happen?
Enjoy the beach and summer weather in February in the company of good friends and potentially with free housing?

Doesn't sound bad to me.