WINE CHATS: What’s the perfect way to #vacay? Do you spend months planning or do you just go with the flow?

Do you plan your holidays for months in advance and pack weeks beforehand or do you just wing it and hope for the best?

This week on The Nightly, we’re settling in and welcoming a new woman to the couch, a gorgeous Riesling called Paulette, as we prepare for the holidays and wonder at our differences!

Family vaycay time!

Lyndsey: So Bill, family vaycay. I hate that word by the way, vaycay.

Billi: Oh, well, I’ll just cancel my vaycay, shall I? I’m so very excited. Yes, we’re going to Bali. What we decided on this year was not to give our kids birthday parties. I’d rather just take them to Bali. So we’re going to Bali.

This is the first time my kids are going to travel internationally, so I had to get them passports. Very exciting.

Lyndsey: Cute!

Billi: Very exciting. My new passport photo sucks.

Lyndsey: Everyone does.

Billi: I look like an ugly deer stuck in the headlights. Like proper, I don’t know what happened to me. My hair was slicked. It was all weird.

And I could see in my face that I was obviously having a day. So anyway.

Lyndsey: But everyone’s is, because you literally can’t smile, they’re very strict with the photos.

Billi: You’re being very kind, but truly, it was a very bad photo.

Lyndsey: Okay. I’ll show you mine and then you won’t feel bad.

Billi: It’s fine. Listen, I’m gonna make it to Bali. I’m sure they’ll let me in, even with the photo. And I’m very excited to go. It’s Thursday and I fly out on Monday, so when I got here today, Lyndsey was saying are you ready? Are you prepared? And I’m like, honestly, I haven’t really thought about it.

Lyndsey: Which is mind-boggling to me. If you’ve been following us along on The Nightly, that’s her, the very unorganized one, and I’m the very organized one. I don’t understand how you have not — to give you perspective about my world, we’re going to Bali as well, but in December for Christmas, with another family.

We have already had dinner just the other week for us to chat about it.

Billi: Of course you have!

Lyndsey: Well, I think too, because it’s Christmas and we all have kids, we’re trying to just kind of plan things. I’ve already started to think of what I need to pack, and what I’m going to buy the kids for Christmas. I’ve bought new luggage because I really want new luggage this year.

I’ve already started to tick things off the list and you leave in how many days and you haven’t even…

Billi: Oh, four. Five.

Lyndsey: Okay. So have you packed or prepped anything?

Billi: No, nothing. I’ve been to the pharmacy and I collected medicine and stuff, which is good. So I’ve done that, but I just figured over the next few days, we’ll just leave the bags open, we’ll throw stuff in. What is the problem?

We also, because we’re going to the Hard Rock Hotel in Bali, it’s all there. We’ve organized a day tour for the week. We’re gonna be at the pool for one day. I’m gonna go shopping. Like, what else do I need to organize?

Lyndsey: But I mean, do you not make a list, especially because you have kids, do you not make a list of things to pack?

Billi: We do. And, you’re going to love this, Lyndsey, what we do is we’ll grab a whiteboard marker and we’ll write a packing list on our mirror in our bedroom.

Lyndsey: Look, it’s not my system.

Billi: It’s not the prettiest system but it’s a system. It hasn’t happened yet but it will. It’s gonna get done.

Lyndsey: And do you know what is funny too? We’re getting together with the husbands and the children on Sunday for lunch and when I was shooting Billi some date options of our availability, because we tend to have a little bit of a fuller schedule than you and Henry, I said, one suggestion is the Sunday, but you guys are leaving the Monday because in my mind I would never be going out for lunch on the day before.

Billi: But I don’t have to cook then.

Lyndsey: No, but with the final packing, my brain would need to be at home.

And Billi’s like, Oh, we can go on Sunday.

Billi: I even thought we were doing dinner on Sunday. So then I was like, oh, cool, so we’ll just go to dinner and then we’ll come home and go in the morning. It’s fine. But then Lyndsey was like, lunch, and I’m like, oh, even better! I’m such a non weekend planner.

I don’t like having things on the weekends. So when Lyndsey messages me and is like, hey, do you want to do this? I’m like, yeah, my entire year is open. What do you need? You tell me.

We haven’t really done a family holiday together. Have we?

Lyndsey: We haven’t and we’ve talked about it for many, many, many years. Literally years. We need to do it. I would personally like a place like where the kids can just F off, and do their thing. And us parents just chill by the pool or chill at the villa or you really want to do a farm stay?

Billi: I want to go somewhere where I can feed carrots to a horse while I drink some hot chocolate. And Lyndsey still hasn’t found me a place.

Lyndsey: No, she asked me that two years ago and I do feel really bad.

Billi: I’m still waiting.

Lyndsey: We’ve just missed our winter opportunity here. So you’ll have to maybe do a summer one. We should definitely do something in the summer.

Billi: We should definitely plan this right now as well. While everybody’s watching.

But I also think I would be scared to go on a holiday with you in a way as well. Because you’re, I don’t want to say pedantic, but I don’t know if we’re reading the room.

I remember when you were telling me about planning your 40th with your girlfriends to Italy. There were a bunch of you that were super organized and just got everything done. Whereas a bunch of you were like, yeah, no, I’m cool. When there’s only two of us and you’re the pedantic one and there’s only me.

Lyndsey: That’s fine. I’m happy to organize everything. And I just tell you what to do.

Billi: That is all I want in my life.

Lyndsey: And that’s all I want. I want to take the reins. I want to be in control.

Billi: Take them because I, do you know what? I wouldn’t have even looked at where I’m staying in Bali because Henry booked everything. He did it all.

Lyndsey: Wait, wait, wait, wait. You have not told me this. So he booked it before you even looked at it? You didn’t even know?

Billi: 100 percent no. I mean, I knew he was talking to me about it and he was giving me information, but I didn’t look anything up. I didn’t.

Lyndsey: You didn’t know where you were staying before he booked it?

Billi: No, he said Hard Rock Hotel. I’m like, sweet. Did not look at it at all. He might’ve shown me websites and stuff, but I’m like, yeah, cool. So this is what I like. I like to be surprised. I like to just arrive and be like, Oh my God, this is amazing.

For the first time in my life, I actually have gone back and looked at the map of where we’re staying, what’s going to be around there, what am I going to do?

I actually looked at that pretty much for the first time ever in my life because I like to just get in the car and be taken there and then be like, great, this is amazing.

Lyndsey: Or this is crap.

Billi: It would never be crap. Why would it be crap?

Lyndsey: Because it can be crap.

Billi: I trust life.

Lyndsey: She also trusted her builder to design her kitchen.

Billi: I did! I was like, put just a gray marble on the thing and he said, well no, I can’t pick the gray for you. And I’m like, what difference does it make? It’s my kitchen. What difference does it make?

Lyndsey: So we will work well together. I will just book it.

Billi: Please do. Because I love that. You know me. Even if you were just to say to me, hey, in 2025 on March the 13th, let’s go to this place. I’ll be like, great, because I have nothing on March the 13th and you can take me wherever you want.

Lyndsey: We’re going to book our holiday after this episode.

Billi: Fabulous. I’m so glad you planned all this with us because obviously, that’s all we needed.

Lyndsey: Okay, so question. Because you’re taking your children, right?

Billi: It’s a family. Yes, I must bring them.

Lyndsey: Is it the vacation where it’s all about the kids, or do you have a mixture about what you and Henry want to do?

Billi: I know nothing, we’re just going to go and hang out.

Lyndsey: Because there are some people, I’m not one of them, that when they go on vacation with the kids, it’s all about the freaking kids.

Billi: No, oh no, none of that. I just feel like they’re part of my family and I’ll do stuff with them but I’m not planning it all around them because none of us have ever been to Bali.

Lyndsey: Yeah, me neither.

Yeah. We are all just going to go and explore. And there’s going to be a day at the pool where I just want them to be elsewhere while I get drunk.

Lyndsey: Does your hotel have a kids club?

Billi: Oh yes.

Lyndsey: See, we’re staying in a villa, so we don’t unfortunately have that.

Billi: It’s good that it’s available, but I would also like to see them.

Just one thing, very quickly before we wrap up - don’t book me a cruise.

Lyndsey: I, I effing hate cruises. You’ll never find me on a cruise EVER.

Billi: Same. I’m not interested. I do not want to be stuck on a boat with a thousand people who have gastro. No. Do not take me. So I think that’s one thing we can agree on. There, look, we’ve planned half our holiday.

Au revoir

As we take off on our holidays, we bid you farewell… until next week when we’ll be back for a brand new episode of Wine Chats, here on The Nightly, where there’ll be more wine and more fun. Chat soon!