With spring break only five weeks away, NIU students must soon decide where they might want to vacation and how much money they can afford to spend.

Students representing different companies are competing with each other to sell the most trips. According to Cheryl Patano, a junior in visual communications, most representatives need to sell to a busload of people in order to receive a free trip.

Patano and Laura Autschbach are offering trips to Daytona Beach, Miami and the Bahamas through National Student Travel Services. The first two trips cost $189.95, however, in Daytona there are five people per room and four per room in Miami. A trip to the Bahamas costs $299.95 plus the cost of getting back and forth to Miami.

The prices of the Daytona and Miami trips include taxes, bus transportation and hotel accommodations for seven days and eight nights, said Patano.

Delta Sigma Pi, a business fraternity, has been organizing spring break vacations for eight years. This year, their trips include Daytona Beach and Ft. Lauderdale.

Doug Fowle, a junior in business finance, said a trip to Daytona will cost $229 including transportation and hotel accommodations for one week at the Texan Hotel, which is located directly on the beach. He said the Ft. Lauderdale trip will cost $299, which includes hotel accommodations at the Riviera and transportation. Both hotels at these prices have a four-person occupancy.

A third choice of trips is being offered by Gary Yaklich and Julie Baggesen through the Collegiate Tour and Travel Company. Yaklich said they are only selling vacations to Daytona and the price is $199. This includes transportation on a Motorcoach bus, taxes and hotel accommodations for one week at the Econo Lodge, according to Yaklich. Six people will be assigned to each room.

The NIU Campus Activities Board is selling trips to Daytona, South Padre Island and New Orleans. According to Deb Larson, CAB secretary, Daytona costs $215 for a four-person occupancy at the Holiday Inn and transportation by Motorcoach bus. South Padre costs $235 with transportation and a week stay at the Padre Grande Condominiums, which accommodates eight to ten people.

The CAB trip to New Orleans costs $248 and includes transportation on Amtrak, a one-night stay in Biloxi, Miss. and hotel accommodations at the Days Inn in the French Quarter.

Sharon Saunders, a senior majoring in Spanish, took a campus-related trip to Ft. Lauderdale last spring. She said they paid only $159 but they drove themselves instead of taking a bus. Saunders said she had no complaints. “They didn’t promise us anything so we got everything they promised,” she said.

According to Saunders, they stayed at the Anacapri Hotel, which was about one mile from the beach. “The distance from the beach may have been a little misleading,” Saunders said.

Whitney Cox, senior in political science, went to Ft. Lauderdale last year and Daytona the year before. He said he paid $230 for transportation and a five-person hotel room. He said the hotel room had “enough space to move your elbow.”

Cox said if he had to give any advice to first-time spring break vacationers he would tell them to take a plane. He said the transportation was “a bus ride to Russia.”

Saunders said spring break vacations are a “good time to meet different people from different places.”