Today’s day trip: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio.

We’ve been talking about making a repeat visit since our first one when the museum opened up several years ago. The opportunity came up today. Yes, we had a nice time.

But here is the lesson of the day: putting off the planning until a week before our day trip meant we spent more money than we needed to.

First, there are discounts we would have qualified for. But by the time we were looking up the ticket prices, it was too late to get the AAA deal because they have to be purchased in advance. There’s also a college student discount, which I didn’t know about because I wasn’t the one checking the prices; and my husband did not think to look for that on behalf of the daughter.

The membership program is a good bargain and I gave it serious thought once we saw the fliers because we could have used our ticket purchases today toward a membership. However, we aren’t likely to be in Cleveland again during the next year. We’ll do that another time when our travel plans coincide better.

Now, we were smart enough to follow directions to get our parking garage pass validated at the ticket booth. That gave a $2 discount on parking.

The other snafu is that I did not double check the directions my husband looked up on the Rock Hall site. If I had verified those directions against a map earlier in our day, we would not have taken the route labeled “Ohio Turnpike,” but instead the route labeled for I-90.

Yes, the Ohio Turnpike is I-90 for a good part of the path through Ohio; but I-90 does split off early and we needed to take that split. I had completely forgotten that detail, even though we were last in downtown Cleveland a few months ago.

Instead, we added at least a half hour to our incoming trip and more than $2 extra in turnpike tolls.

Yes, we did eat lunch at the museum as planned. We aimed for the cheaper grab-and-go sandwiches rather than the grill. Our souvenir shopping was a T-shirt for my husband and a postcard for me.

If I had found some swag that said “Cleveland Rocks,” I probably would have bought it. But that slogan isn’t as easy to find as it once was – I didn’t spot anything with that phrase until I was already checking out.

Is the Rock Hall worth going to? Yes. Just do your frugal homework first!