Transcript: Episode 200: Boom Boom Trip
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[00:00:00] Susan Barry: Holy Moly! This is Top Floor episode 200. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/200.
[00:00:14] Narrator: Welcome to Top Floor with Susan Barry. This weekly podcast ride up to the top floor features tangible tips and excellent stories from the experts and characters who elevate hospitality. And now your host and elevator operator, Susan Barry.
[00:00:32] Susan Barry: Welcome to the show. Cat Meek is a restaurant owner, sommelier, real estate investor, and travel advisor, but her most important job is helping me celebrate milestones on this show. This episode represents our 200th episode, and I seriously cannot believe it. I believe it because I've been looking forward to it, but it's still kind of crazy. Cat is my sister, if this is your first time listening, and she has appeared in five episodes of Top Floor, starting with episode one. We recorded that one as a test, so it was like a fake show and, but it ended up being really funny, so we kept it and I released it as episode one. Although she has many titles and has had many jobs, Cat spent the last 15 or so months on a self-styled adult gap year. Her daughter, Eliza, had recently graduated from high school, so Cat and her husband Mike decided to put their businesses on pause and take about 25 trips in less than a year and a half, which is insane. So today Cat and I are gonna talk about what it's like to take a gap year as a grownup. But first I need to make sure that she's okay because Cat is recording from her bed and it looks like she keeps almost falling off the side. Are you all right? Are you going to make it?
[00:02:06] Cat Meek: I am. I am fine, I am well, I'm here and I'm present. And I'm upright
[00:02:15] Susan Barry: Okay. Well, for now. We'll see how long that lasts. Before we jump in, we need to answer the call button.
Call button rings
The emergency call button is our hotline for hospitality professionals, and probably in this case tired adults who have burning questions. If you would like to submit a question, you can call or text me at (850) 404-9630. Today's question was submitted by Jim and Jim says, “The cost of the credit cards that get you into the airline lounges seems exorbitant to me. Are the lounges worth it?” Cat, from over there on the floor or wherever it is that you're dialing in from, what are your thoughts about Jim's question? Is the airport lounge worth it?
[00:03:13] Cat Meek: For me, it is 100% worth it because… well, a year ago I would had a very different answer, but now that I have lived the lounge life — A hundred percent worth it for the lounge visits. But it isn't just lounge visits that you get, at least the one I have, you also get companion certificates for flights. So it's like a buy one get one free. And they pay for your TSA pre-check and global entry and no, I do not work for them, but I do.
[00:03:44] Susan Barry: But why is the lounge worth it? Because that's what this specific question's about, and I agree with you for what it's worth, but I don't know if people understand why it's worth it. Because I mean, you know, you can get like a free cup of coffee and a cookie. Is that really worth all of the hullabaloo around it?
[00:04:04] Cat Meek: Yes, but it's way more than a cup of coffee and a cookie. They also have a full open bar that is complimentary. They also have hot food, cold food, fresh food, good selections, and more importantly, seating with charging stations where you can set up. If you have to work, you can set up your computer, get your work done in a quiet environment.
[00:04:31] Susan Barry: So that's the key for me. The lounge is more quiet. I don't know if I am like developing audio processing disorder in my old age or whatever, but just the quiet of the lounge is so worth it to me.
[00:04:47] Cat Meek: That is a hundred percent worth it. It's mostly about getting the mimosas and breakfast or the lunch or the whatever it may be, that is also a perk.
[00:05:01] Susan Barry: Do you always just get mimosas? What I really like in the Delta lounge is the coffee. I think they have the best coffee machine.
[00:05:09] Cat Meek: My husband Mike, of course, loves the coffee.
[00:05:12] Susan Barry: My coffee twin.
[00:05:13] Cat Meek: Oh, he is obsessed. I do also get coffee, but during the morning and the day I get mimosas, and if it's an evening flight, I'll have a glass of wine.
[00:05:24] Susan Barry: Fantastic. Well, everyone can go back and listen to your life story in past episodes. You were in episode one, as I mentioned, 65, 66, 100, and 123. So you've been in a lot of different episodes. I'm not gonna go through all of that again. Instead, I wanna focus on your travel history in your lifetime. So what were your experiences with travel as a little girl growing up?
[00:05:54] Cat Meek: The one thing I think about when we were growing up is road trips. Anytime we went anywhere, we were doing it in a car and we would mostly travel in the summertime because our parents were teachers, and of course our schedules as well. And we would mostly go to New Orleans over and over and over, which was fabulous, but because Dad's family was there and then there was the year the World's Fair was there, and we went to the Mardi Gras almost every year. And you go there for Christmas and then during the summer and trade off. And so that was I think the number one destination for sure when we were kids. But road tripping was kind of the thing. And I remember when you were in middle school and high school and you started going to these nerd camps every summer, so you would be gone to Duke or Stetson or wherever it was that summer. And then mom and dad and I would get to go on the road trip to take you there and then go do stuff. So I gotta live like that only child life in the summer.
[00:07:04] Susan Barry: Did you like it or did you miss me?
[00:07:06] Cat Meek: I mean…
[00:07:08] Susan Barry: Okay, you don't have to answer, but do you remember, so probably one of the most formative travel experiences that I remember, you might have been too little, is when we went to Washington DC. So I was nine and you were six, almost turning seven, and this was like, I think it was the summer of 1984. We went to Washington DC with our mom and dad and our Aunt Addie and Parren, our godparents, and we went and that, that was my first concert. We saw The Beach Boys. Do you remember that?
[00:07:44] Cat Meek: I do. I remember. I remember it because we couldn't actually see the band 'cause we were so far back. We were so thirsty and some people were, or were so hot and some strangers were asking mom and dad if they could give us water.
[00:07:59] Susan Barry: Like we were their little dog.
[00:08:05] Cat Meek: Yes. Because they didn't pack coolers and stuff. I don't think anybody knew how big of a thing this was gonna be.
[00:08:09] Susan Barry: Yeah, totally.
[00:08:10] Cat Meek: And then I also remember a firework display and there were people that were visiting DC from other countries that were running from the fireworks. I'll never forget that.
[00:08:21] Susan Barry: Oh, I don't remember that.
[00:08:22] Cat Meek: Yeah, it just one of those weird memories and they were running, they were scared. They thought they were getting too close.
[00:08:28] Susan Barry: Oh, that is so crazy. I don't remember that at all. I remember a lot of things about that trip, including going to the zoo and seeing the pandas, and I think the panda was new that year or, or pretty fresh off, you know —
[00:08:45] Cat Meek: China?
[00:08:46] Susan Barry: Mm-hmm. And that was began my hate affair with pandas.
[00:08:53] Cat Meek: They’re real!
[00:08:55] Susan Barry: No, they're not. For the listeners, I really don't think that pandas are real. Every time I see a panda, I feel like it's a man in a panda outfit. And if you watch panda videos on the internet, you'll agree with me. Pandas are a hundred percent fake. Okay, when did you first go to Europe?
[00:09:13] Cat Meek: First trip was 2012. It was Mike and Liza and I, we took Liza when she was seven years old. And we went for an entire month, in the month of November. Took her outta school and that was my first time and I was like, fish out of water.
[00:09:32] Susan Barry: Really? Were you nervous about that or were you just more like overtaken with logistics?
[00:09:39] Cat Meek: Yeah, I don't even think I knew to be nervous and honestly the logistics… I mean, 2012 was like 13 years ago as we can all do math, but it was also, the internet wasn't as… you know, it evolves every single day. So when we were planning the trip, it wasn't like now where you can like ask chat GPT to “make me an itinerary for these countries and…" You know what I mean? So there was a lot of that. Mike really headed that up back then, whereas now I'm more of the planner than he was. So I was kind of like, okay, we got this, you know.
[00:10:18] Susan Barry: Do you think it's because he had been before and you hadn't.
[00:010:22] Cat Meek: Yes.
[00:10:23] Susan Barry: You were sort of like leaning on him to lead the way.
[00:10:27] Cat Meek: Yes, 'cause I thought, well, what, what do I have to offer to this? You know, like, I didn't know. I definitely have learned so much since then about travel and, and about Europe and about everything.
[00:10:41] Susan Barry: It's kind of crazy that Liza was only seven. Does she remember that trip, do you think? Like, have you ever asked her, “Hey, do you remember this, that, and the other?”
[00:10:49] Cat Meek: Oh, yeah. She remembers certain parts. In fact, when we were with her in Rome in April, we were like, “Oh, do you remember when we came here and we did this here and we did that there?” And she's like, “Oh my gosh, I kind of remember this, but I don't remember that.” Little pieces and parts and you know what? Maybe she didn't remember any of it and she was just humoring us.
[00:11:11] Susan Barry: You know what I remember about her from that trip? Like this is the most vivid memory to me. That when you guys went to a flea market, maybe in Paris, I guess in Paris, probably, and she was desperate for you to get her some fake glasses. Do you remember that? And she wore them all the time. And then when she finally got prescribed glasses, she would not wear them for any amount of money. So cheap. It was adorable, those glasses. Okay, so as you said, it's been 13 years and now instead of being like a first time European traveler, you've been so many places so many times and you just basically finished a gap year. So set the stage for that. What was your life like at the beginning? What sort of led to this idea?
[00:12:06] Cat Meek: Well, without getting too much in the weeds of it, Mike and I of course had a seasonal business. We live in Panama City Beach, so everything here is based on tourism or most things. So we would have, we had this seasonal snack shop bar that we had opened March through October. Well, last year our contract was up and it was not renewed, and we only found that out in February when we were supposed to be opening in March.
[00:12:36] Susan Barry: Oh, wow. I didn't remember that.
[00:12:37] Cat Meek: Yes. It was very kind of like… we didn't plan this gap year, you know? It was one of those moments of like, okay, well we've always, in the off season we have a food truck. So we're like, okay, well we'll just do the food truck. And of course, you know, we have rentals and we have an Airbnb and we're like, well we'll just sustain that this summer and just kind of see what happens, where it takes us and all this. And then it just, one trip turned into the next one, turned into the next one. We're planning the next trip while on this trip on and so forth. So it was just a happy accident as Bob Ross would say.
[00:13:20] Susan Barry: Got it. So basically you didn't have sort of as many claims on your time as you had had in the past, so it was easier to say yes to stuff.
[00:13:30] Cat Meek: That's exactly what it was. Yeah. And it was, yes. The answer was always yes.
[00:13:37] Susan Barry: Okay, so, just in case people think that I'm being my usual hyperbolic and dramatic self, they really did take 25 trips. Obviously we can't hear about every single trip. We can't hear stories from all 25 of them. So I thought we should try having me list them out and then you just say like a couple of words about each and maybe I'll have follow up questions? Maybe I won't. We shall see. So starting in January, and I guess this is January of 2024, right?
[00:14:13] Cat Meek: Okay. And this predates the even knowing that we're on a gap year.
[00:14:20] Susan Barry: So this was like in your, your off season before the official gap year began gapping?
[00:14:26] Cat Meek: Yes.
[00:14:27] Susan Barry: Okay. So January you went to St. Croix.
[00:14:32] Cat Meek: So, yes. I need to elaborate on this one. The only one! So slideshow trip would be my answer, but if I say that to you, you're gonna say, oh, really? Okay. So this trip was one that, we were on our way home — ironically, from New Orleans — right around New Year's. And I was like, you know, hey Mike, what if I found us really cheap tickets and what if I found us a really affordable Airbnb and I can negotiate the price? And what if I, you know, would you wanna go do this random last minute trip to St. Croix or wherever — I didn't even know where it was gonna be at that point. And he was like, I put together a slideshow and sell it to me.
[00:15:17] Susan Barry: Was he being serious?
[00:15:19] Cat Meek: Kind of, but at the same time, it was just like this whole joke, and I'm like, add it to the slideshow. Add it to the slideshow. And then the final thing that sealed the deal, was I found this Airbnb. And I was like, okay, if I can convince this owner to do it for X number of dollars per night, can we just say yes on the whole thing? He goes, if you can convince him to do that, then yes, we'll do the trip. And so you
[00:15:46] Susan Barry: And so you did? I didn't know you could even negotiate that stuff.
[00:15:50] Cat Meek: Oh yeah.
[00:15:51] Susan Barry: You're like, you can negotiate anything dingling.
[00:15:53] Cat Meek: That's right. It's only an asking price.
[00:15:56] Susan Barry: That's so funny. Well, isn't that, I think that was the same time that we were in St. Martin, so we were just like around the corner from you in the Caribbean.
[00:16:05] Cat Meek: I know. It really was. That was so weird.
[00:16:07] Susan Barry: But what we didn't do was immediately go on a girls trip to New York City, which you did just a few weeks later.
[00:16:15] Cat Meek: And that was fast and furious and an annual tradition.
[00:16:18] Susan Barry: Oh, nice. After that, in fact, only two days after that you came home from New York and went to Las Vegas where you met us to see U2 at The Sphere.
[00:16:32] Cat Meek: Yes. And Mike called me while I was in New York to see if I wanted to do this. So we planned it. I was walking the street to New York, talking, texting with him. And agreeing to do this with y'all at the same time.
[00:16:47] Susan Barry: That's crazy. I didn't remember, or I may not have even known that. Something else about that trip was the Super Bowl was in Las Vegas and we were maybe like the week weekdays before the weekend of the Super Bowl. Is that right?
[00:17:00] Cat Meek: Exactly. Yeah. It was a cool setup.
[00:17:02] Susan Barry: It was neat to see all that stuff.
[00:17:03] Cat Meek: There's something that feels extra fabulous about planning a quick trip to Vegas when you're in New York.
[00:17:08] Susan Barry: Yes. It's fabulous. It's very glamorous.
[00:17:11] Cat Meek: And again, we are pre knowing that we're having a gap year.
[00:17:15] Susan Barry: You're already starting the year off on a roll though. And have you ever heard that thing where they say like, whatever you do on New Year's Day is what you'll spend the year doing? So it wasn't exactly New Year's Day, but the first week of January you hit the ground running and you spent the whole year doing the same thing. After Las Vegas, another concert or two. So you went to Tampa for Billy Joel and Sting, which I'm still feeling a little bit of tingles of jealousy over.
[00:17:45] Cat Meek: So that was a super fun, quick quickie with friends, we call that a boom boom. We have a couple that we do concert travel with. It's always a boom, boom trip. You go on the Friday or the day of the concert, you spend the night and you come home the next day.
[00:18:03] Susan Barry: That is very fast. But I never heard you call it a boom boom before, and I'm never saying that phrase again out loud. Next month — it makes me blush even saying it. I don't know why it sounds dirty, even though it's not. So after that trip to Tampa, next up was another Florida destination Key West.
[00:18:31] Cat Meek: We now know we're in our gap year.
[00:18:34] Susan Barry: Okay. Alright, so this is in March? This is no snack shop. You're fully in the gap year.
[00:18:41] Cat Meek: Fully in the gap year. Liza's senior year, spring break trip where we got to see Marshall Tucker while we were there, which was another happy accident because we love to travel for music.
[00:18:53] Susan Barry: Awesome. Also in Florida, St. Augustine.
[00:18:54] Cat Meek: We were home for a day, and then we left for St. Augustine and to our favorite venue, the amp to see our favorite band, Widespread Panic for a three night run.
[00:19:08] Susan Barry: Excellent. Alright, so if you look at this list now, you might think, oh, okay, well, they're slowing down because there were no trips in the month of April, but at the beginning of May, you headed to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
[00:19:24] Cat Meek: Yes. I went with a friend because she had a companion certificate that was expiring and neither one of us had been to Milwaukee. And so to your point, I just said yes, and we went.
[00:19:35] Susan Barry: Nice. I like Milwaukee. I think it's a great place to go. I've been there a lot of times.
[00:19:41] Cat Meek: It was super cool. Random, fun, loved it.
[00:19:42] Susan Barry: Did you go and see the, I think there's a Fonzi statue there, or Laverne and Shirley. There's definitely a Fonzi statue.
[00:19:51] Cat Meek: Yeah. I don't remember where it is, but we did see it.
[00:19:54] Susan Barry: Oh, cool. Good. Okay. Next was New Orleans and Biloxi.
[00:20:01] Cat Meek: And that was our comedy tour. We saw Seinfeld one night at the Sanger Theater. It was so cool. Spent the night, spent the day in New Orleans. Went back. We were on our way back home. We stopped in Biloxi to see Nate Bergatze.
[00:20:19] Susan Barry: Okay.
[00:20:19] Cat Meek: It was me, Mike, and one of our good friends, and it was just our comedy tour.
[00:20:19] Susan Barry: Did you do any gambling when you were in Biloxi?
[00:20:25] Cat Meek: Oh yeah.
[00:20:27] Susan Barry: What do you play?
[00:20:30] Cat Meek: Mississippi Stud Poker and Blackjack.
[00:20:33] Susan Barry: And how did you make out?
[00:20:36] Cat Meek: I don't remember. So it couldn't have been that good.
[00:20:39] Susan Barry: Okay. Next was a trip to St. Louis, and I think this is a really interesting trip. You gotta say a little more about this one.
[00:20:49] Cat Meek: So this one of course, we saw another band. This was for Mike's 50th birthday, which is June 5th. So he's never been to a concert on his actual birthday. And so that was really important. That's how we picked out St. Louis to find a concert that was on June 5th. It was harder to do than you would think. We had to dig pretty deep. It was great.
[00:21:18] Susan Barry: Didn't you go somewhere else on that? Did you like take a train to another city or did I make that up?
[00:21:25] Cat Meek: No, we did not do that.
[00:21:25] Susan Barry: And maybe you were talking about it at the time. Later in June you went to Denver for another big show.
[00:21:34] Cat Meek: Yes. Rolling Stones with Widespread Panic opening up for them, which anybody that knows anything about either one of those bands, that's unheard of. Would never happen again. And the craziest part about that is the sponsor of the whole event was AARP.
[00:21:54] Susan Barry: Are you serious? That's amazing. Fantastic. And Mike Will would have just gotten his AARP card in the mail right before 50th birthday? Later, still in June, but little bit later, two days later, you went to Atlanta.
[00:22:15] Cat Meek: Yes, another boom, boom.
[00:22:17] Susan Barry: Never say that again.
[00:22:18] Cat Meek: I have to you, you're gonna hear it again. To see Goose, same band we saw in St. Louis. It was epic and there were a bunch of us that went and it was a super fun time.
[00:22:29] Susan Barry: Did you drive up and back in the same day?
[00:22:33] Cat Meek: No, it was an overnighter.
[00:22:37] Susan Barry: Got it, got it.
[00:22:38] Cat Meek: It was a boom boom.
[00:22:40] Susan Barry: Oh yeah. Okay. Mm-hmm. One year ago today you were in New Orleans, so in July you were in New Orleans.
[00:22:51] Cat Meek: Yes. That was um…
[00:22:51] Susan Barry: I can tell that you're like, I don't even remember this trip.
[00:22:52] Cat Meek: Well, no, I'm looking on the dates and I think that date's actually a little bit wrong. Because we were there, I had to look this up. We were there on the 22nd of July. The reason we were there, remember the CrowdStrike problem? So my friend that I did the Milwaukee trip with, she was going to Seattle. Anyways, long story short, it made sense to us to drive to New Orleans, spend the night in this fabulous hotel. I can't remember the name of it right now, but we did a one night there.
[00:23:29] Susan Barry: Oh, because she was stuck there?
[00:23:31] Cat Meek: Yes, stuck.
[00:23:34] Susan Barry: So meanwhile, during that situation, your daughter was at my house because she and I were supposed to be going to a spa hotel in New Mexico and we couldn't go to that. So we took a road trip to Savannah, Georgia instead and had a long weekend in Savannah, which was very fun.
[00:23:54] Cat Meek: Yeah. That CrowdStrike thing was crazy.
[00:23:57] Susan Barry: Mm-hmm. Alright. Next was Birmingham.
[00:23:59] Cat Meek: So we went to see Hootie and the Blowfish, and we chose this whole trip because Ticketmaster was running a $25 ticket sale thing a couple months before that. And so we just picked a band we'd never seen and we wanted to go to Oak Mountain 'cause it got torn down recently, the amphitheater there, so it doesn't exist. So this was one of the last shows.
[00:24:23] Susan Barry: Interesting. I didn't know all that detail. I recently asked you about this 'cause I forgot if you ended up doing it or not, but you went back to Las Vegas midway through the year. So end of July, beginning of August.
[00:24:38] Cat Meek: Yes. This is an extended boom boom with the same people. This was our furthest distance that we've ever done. And it was his 50th birthday and we saw Dead and Company at The Sphere. So it was my second Sphere experience.
[00:24:56] Susan Barry: And did you see all the shows or just one show?
[00:25:02] Cat Meek: No, just one show. August 1st on Jerry's birthday.
[00:25:04] Susan Barry: It's so funny because all the Deadheads that I know are like, don't wanna go because it's really expensive and they wanna go all of the nights. Like they're like, I can't just go one night. I have to go all three nights. So I can't go at all because if I go one night and they don't play my song, I'll be devastated. I think that's so funny, but I totally get it.
[00:25:26] Cat Meek: The FOMO is real!
[00:25:28] Susan Barry: It is. Okay, back to New Orleans in mid August.
[00:25:34] Cat Meek: Which we like to do every year and we stay, we have a credit card that gives us all these perks and benefits at the Ritz Carlton. So we get club level experience. So Mike and I go, it's walking distance to Harra's. We stay at the hotel, we eat and drink in the club lounge. We do it, we call it “Meeking it up.” It's just being very frugal. So we have all of our meals at the lounge there and go to Harra's and maybe eat at Shake Shack 'cause it's along the way. And that's all we do for two straight days.
[00:26:07] Susan Barry: That's so funny. And you just go and gamble. That's it?
[00:26:11] Cat Meek: Yes. Or they also have a jazz bar in the Ritz at the downstairs. So occasionally we get to do a little bit of that.
[00:26:20] Susan Barry: Excellent. Are you planning to do that again next month?
[00:26:24] Cat Meek: Oh heck yeah. And you know why we do it then? Because it's absolute torture to be in New Orleans 'cause it's so hot and humid, so their rates are so low.
[00:26:34] Susan Barry: Gotcha. And you're just gonna be in the casino anyway, so you'll be nice and cool.
[00:26:40] Cat Meek: Yeah, we don't care. We, and we just want our little perks. We feel fancy.
[00:26:43] Susan Barry: Yes, I understand. Um, okay. Later in August. So just for a second to level set, we're still talking about Cat's gap year, and we're in August of 2024. We're about two thirds of the way through the 25 trips that you took for your grownup gap year, and so this was a big one, Hawaii.
[00:27:11] Cat Meek: Yes. So this one was originally planned to be when Liza was going to be starting college. So we actually planned this one well before we knew it was gonna be a gap year. This was our celebration to ourselves like, ah, she's off to college! It's fun. You know, which of course isn't how it worked out, and that's for the best and amazing and wonderful. But it was also kind of like a second honeymoon for us because this is where we honeymooned. So we went to Oahu, Waikiki, same area that we had gone originally. It was super great.
[00:27:49] Susan Barry: After Hawaii, you slowed down a little bit because you only took one trip in September, but it lasted into October. And that was a trip to Greece.
[00:28:03] Cat Meek: Yes. And that was for my birthday and it was amazing.
[00:28:09] Susan Barry: And that was for your 60th, right?
[00:28:12] Cat Meek: Haha! No, that was for my 47th birthday. And yes, I can't wait to go back. I wanna go with y'all. I think we would all have a wonderful time in Greece.
[00:28:25] Susan Barry: Ooh, cool. We'll have to talk more about that. When you came back from Greece, you came straight to Atlanta?
[00:28:34] Cat Meek: No. These dates are just a little bit skewed. Right when I got back from Greece… no, we came to Atlanta about a week later.
[00:28:49] Susan Barry: Oh, okay. And that was for Eliza's birthday?
[00:28:51] Cat Meek: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
[00:28:54] Susan Barry: After that, Huntsville, Alabama, which people may not understand, like you go to Huntsville relatively frequently and it seems like a very random place to go. How long does it take to get to Huntsville from Panama City?
[00:29:09] Cat Meek: I think it's like seven hours.
[00:29:11] Susan Barry: Oh my gosh. It's really that far? I thought it was closer than that.
[00:29:15] Cat Meek: No, it is quite a distance because guess what kind of trip it was?
[00:29:19] Susan Barry: Um, gosh, I can't even begin to hazard a guess. Do tell.
[00:29:25] Cat Meek: A boom, boom trip!
[00:29:27] Susan Barry: Oh no.
[00:29:29] Cat Meek: Six hours and eleven minutes according to Google Maps.
[00:29:31] Susan Barry: Okay. And what were you booming and booming?
[00:29:35] Cat Meek: That we were going to see Billy Strings, whom we've seen three years in a row in October, both of our boom, boom, travel people celebrate their wedding anniversary a day after us, so we kind of make that like an anniversary thing. And it's at this place, it's the Orion Amphitheater and it is spectacular and I highly recommend going.
[00:30:02] Susan Barry: Awesome. We'll link that in the show notes. Next trip was Atlanta.
[00:30:10] Cat Meek: Okay, so this is the craziest one I think that we did. Because this was to see Larry David at the Fox Theater. And this one we did a same day. We went with a friend, same friend we did the comedy shows with.
[00:30:29] Susan Barry: Your comedy friend.
[00:30:30] Cat Meek: Yeah.
[00:30:31] Susan Barry: Instead of boom, boom, he is Har har? How dare you?
[00:30:41] Cat Meek: This was a har har trip. We left, went out to dinner, went to see Larry, David, and literally drove straight home.
[00:30:48] Susan Barry: That is insane.
[00:30:50] Cat Meek: I'll never do it again.
[00:30:52] Susan Barry: I can only imagine. And who drove? Mike drove?
[00:30:54] Cat Meek: They both drove.
[00:30:55] Susan Barry: They just like took turns. Well, at least you don't have to drive. Alright, the last handful of trips here I think are some of the most exciting, starting with a trip to Italy and Switzerland in November.
[00:31:16] Cat Meek: So this one we booked two days after we got back from Greece.
[00:31:22] Susan Barry: Oh my God. Are you kidding?
[00:31:23] Cat Meek: No, because we got, it was one of those flash sales with Delta.
[00:31:30] Susan Barry: And by now you're like, we are fully in our gap year. We're going anywhere and everywhere that is on sale.
[00:31:37] Cat Meek: Yes. And by now it was just like, I mean, we can't not do this. You know?
[00:31:42] Susan Barry: You got in such a mindset of like, we're just traveling all the time.
[00:31:48] Cat Meek: Yes, exactly. And so it was unbelievable. Like you would, you would spend the smallest amount of miles and now we've gotten status with the airline because we've traveled so much.
[00:32:00] Susan Barry: Well, I'm sure you're like a million miler at this point.
[00:32:03] Cat Meek: We got free upgrades and things like that and yeah, that one was super random, and so great and fun.
[00:32:15] Susan Barry: I guess this is maybe a little bit of a letdown after Italy and Switzerland, but you went to Orlando.
[00:32:23] Cat Meek: No. Here's why it wasn't a letdown because I was invited to go to Orlando. This was, I don't know what we'll call it, but a girlfriend had tickets to go see Pink. She had bought the tickets for her husband. Because he loves, they love the theatrics, all of it. He ended up with this work emergency and couldn't go. So the day I got back from Italy in Switzerland, she called me and we, Mike and I, are on our golf cart down at the marina watching the sunset. She's like, “Hey, what are the odds you want to go to Orlando tomorrow?” And I was like, heck yeah, let's do it. You know? And so we did.
[00:33:09] Susan Barry: Did you drive or fly?
[00:33:10] Cat Meek: She drove.
[00:33:12] Susan Barry: Ooh, how long? No, I mean for her. Good for you. Heck yeah. How long of a drive is that?
[00:33:21] Cat Meek: I don't know, like six hours, five and a half, six hours.
[00:33:25] Susan Barry: It feels like anywhere you go in Florida is a minimum of six hours. You know what I mean? Because there's no like direct routes. Okay. After seeing pink in Orlando, you. went to The Bahamas right before Christmas.
[00:33:42] Cat Meek: Yes, we did. We went on a cruise ship, so. Yeah, that was MSC cruises, which is an Italian cruise line and kind of a different kind of cruise line. I will say, they had the best coffee I've ever had on a cruise ship.
[00:33:58] Susan Barry: Excellent. Excellent. What was this one in January? It was to Cabo, right?
[00:34:05] Cat Meek: That's where we went to go meet friends that live in Seattle, and that's when we were a day late for this trip because we had six inches of snow.
[00:34:17] Susan Barry: Oh wow. That's right.
[00:34:20] Cat Meek: Yes. And they closed on the airport. They closed on the whole city. They closed on stores, restaurants, everything, because none of us know what to do. We don't have any equipment to deal with this stuff.
[00:34:31] Susan Barry: And you guys got more snow in North Florida than we got in Atlanta?
[00:34:37] Cat Meek: Yes. It was a once in a lifetime kind of. Well, who knows these days?
[00:34:41] Susan Barry: Yeah. That's how crazy. But that makes me remember that while you were trying to get to Cabo, we were in Puerto Vallarta. Because we went deliberately to escape the snowstorm and we were looking at everyone's pictures of all of the snow everywhere in Florida, like what in the world. And in fact, we ended up getting postponed coming home by a day or two for the same reason.
[00:35:08] Cat Meek: Yes. Another time that we were very close to each other in the world, but —
[00:35:14] Susan Barry: Right around the corner, but too far away to say hey. In February you did another cruise.
[00:35:22] Cat Meek: Yes. That one was out of Miami and we went to The Bahamas and Cozumel on Virgin voyages, which is my current cruise obsession.
[00:35:31] Susan Barry: Excellent. And you ended your gap year similarly to your daughter ending her semester abroad in Italy just this past April.
[00:35:46] Cat Meek: Yes. So now we have ended our work gap year because our contract was renewed again and we went back in March. And so Liza was on her gap year, or like you said, her semester abroad. So she had been gone for three months. So we had always planned to meet at the very end in Rome and you know, and it was one of the coolest moments I've ever had in my life as we're meeting her there, she still had a few days left of her program when we got there. And so we were meeting her at a local pub or something like that. So she knows we're coming down this a certain road. And so she comes to meet us and she just started running down the street, gave us a big hug and it was this really cool moment. And I mean, here she is doing her own thing in Europe and I mean, it was a total wow moment.
[00:36:48] Susan Barry: That's amazing. Well, I'm exhausted from going through this list, and I'm sure that you had moments of exhaustion as well. I also know that you had some favorites and maybe some least favorites. Out of all of these destinations, can you talk about the best and worst and why they were the best and worst?
[00:37:11] Cat Meek: I would say Greece was probably the best. Just because it was the most unique. I had never, the landscape and everything was just very different from anywhere I had been before. My least favorite, I think, would be St. Croix, even though it was wonderful 'cause it kicked off the whole thing. It wasn't… it's a one and done.
[00:37:37] Susan Barry: Gotcha. I thought you thought Hawaii was your least favorite.
[00:37:41] Cat Meek: And maybe Hawaii might be second. And that's only because I think that has to do with the way we did it. It was fun and we enjoyed it. Of course, it's wonderful you're in Hawaii, but I don't know.
[00:37:56] Susan Barry: Well, something has to be at the bottom of the list. I mean, it doesn't mean it was terrible. Just not as good as Greece, right?
[00:38:03] Cat Meek: Correct, correct.
[00:38:05] Susan Barry: Well, as you know, we like to make sure that our listeners come away from every episode of Top Floor with some practical, specific, tangible things that they can try either in their businesses or in this case, in their travels. So I have to imagine that you, especially now that you're sort of back in the grind of things, have some lessons that you learned from doing this much travel in such a short period of time. I mean, some of your turnaround times were like 24, 48 hours. So what lessons would you impart? What things did you take away from that?
[00:38:45] Cat Meek: You know, I think that, and you already touched on this, is that saying yes to everything can lead to some of the coolest experiences. And that your travel partner is incredibly important, that if you find the right person to travel with, whether it's your spouse or a friend or whomever.
[00:39:09] Susan Barry: Or your boom, boom, friends.
[00:39:13] Cat Meek: I always knew that I love Mike's company. Of course my husband, my business partner, all these things. But being together, traveling like that so much, 'cause it's 24 7, I realize how much I just love being around him. And so I think it's just the travel partner’s really important for sure.
[00:39:33] Susan Barry: That's sweet. What about stuff like more, I don't know, ordinary, like travel tips? Or did you like find any gear that you're like, I can't live without this now, stuff like that? I know one thing.
[00:39:46] Cat Meek: Okay. What's the one thing?
[00:39:48] Susan Barry: It's the fold up bag that we bought when we went to the Purse Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas.
[00:39:54] Cat Meek: Yes. A reusable little bag that it's in a little pocket and it's in my purse, so it's always, I always have a bag, a reusable bag, ready to go, and it's so teeny tiny when you fold it up.
[00:40:06] Susan Barry: Right. But it's not just for groceries, like you've used it for a lot of different things, such as?
[00:40:12] Cat Meek: It's been a laundry bag, clean and dirty. And never washed in between all. It's been a cooler, an ice collector in a hotel. I can't even think what else it's been. It's been everything. I went over my head one time, kind of like a bonnet.
[00:40:33] Susan Barry: Like a rain bonnet? Our grandmother used to wear a rain bonnet when it rained, and it was the funniest thing to us.
[00:40:39] Cat Meek: So that and I would also say that I've also learned to not overpack as much. And to wear, like if you have tennis shoes that are like borderline on their way out, wear 'em out on your trip and just leave them.
[00:40:57] Susan Barry: Yes. That is a really good tip. I totally agree with that.
[00:41:00] Cat Meek: Especially shoes. They take up so much space. Then you got some extra for the ride home.
[00:41:06] Susan Barry: Okay, so if taking a gap year as a grownup sounds like a good idea to our listeners, what do you think that they should do to get ready for it? What are some things to think about or things to put together, or should you just fly by the seat of your pants like you did?
[00:41:25] Cat Meek: I don't know. I mean, I think maybe a little more planning offers a more desired outcome. But at the same time, then if you're overthinking things, you're not gonna really live in the moment.
[00:41:42] Susan Barry: I mean, I have to stop you because somebody who hears you say that is gonna be like, oh, that Cat Meek, she's so spontaneous. And that could not be further from the truth. You nor I are spontaneous people. We are plan obsessive. So walk me through this dichotomy in your personality.
[00:42:04] Cat Meek: Okay. You say yes, let's do this last minute trip to a different country in a week and a half. And you get the plane ticket, you do this, you just say yes, let's go for it. And then you get on your computer and you don't get off until the day you leave. You're so busy planning every little detail you're looking up. You know, the closest restaurant, the closest train station, da da, da, da, da da, and then you overplan it to death.
[00:42:39] Susan Barry: That's so funny. You know what I think it is about spontaneity is if you make the decision at the last minute, you don't have time to feel nervous about the plan and be anxious about what is the plan? What is the plan? Because the plan just landed in your lap 15 minutes ago. So it, there is something to be said for that for people who are planaholics like we are.
[00:43:02] Cat Meek: Yes. And we make a plan. We always have an outline itinerary, and it's like I tell Mike, I'm like, we don't have to stick to the plan. We just need to stick to the plan, we just have to go in with a plan.
[00:43:09] Susan Barry: Yes. I feel like I should get that tattooed on both of my arms so that I can show it to my husband. Well, we have reached the fortune telling portion of our show, so now you have to predict the future, and then we will come back on our next milestone episode and see if you got it right. This is the dumbest question. What is a prediction you have about your travels? And what I mean by that is what do you have coming up?
[00:43:50] Cat Meek: Okay, so I literally convinced Mike two nights ago to go on a cruise in November out of Puerto Rico because we can use a companion pass to get our flights to Puerto Rico. And there's a lot of openings. We're gonna get upgraded for sure. And then there's a special good deal on this cruise that I wanna take, as long as we buy it in the next two days.
[00:44:24] Susan Barry: There's that short term pricing deal for you working.
[00:44:27] Cat Meek: Yes, I am the perfect, I am the target market. If it’s on sale, I buy. So I think that I see more cruising in our future because it's not been something that was on our radar, again, until this year. And it's just a really fun way to travel. So we we're gonna do that, we're gonna go to California in November as well, as soon as the snack shop closes because Mike is running his very first marathon. And because it’s in Santa Clarita, you know, LA, we're gonna fly into LAX. So I said, well shoot, if we're gonna be in Los Angeles, what a perfect opportunity to fly Delta One from LA to New York, and then we can go to Delta One lounges. When else are you gonna be able to do that in the same day? Right?
[00:45:21] Susan Barry: That is so funny. And that's gonna be his reward for the marathon.
[00:45:27] Cat Meek: Yes. So we have a whole travel day that all it entails is: Delta one lounge in LA in private entrance, and then we fly to JFK and then we go to the Delta One lounge there. We're gonna spend the night in the JFK airport at the TWA hotel.
[00:45:45] Susan Barry: Oh, so excited for you to do that.
[00:45:48] Cat Meek: I know. Like where they, they filmed Catch Me If You Can. It's like the old school, you know? It's gonna be amazing.
[00:45:52] Susan Barry: Yes. That's like every hotelier's dream hotel. It's so cool.
[00:45:57] Cat Meek: And the only other thing we have planned right now, although we have lots of things in talks, is we're gonna take a cruise, another cruise next July to Alaska.
[00:46:10] Susan Barry: Oh, that's exciting. Are you gonna close the snack shop or how are you gonna do that?
[00:46:15] Cat Meek: No, we're gonna plan it to where we have some solid people in place to run it.
[00:46:22] Susan Barry: Gotcha. Gotcha. That sounds fun. Well, are you gonna have any time in Puerto Rico before or after the cruise?
[00:46:28] Cat Meek: Yes, we're gonna do a couple days before and maybe one day after.
[00:46:33] Susan Barry: I love it there. It's so cool. You're gonna really like it.
[00:46:36] Cat Meek: We haven't bought our ticket yet, but it, I mean, again, it's gonna be the next two days, and then I think we might go to Thailand in January.
[00:46:44] Susan Barry: Oh my gosh, that would be January of ‘27 or ‘26?
[00:46:49] Cat Meek: 26.
[00:46:50] Susan Barry: Oh wow.
[00:46:51] Cat Meek: Because now that we're back at work, we have to plan our travel between November, December, January, February. So I'm like, let's load it up, baby.
[00:47:01] Susan Barry: Yes! If you could wave a magic wand and create a new product or a new service that would make travel more comfortable, fun, or easy, what would it be?
[00:47:14] Cat Meek: I would have a universal plug for every single country and every single device the same. You charge your computer, your phone, your AirPods, your watch, speaker, everything, everything goes on the same charger. Everywhere in the world.
[00:47:33] Susan Barry: That's a really good idea. I really wish that that would happen. Okay, folks, before we tell Cat goodbye, we are going to head down to the loading dock where all of the best stories get told.
Elevator voice announces, “Going down.”
Cat, do you have a story for the loading dock? It looks like you may have fallen off the bed again, so I'm just checking in.
[00:48:03] Cat Meek: Oh, I'm just relaxed in the pillows. Okay, so one summer after we dropped you off at one of your nerd camps, it was me, mom, dad, aunt Addie and Parin, and we were in Aunt Addie's, big van.
[00:48:25] Susan Barry: It was like a huge conversion van, if anybody can picture that. Yeah.
[00:48:28] Cat Meek: Perfect for travel. So of course, you know, we're doing our road trip thing, so we're in Canada now. I don't remember if it was Montreal or Quebec, it doesn't matter, but, so we're driving through the streets and there's all this noise and dad or Parin or one thought that there was some sort of reenactment going on, and they're like, what do you mean a reenactment? It's like, don't you hear all that noise? It sounds almost like fake gun fire but not real and all this. It's time to find out the noise that was making him think that we were driving through some type of, I guess, war reenactment?
[00:49:09] Susan Barry: In the streets of Montreal?
[00:49:12] Cat Meek: Oh yeah. It was an ice chest that was on the floor of the van. You know, it turns into that slushy water and so then as it hits the sides it makes a whoosh, whoosh sound. So, no, it was not a reenactment, but it was a, an nice chest that was at the perfect temperature.
[00:49:32] Susan Barry: That is so silly and hilarious. I know. Why would you think that? Like you're just driving on the highway and maybe people are shooting off some fake bullets out in the air for you? Alright. Okay.
[00:49:47] Cat Meek: I'm happy to say that we were safe and there were no reenactments, but also on the same trip and Addie and Parin, after we checked into the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, we went out to do something and they came back and they found ladies high heels on the floor in the room.
[00:50:08] Susan Barry: Are you serious?
[00:50:10] Cat Meek: Yes. Somebody had come in there and I don't remember exactly how it was resolved, but I think it was a room switch, but that was crazy trip.
[00:50:16] Susan Barry: That's so insane. I didn't know you stayed at the Queen Elizabeth. That is such a famous, famous hotel. When I spent several months in Montreal and it was under construction, like getting a huge renovation when I was there, so I never even got to see it. But I mean, that is like one of the grand am hotels of the world. Oh, you stayed there. You are so fancy.
Before we sign off, I want to thank you, Cat, but also thank our listeners and all of the guests that we've had on this show for making Top Floor a success for 200 episodes. I truly appreciate you. The show would not exist if not for Jonathan Albano and Heather Gonzalez. Thank you for everything. Well, Cat Meek, thank you for being here. I know our listeners are going to add boom, boom trip to their vocabulary, much to my horror, and I really appreciate you riding with us to the top floor.
[00:51:25] Cat Meek: Well, thank you for having me, and congratulations on creating such a wonderful podcast. You're amazing. We love you.
[00:51:33] Susan Barry: Thank you so much for listening to this, our 200th episode. You can find the show notes at topfloorpodcast.com/episode/200. Jonathan Albano is our editor, producer, and all around genius. He even wrote and performed our theme song with vocals by Cameron Albano. You can subscribe to Top Floor on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen and your rating or review will go a long way in helping us give you more of what you like.
[00:52:12] Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Top Floor Podcast at www.topfloorpodcast.com. Have a hospitality marketing question? Reach us at 8504049630 to be featured in a future episode.