Trip to Egypt?

[theultimatesen]

No: HPFGUIDX 59827

Vicky:
Coming back to the expensive or not so expensive trip to Egypt to 
visit Bill by the Weasleys in the summer before year 3.
 
While rereading CoS (as anyone here in anticipation for book 5) I 
noticed that the Weasleys also visited Bill during the Chistmas break 
and even intended to bring at least some of the kids.  It says in the 
book (no exact quote) that "Fred and George decided to stay at 
Hogwarts for the Christmas break instead of joining their parents in 
visiting Bill in Egypt".
 
Now, if the trip was that expensive that they could only do it 
because of the money they won, how did they manage to visit him over 
Christmas and originally plan to bring the twins as well?
 
Me:
Besides the fact I think the summer trip to Egypt was useless. They 
could've better spent the money. (Yes I know it was a plot setup for 
SB to see the picture of Scabbers, but they could've easily done a 
picture in front of Gringotts with the whole family possibly?) I 
think that the actual traveling in the WW is pretty much free. 
Apparartion is free (from what we've seen). Floo powder seems to 
be "buy a bag and be done with it". The only mode of transportation 
we've seen that charges is the Knight Bus. It may be that their trip 
to Egypt was pretty much next to nothing. Why wouldn't Bill allow 
them to stay with him as long as he had a big enough place? The 
Christmas trip was only Mr & Mrs Weasley and Ginny (yes I'm assuming 
here, but I don't think any parent would leave a 10 yr old girl at 
home while they were on vacation. Especially during Christmas). The 
summer trip they probably had to splurge and get a hotel. I still 
think they probably only had to worry about hotel/food/extras.

Sen