Arrive Early/Stay Late - Do you add extra days to your tours?

AquamarineSteph · Aug 3, 2015

I really appreciate everyone sharing their travel planning ideas with me. It's so good to hear about everyone's experiences!

RSM · Aug 3, 2015

We generally come into the originating city 1-2 days early depending on work schedules, and we have always added on 4 or 5 days at the end of the ABD. However, we pick another city that we want to experience in the region and basically treat it as another mini-vacation.

GSLand · Aug 11, 2015

We have done only one ABD, Knights & Lights. We did arrive a day ahead to adjust to the time difference, and stayed 3 days after in France to tour on our own. Plus DH does have the same fond feelings for organized tours as I do. He prefers to be on his own so the extra days are to balance out what we each prefer.
I used a travel agent to book a less expensive hotel in Paris, train tickets to Mt St Michel, Mt St Michel Hotel, and shuttle back to airport (because I did not know where to start booking room & train in France!). We planned all the daily activities and meals on our own.
Our next ABD is Back Stage Magic. We are planning the same one day before and some days afterwards.

Cinderella's Slipper 2015 · Aug 13, 2015

Has anyone visited another city/country prior to the start of the ABD? We are doing Central Europe in September 2016 and already have a pre-day booked for Prague. Given the way the Canadian Dollar is right now, we are throwing around the idea of adding a few days on in London (instead of WDW - Shock of all shocks), especially since our favourite airline will be offering flights from Toronto to Gatwick starting next spring. Did you find this hindered you at all?

wdwtheplacetobe · Aug 13, 2015

Cinderella's Slipper 2015 said:
Has anyone visited another city/country prior to the start of the ABD? We are doing Central Europe in September 2016 and already have a pre-day booked for Prague. Given the way the Canadian Dollar is right now, we are throwing around the idea of adding a few days on in London (instead of WDW - Shock of all shocks), especially since our favourite airline will be offering flights from Toronto to Gatwick starting next spring. Did you find this hindered you at all?

We are doing DLP for 3 days and arriving at Prague a day early. I'll let you know how it goes!

Cinderella's Slipper 2015 · Aug 13, 2015

wdwtheplacetobe said:
We are doing DLP for 3 days and arriving at Prague a day early. I'll let you know how it goes!

That would be great! We don't really have a desire to see DLP but we both would love to see London and would be interested in how the logistics of adding another city/country on to the start of an ABD would work.

Sarabi's Cubs · Aug 13, 2015

I do like to come in the day before to get acclimated to the time change. But we usually stay on our own and not through ABD because of the expense. We added a couple of days onto the end of one of our ABDs (Germany) so that we could visit Salzburg and Vienna. I don't regret that at all because we really wanted to see those cities, but I will say that you do get spoiled having the guides and we missed the group.

Laurie

wdwtheplacetobe · Aug 13, 2015

Cinderella's Slipper 2015 said:
That would be great! We don't really have a desire to see DLP but we both would love to see London and would be interested in how the logistics of adding another city/country on to the start of an ABD would work.

London would be easy! We are flying into Paris, taking a shuttle to DLP, (and we just found out that some friends from the DisBoards will be there at the same time!) staying 3 days, shuttle back to airport at Paris...then taking Air France to Prague the day before our trip...landing at 3pm, so we can check right in to the room and go exploring!

On our way back, we have a layover in London for a few hours...SO....you could fly to LHR (Heathrow), spend a few days, then take British Airways from LHR to PRG (Prague) with NO trouble!!!!

Cinderella's Slipper 2015 · Aug 13, 2015

wdwtheplacetobe said:
London would be easy! We are flying into Paris, taking a shuttle to DLP, (and we just found out that some friends from the DisBoards will be there at the same time!) staying 3 days, shuttle back to airport at Paris...then taking Air France to Prague the day before our trip...landing at 3pm, so we can check right in to the room and go exploring!

On our way back, we have a layover in London for a few hours...SO....you could fly to LHR (Heathrow), spend a few days, then take British Airways from LHR to PRG (Prague) with NO trouble!!!!

We'd probably fly into Gatwick as that's where our preferred carrier will be flying into, plus we'd be flying on "points" so to speak (they use $s not points) so the flight would be mostly paid for already. Then fly from Heathrow to Prague the day before the ABD starts.

sayhello · Aug 13, 2015

Cinderella's Slipper 2015 said:
We'd probably fly into Gatwick as that's where our preferred carrier will be flying into, plus we'd be flying on "points" so to speak (they use $s not points) so the flight would be mostly paid for already. Then fly from Heathrow to Prague the day before the ABD starts.

That sounds very doable. What is your "preferred carrier"?

Sayhello

Cinderella's Slipper 2015 · Aug 13, 2015

sayhello said:
That sounds very doable. What is your "preferred carrier"?

Sayhello

We prefer to fly WestJet. With their rewards card you earn "WestJet Dollars" which are equivalent to Canadian Dollars in the sense that if you have $350 WestJet Dollars you can use them to purchase your $350 fare, dollar for dollar. Right now they really are only flying within North America and the Caribbean with a few flights out of Halifax to Glasgow. They've recently purchased new planes that will allow them to expand their offerings to Europe from places like Toronto and Montreal. One of the first places they are going to expand to is London with flights to London Gatwick in Spring of 2016.

sayhello · Aug 13, 2015

Cinderella's Slipper 2015 said:
We prefer to fly WestJet. With their rewards card you earn "WestJet Dollars" which are equivalent to Canadian Dollars in the sense that if you have $350 WestJet Dollars you can use them to purchase your $350 fare, dollar for dollar. Right now they really are only flying within North America and the Caribbean with a few flights out of Halifax to Glasgow. They've recently purchased new planes that will allow them to expand their offerings to Europe from places like Toronto and Montreal. One of the first places they are going to expand to is London with flights to London Gatwick in Spring of 2016.

Cool, thanks. WestJet doesn't fly from here, but it's pretty easy to get from Columbus to Toronto, so that might be a new option to explore.

Sayhello

Cinderella's Slipper 2015 · Aug 13, 2015

sayhello said:
Cool, thanks. WestJet doesn't fly from here, but it's pretty easy to get from Columbus to Toronto, so that might be a new option to explore.

Sayhello

They haven't announced yet where the new service will be offered from but I would be surprised if Toronto is not one of the locations, especially since WestJet now has a hub here in Toronto.

Ralphlaw · Aug 13, 2015

We're considering flying into Salzburg from Crete after our Greece ABD next summer. Take a few days there, train to Fussen to see the castles, and then to Lucerne. Total of about 10 extra days.

Before our back stage Hollywood trip, we went to San Francisco for a few days and then took the train down to LA. Before our Barcelona pre-cruise adventure for the Mediterranean we spent time at Disneyland Paris. And last month for before our Baltic cruise adventure we spent 10 days in Scotland and England. We figure that if you're going to spend that much time and money on the trans-Atlantic flight, make the trip worthwhile. I hate long flights with how they pack you in these days, so I do what I can to justify it.

calypso726 · Aug 13, 2015

AquamarineSteph said:
So my question is - do you have a normal amount of days you look at arriving early/staying late when considering a trip with ABD? Do you always stay early and never stay late? Stay late and never arrive early? How do you make your plans for your extra activities? Do you book them yourself or through a travel agent? I'm just curious, because I am already thinking ahead to possible trips we might take.

We like doing pre-trips before our ABD. It helps us get our bearings in a new time zone. We have done post nights too and once we were so exhausted from the ABD trip (New York) that we wound up doing nothing but sleeping. We also did a post DLP trip after our London/Paris ABD and that was very enjoyable! We will choose how many days depending on vacation time. For our Scotland ABD we came in 3 days early so we could experience a few things that were not on the itinerary. I plan the pre/post trips myself mostly using Trip Advisor. Although, this summer we came in a day early for our pre-cruise ABD in Copenhagen but did not have anything really planned. At the last minute we decided to take a train to Sweden from Copenhagen which was fun. Next month we are doing the San Francisco Napa Valley ABD and coming in the night before but have no plans other than relaxing.

Cinderella's Slipper 2015 said:
Has anyone visited another city/country prior to the start of the ABD? We are doing Central Europe in September 2016 and already have a pre-day booked for Prague. Given the way the Canadian Dollar is right now, we are throwing around the idea of adding a few days on in London (instead of WDW - Shock of all shocks), especially since our favourite airline will be offering flights from Toronto to Gatwick starting next spring. Did you find this hindered you at all?

Last year when we did the London/Paris ABD we flew into Scotland for a few days before heading to London. No hindrance at all. It just felt like we had two vacations instead of one. Next year we are booked for the Danube ABD River cruise and while we have a complimentary pre night with ABD in Budapest we are flying into Ireland the week before to go explore castles and what not. I won't book tours or accommodations for pre trips until after my flights are secured. We are travel hacking junkies and always use miles to fly internationally, we like to fly up front in first and therefore are subject to award availability. I've already secured our flights from Miami to Dublin and from Dublin to Budapest for next year. Now, that I know when I am arriving and when I am leaving, I can start planning the Ireland trip.

RebelHawk · Aug 14, 2015

My wife and I typically plan at least one "dead" day before beginning a planned destination vacation event. If it involves changing multiple time zones we are more prone to do this. This allows us to ease into vacation rather than hitting the ground running and struggling to get caught up. This also allows us to overcome any travel delays or hiccups in our vacations plans.

We are planning at least one full day prior to our upcoming ABD trip to Peru. We are also going to do the same for our upcoming Oct and Dec DCL cruises. Better safe than sorry.

Woodview · Aug 14, 2015

To Ralphlaw Post 34

Here is an idea to think about

Fly to Salzburg ..... But instead of going further by train ..... Hire a car ( Try Rentalcars.com ... we use this Co everytime 'Europe & USA )

Then Drive to ( Germany ) Berchtesgaden ( The Eagles Nest ) Then to Austria to Rejoin the Hwy to Lienz THEN DRIVE

Through The GROSSGLOCKNER Alpine Road ( Hwy 107 ) To Fusch ......... You will not be didappointed ...

Then Drive to Innsbruck then to Fussen then Back into Germany to Wassenburg on Lake Constance or Bodensee

Then back to Austria at Bregenz And then via A 13 to Vaduz in Litcheinstien & then into Switzerland to Lucern

Via Hwy A3 & A4

If this takes you fancy ( We did most of this drive This June ) Please say yes & I will post Hotels etc.

mapsd · Aug 16, 2015

Cinderella's Slipper 2015 said:
Has anyone visited another city/country prior to the start of the ABD? We are doing Central Europe in September 2016 and already have a pre-day booked for Prague. Given the way the Canadian Dollar is right now, we are throwing around the idea of adding a few days on in London (instead of WDW - Shock of all shocks), especially since our favourite airline will be offering flights from Toronto to Gatwick starting next spring. Did you find this hindered you at all?

This is about what we did on our Italy ABD. We wanted to add London as well, so I applied for a British Airways VISA & got enough bonus points just for signing up to cover 4 tickets from Venice to Gatwick.
Bonus was that an open-jawed ticket home leaving London instead of Venice was $200/ticket less!
The savings covered our 3 night hotel bill in London!

abdgeek · Aug 20, 2015

Cinderella's Slipper 2015 said:
Has anyone visited another city/country prior to the start of the ABD? We are doing Central Europe in September 2016 and already have a pre-day booked for Prague. Given the way the Canadian Dollar is right now, we are throwing around the idea of adding a few days on in London (instead of WDW - Shock of all shocks), especially since our favourite airline will be offering flights from Toronto to Gatwick starting next spring. Did you find this hindered you at all?

I'm doing the Norway/Iceland DCL cruise in 2016 and have already decided to spend time in London before going to Copenhagen for the cruise. Believe it or not, it was actually cheaper for me to get a roundtrip ticket to Heathrow and then book LHR to CPH separately. Just be prepared for sticker shock when you book your hotel in London.

Woodview · Aug 20, 2015

Has Ralphlaw any further ideas on his plans for Europe next year ?

Arrive Early/Stay Late - Do you add extra days to your tours?

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