Has anyone ever gone to the Olympics? Cost?

[DisneyMandC]

DH and I have always wanted to go to the Olympics and were discussing long term vacation plans and how we would love to attend the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. I was wondering if anyone here has attended the Olympics previously/how much it cost/how far in advance you had to book it?

I realize this is obviously a long way off, but I was just interested to see if my fellow budgeters had experienced this before

 

[Narnia_girl]

We went to the Atlanta games in 1996. That was before you could buy tickets online. We ordered our tickets in 1995 when I was pregnant and by the time we went to the games our son was a year old.

The bombing took place the evening we arrived. It ruined our trip and we ended up not using our tickets (baseball & basketball).

 

[DisneyMandC]

We went to the Atlanta games in 1996. That was before you could buy tickets online. We ordered our tickets in 1995 when I was pregnant and by the time we went to the games our son was a year old.

The bombing took place the evening we arrived. It ruined our trip and we ended up not using our tickets (baseball & basketball).

Yikes! I know, that is of course a consideration as well going forward. But if I have to live every day in fear of a bombing, I at least want to see an Olympic games before I go! Certainly glad you were safe though.

 

[Narnia_girl]

Yikes! I know, that is of course a consideration as well going forward. But if I have to live every day in fear of a bombing, I at least want to see an Olympic games before I go! Certainly glad you were safe though.

I agree and it wouldn't stop us from going again. Like you, now it's more of a budgeting consideration. We had two small children then. Now we have three (much larger) children and college to pay for.

We went in the United States; travel to Toyko is a whole 'nother Olympic feat. It is interesting to me to watch the games in Rio and notice a lot of empty seats at events like beach volleyball.

 

[barkley]

not personally but a former co-worker went to one several years ago.

this was a woman who could REALY trip plan-she researched the best deals on lodging, meals and transportation......figured out the events that were 'must see' for her family......while they enjoyed their trip they were (1) exhausted when they got back-they relied on published information regarding transportation to events and didn't take into consideration how the massive influx of people would impact traffic and public transportation (so it took allot longer to get to/from events-some of which they ended up missing portions of due to delays), (2) sticker shocked at how much more they spent on food (she had made reservations/plans to eat certain places but with travel taking up much more of their time they ended up often opting for more expensive food that was convenient to where they were at a given time/grabbing more expensive 'to go' food to take back to their rooms b/c they were too tired to go out), (3) somewhat disappointed in how different it is watching a given sport as an onsite spectator vs. watching it on t.v. w/cameras that have close-up views.


I think it's a trip that entails ALLOT of research and planning (with lots of back up plans).

 

[DisneyMandC]

I agree and it wouldn't stop us from going again. Like you, now it's more of a budgeting consideration. We had two small children then. Now we have three (much larger) children and college to pay for.

We went in the United States; travel to Toyko is a whole 'nother Olympic feat. It is interesting to me to watch the games in Rio and notice a lot of empty seats at events like beach volleyball.

Yes, it would definitely be a feat getting to Tokyo! I've always wanted to go to Japan though, so if I'm going to do this I'm going to do it right and go for something like two weeks and get in sightseeing in Japan as well as the Olympics.

somewhat disappointed in how different it is watching a given sport as an onsite spectator vs. watching it on t.v. w/cameras that have close-up views.

I've heard this before too. It's something I've thought about, particularly while watching something like gymnastics where one person is on the balance beam while another is doing their floor routine so you hear conflicting cheers. We're both horseback riders though, so we would be interesting in seeing that, and you can get up much closer on the cross-country course!

 

[loves to dive]

We live in Athens, GA, soccer was held here during the Atlanta games so we went to the Gold Medal match. I don't remember how much tickets were but we only had to book them about a month in advance. We got like the 2nd highest tickets. We also watched the torch relay when it came through and went to Olympic Park one night. We could have gone to more since my honey's best friend's stepfather was VP for Home Depot at the time and he got free tickets to everything. My boss also bought group tickets to a couple more of the soccer matches for anyone in the company that wanted one but we weren't interested. We dislike going into Atlanta so much that even with free tickets it wasn't worth it.

 

[WVMomof3]

I have friends that lived in California during LA Olympics and lived in Georgia during the Atlanta Olympics. They were able to go to events at both of them buying tickets last minute. They were on vacation in London during the Olympics there and had planned to again buy tickets to whatever they could when they got there. They could not buy tickets to anything! It had something to do with they were Americans so had to buy through American channels. I'm not exactly sure. They tried going online, they tried several different things. I think they even tried to have someone else buy the tickets, but that didn't work either. I am a little fuzzy on they whys, but They ended up just watching the marathon because you did not need tickets since they were running through the streets. LOL. Anyway, definitely do your research before you go!

 

[BLAZEY]

I went to the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano. I went to the Ice dance final, Women's Hockey gold and bronze games, the women's Curling Final and a men's hockey final round game. I was about 2 Rows back and Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux we right in front of me! The atmosphere was amazing! I bought my event tickets through the Official Agency for the Canadian Olympic Committee. Once I got my ticket order confirmation I bought plane tickets. I stayed in a B&B about 20 mins by train to Nagano City. I bought a Japan Rail pass to travel within Japan and did some touring around Japan. I was 20 at the time and felt completely safe travelling alone as a young woman. I had a friend from Japan the came to an event with me and stayed with her and the family for about a week afterwards. The trip was about $8000 CAD at the time for just me. Hotels are expensive, I was gone for 3 weeks and spent 1 week for free at my friend's house and Okasan (mother) wouldn't let me buy anything! I would love to go and take my DD in 2020. The friend that I stayed with last time has a little girl a week older than my DD and I think it would be a wonderful experience for her.

 

[DisneyMandC]

I went to the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano. I went to the Ice dance final, Women's Hockey gold and bronze games, the women's Curling Final and a men's hockey final round game. I was about 2 Rows back and Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux we right in front of me! The atmosphere was amazing! I bough my ticket through the Official Agency for the Canadian Olympic Committee. Once I got my ticket order confirmation I bought plane tickets. I stayed in a B&B about 20 mins by train to Nagano City. I bought a Japan Rail pass to travel within Japan and did some touring around Japan. I was 20 at the time and felt completely safe travelling alone as a young woman. I had a friend from Japan the came to an event with me and stayed with her and the family for about a week afterwards. The trip was about $8000 CAD at the time. Hotels are expensive, I was gone for 3 weeks and spent 1 week for free at my friend's house an Okasan (mother) wouldn't let me buy anything!

Yeah, DH and I were talking about the public transportation situation there and how that would be ideal for getting around to see more! Great to know! Do you remember how far in advance you bought your Olympics tickets? Just curious since you bought your plane ticket after that.

 

[BLAZEY]

Yeah, DH and I were talking about the public transportation situation there and how that would be ideal for getting around to see more! Great to know! Do you remember how far in advance you bought your Olympics tickets? Just curious since you bought your plane ticket after that.

I want to say I bought my plane ticket about 8-9 months before I left. This was when you had to buy through a travel agent as I couldn't buy a plane ticket online that far in advance. You could look and do research but I couldn't actually buy it. I paid about $1400 for Victoria BC to Nagoya and took the train. The rail pass I also bought through the travel agency as well. Quite a bit has changed in the last 18 years.

 

[SMD]

I looked into buying tickets for Vancouver and London. Each country has an allotment and you can only buy from your country's reseller. For Vancouver it was $200-300 per ticket and for London they only had packages, so you have to buy several events that they chose, and the cheapest were $800-900 if I recall. There are usually some things that you can see for free, like the marathon and cycling road races, but in those cases you wait on the street for a long time to see them pass briefly. And honestly, who knows with the state of the world now if security will allow that in 4 years. My fondest memory of the LA in 1984 was going to see the torch relay before the opening ceremony. So much so that I went to see the torch when it passed through LA in 2004. I think it can be a fun experience to do something like that, but at the same time I'm not sure I'd travel to another country to do it.

 

[TXDisGurl]

I got to see the 1988 Olympics in S. Korea. We saw the bike riding, equestrian and high dive event. We saw Greg Louganis win a gold medal. Oh and we also saw the running of the torch. We were assigned there and the only event I remember paying for was the diving.

 

[tennisfan]

I went to see the Hockey in London, but I only live about a 40 minute train journey away. We had to enter a ticket ballot about a year before. My tickets cost around £40 and we got to see 2 matches and that included a one day travel card for London. Pretty much all the tickets were sold out way before the games.

I'm tempted to go to Tokyo so will start to do my research soonish.

 

[jsmla]

DD and I went to the Sydney Olympics in 2000 when her dance team performed there. I don't remember when we booked. Most of that was handled by her studio.


Our lodging (at a scout/youth type camp north of the city) and any food there (cafeteria at the camp) were included. It also included a few activities and tours. With flights it was around $7000 for almost two weeks.

We missed our included event so I bought tickets to a men's platform diving medal event for DD and me. It was about $700 for those but I couldn't got all that way and not see an Olympic event!

It was totally worth it!

 

[DisneyMandC]

I looked into buying tickets for Vancouver and London. Each country has an allotment and you can only buy from your country's reseller. For Vancouver it was $200-300 per ticket and for London they only had packages, so you have to buy several events that they chose, and the cheapest were $800-900 if I recall. There are usually some things that you can see for free, like the marathon and cycling road races, but in those cases you wait on the street for a long time to see them pass briefly. And honestly, who knows with the state of the world now if security will allow that in 4 years. My fondest memory of the LA in 1984 was going to see the torch relay before the opening ceremony. So much so that I went to see the torch when it passed through LA in 2004. I think it can be a fun experience to do something like that, but at the same time I'm not sure I'd travel to another country to do it.

I remember now seeing many angry news stories about the "lottery" system with group events, and invariably it would always be something like primetime swimming along with table tennis and handball that no one was really interested in (no offense to the table tennis and handball players out there). I assume they must have done it that way simply because of the population of London and expectation that a lot of people would show up? I don't know. Doesn't really make sense to me, maybe someone has a better explanation.

 

[SMD]

I remember now seeing many angry news stories about the "lottery" system with group events, and invariably it would always be something like primetime swimming along with table tennis and handball that no one was really interested in (no offense to the table tennis and handball players out there). I assume they must have done it that way simply because of the population of London and expectation that a lot of people would show up? I don't know. Doesn't really make sense to me, maybe someone has a better explanation.

It probably also has something to do with people intending to resell and not having empty seats. Someone could buy tickets to Gymnastics, Swimming and Basketball all on the same day, and then realistically not be able to go to all 3, so it would indicate that they were either intending to turn a profit by grabbing tickets to all the marquee events, or that they seats will be empty when they either leave a venue early or can't get to another on time.

 

[Petit_Rose]

We went to the London 2012 Olympics, we actually got our tickets through work but I know lots of other people signed up for alerts for the events they wanted tickets for so I assume other host nations do that as well? The only thing I'd say about cost is things tend to be super expensive inside Olympic Villages. The food was so expensive at London. Probably the best thing to do is check Skyscanner for alerts for cheapest flights and hotels

 

[burberryplaid]

Just wanted to say I'm with you! It's been a dream of mine to go to a Summer & Winter Olympics and I am thinking Tokyo might be it for Summer.

Co Sport is the ticket distributor for the US (for now...they've had issues) so I signed up to get info from them as it's released. I believe they can put together multi ticket plans and book lodging (but not airfare)

I also found a site called mybucketlisevents.com which appears to specialize in Olympics and other sporting event/dream trips. They seem legit so I am keeping my eye on them.

Good luck with your planning! Maybe we'll see each other in Tokyo!

 

[msmayor]

We thought about going to the Salt Lake City games, but when I found out the ticket process for events we opted out. There were 'packages' of events...you couldn't just buy one or two, and there was no guarantee you would get the package you wanted. Lottery system, I guess...but you were required to pay in full for the most expensive package and then wait to see what you got...MONTHS later. I believe we started looking about 18 months out.

I wasn't willing to hand over that much money (it was thousands for four people) that far in advance for what was essentially an unknown. We passed, and watched it on TV.