Europe!!

[cjnix29]

Ok, DH just called me and asked what I would think about going to Europe this summer! HOly crap! He's been in a funk lately, and in June he will get an extra week's vacation, and is on schedule for quite the bonus this year. Guess he figured out how he wanted to spend it! So...I haven't been to Europe in almost 20 years when I went in college. I am thinking we are going to try the UK. NO idea where to start with planning this, and how to do it without breaking the bank. Anyone have any suggestions?!?

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

You are going to pay a fortune for airfare at this late date, so be prepared for a lot of searching and many sold out routes. Same for hotels. Decide where you want to go and see what is available. Do not delay!

I hope you both already have passports!

 

[cjnix29]

We do already have passports. And we are thinking the end of August, so hoping it won't be too awful. But just have to figure out where to start.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

We do already have passports. And we are thinking the end of August, so hoping it won't be too awful. But just have to figure out where to start.

I thought he had extra vacation time in June?

You need to start by deciding where to go!

 

[cjnix29]

Sorry...I didn't explain that very well! His company's fiscal year starts June 1. Starting June 1, he will get an extra week's vacation for the year. A case of my mind spinning a million miles an hour! He just calls and casually mentions this, which throws me into a whirlwind! A good one to be in though!! So I don't know how to plan all this out to get a good overview of the UK in such a short time! Of course, a train ride to Euro Disney would be awesome.

 

[momto3gr8boys]

How exciting!!!

Ok, first of all, we just decided on a last minute (well, relatively speaking) trip to London for this July, and prices are high right now for air. But if you look around enough, you can find a deal, and if you are flexible on your dates, you will do even better!

Start by thinking about where you'd like to go. Head over to Trip Advisor and search around for destinations (like the DIS but for everywhere else in the world lol.). You might also want to consider a mediterranean cruise, and for that you could check out cruise critic.

As for travel companies, Gate 1 travel has some great deals including air. You can go with a guided tour, an independent tour, or build your own vacation from scratch. Consider seeing more than one city since air to get to Europe will be your biggest expense, but once you are there, it is relatively inexpensive to fly within.

Remember that a two or three star European hotel is like a one or two star here, so definitely read the reviews on Trip Advisor for any hotel before you book it.

Rick Steves writes great travel guides for most European cities, so you may want to hit the bookstore or library to check out those.

Let us know as you narrow down your search and we can help some more!

 

[eliza61]

How exciting. I love Europe and find that it can be done with a budget frame of mind.

1) concentrate on your airfare right now. be as flexible as you can. sign up for travel alerts and be ready to purchase when a decent fare comes in. Also can you flight out of different airports. for example, I just looked up flights to London from Philly in late august. I got fares around 1100 bucks per person but by simply going to nyc I got fares 200 dollars cheaper. I can easily get to jfk for a $400 savings. make sure you put in flexible dates. flying out on a tues and Wednesday can be hundreds of dollars cheaper.

2) August can be less expensive especially late in August because that's when a lot of Europeans also take holiday. Can you push the trip back to September. September had flights for $800 bucks!!!
3) buy a rick steves tour book. I found he is the best with giving great budget minded suggestions. Sign up for fodors.com. wealth of knowledge there especially on the forums

Have a great time.

 

[BadgerGirl84]

Like others have said, I'd focus on airfare first. Looks like Detroit - London fares in August are going from 1100-1400 R/T each for coach.

I'd recommend going to the library and looking at some travel books to find out what cities you want to see. If you are going for 2 weeks, you could probably fit in 3 major cities that you can take the train to. The internet is also a great resource for researching Europe itineraries.

After that, I'd look for hotel...Trip Advisor is my #1 source for finding somewhere good to stay.

Good luck!

 

[platamama]

Sign up for Groupon, Living Social, Jetsetters and travel sites like that to see what they have to offer for travel deals. Sometimes it's just hotels, but sometimes it's a tour, and can include airfare. Just read the fine print before buying: expiration dates, blackout dates, etc.

Do you have a CC with no foreign transaction fee? If not, get one! I think all the Capital One cards have no forex fees; Chase Sapphire Preferred and Barclays Arrival both don't charge forex fees and earn 2% for travel and dining and have 40,000 pt signup bonuses right now, first year of the annual fee is waived. Barclays actually gets 2% on all purchases which is pretty sweet. Don't forget to tell your CC companies your travel plans so you don't get locked out of trying to use your card while you are on your trip.

Also consider some of the hotel brand CC offers out there - with the Chase Hyatt CC you can get two free nights at any Hyatt in the world after your first purchase.

 

[cjnix29]

Ok, we have discussed it further, and we think we are going to go to England, and since we are only going for about 8-10 days, we will stay in the UK. We know we are going to do London, but also want to see some of the rest. I'll have to run to the library to see if I can find a Rick Steves book. But suggestions on areas to look to stay in would be great. Thinking of checking out vrbo, for a little more room than a hotel room, as we are usually condo vacationers! Suggestions welcome!!!

and....is there a UK airport that is generally cheaper to fly into?!

 

[packofjedis]

We're going in the fall, so I can tell you what I've done...

Can you get to Chicago to fly out? If so check Aer Lingus for flights. We're driving 3 hours to fly out of Chicago and even counting in gas money there and back, we're saving hundreds of dollars on the flight. You'll have to stop over in Dublin, but straight flights are more expensive anyhow.

We're renting cottages through the National Trust. They offer unique places to stay, like a out building of a castle or palace. For a week, they were reasonable IMO especially as they have kitchens and washing machines.
Scotland - http://www.nts.org.uk/Holidays/
England/Wales - http://www.nationaltrustcottages.co.uk/

Once you narrow down where you'll be staying, there are several passes that will save you money if you visit places off their list. Depends on what you want to see.

We did rent a car. Got a deal (not sure if it's a good deal) through an airline's relationship with car rental people over there. I haven't had luck finding codes to check Hertz's etc websites like I do here. We wanted the car, though, because we will do day trips from our central location.

I've heard London charges an extra tax to land or take off from there. But I'm not 100% sure. I didn't want to fly into there, so it didn't effect us anyhow.

 

[packofjedis]

I should add that I would start checking airfare sooner rather than later. I don't know about August, but I was seeing flights for our dates filling up and I started getting nervous.

 

[momto3gr8boys]

Ok, we have discussed it further, and we think we are going to go to England, and since we are only going for about 8-10 days, we will stay in the UK. We know we are going to do London, but also want to see some of the rest. I'll have to run to the library to see if I can find a Rick Steves book. But suggestions on areas to look to stay in would be great. Thinking of checking out vrbo, for a little more room than a hotel room, as we are usually condo vacationers! Suggestions welcome!!!

and....is there a UK airport that is generally cheaper to fly into?!

We are flying JFK-LHR, but you could check prices for Gatwick as well.

We are staying at The Trafalgar Hotel http://www3.hilton.com/en/hotels/united-kingdom/the-trafalgar-london-LONTSHI/index.html

I chose this because I wanted to be in the West End and within walking distance to a number of areas that interest us. I also want to stay put in one hotel for the entire week as opposed to traveling to different areas and wanted a good, central location. We usually move around a bit, but I want more of a home base this trip. It's only 8 days as well...we usually go to Europe longer because the air is so expensive, but this was all we could do this summer.

So far we have two tours. The first is a day trip to Stonehenge and Bath. I booked through this company: http://www.theenglishbus.com/ which got excellent reviews on Trip Advisor.

We are also going to book a bike tour with Fat Tire Bike Tours. http://fattirebiketours.com/ There are others as well, but we have done tours with this company in Paris and Barcelona in the past and loved the guides and the company and the whole experience. We haven't chosen which tour we want to do yet.

That is all we have set in stone at the moment. We need to sit down and look over our list of must dos and wants and make a plan. London is very easy to get around on your own though, so we will most likely just do some self guided walking tours, schedule afternoon tea at Fortune and Masons, decide on a show or decide to just get tickets at TKTS in Leicester Square (although I believe you can order them online) and then make a general plan for the rest.

Packofjedis - what are your London plans so far?

 

[CTrumble]

If you have Dr. Who fans in your family...then I'd highly recommend

http://www.doctorwhoexperience.com/

My teen just went nuts at this exhibit when we went a few years ago.

(We did a Bath/Stonehenge tour that was awesome! We also did a local London tour that was ok.)

 

[CTrumble]

Oh...and seeing the Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's theater, where it originally opened!!!

http://www.thephantomoftheopera.com/london


We had dinner at a pizza place close-by and then walked to the theater.


Also---the subway system is easy.

 

[scrapbooksellman]

We were in London for 4 days last spring. It was wonderful, so much to see and do. Check out the London pass to see if it makes sense for you. It helped us save a little money. But the big help was the tube/bus passes. So easy to use and we did not have to calulate prices for each ride.
We loved the usual tourist stuff Tower bridge tour, Tower of London, London Eye. Westminister Abbey was lovely! We took the train to Windsor Castle ( included in the london pass train ticket and entrance). So beautiful and massive!

If you like sports, the tour of Chelsea soccer stadium was great too. We are big sports nuts! A great tour of the locker rooms and stadium.

Surf the web for deal sites in London. Sign up for local deals.
We stayed in a Travelodge in London. But in other parts of Europe we used airbnb.com to rent apartments. It was great to have the extra space and see how locals lived.


Enjoy!

 

[mjantz]

For 10 days you could probably do Paris too if you took the Chunnel.

 

[packofjedis]

Packofjedis - what are your London plans so far?

We're actually not going to London at all. We fly into Edinburgh for a week in Scotland, and then drive to northern Wales for a week down in that direction (fly out of Manchester). We're doing exactly what you're doing and having a central base and making day trips from there.

The only bigger cities we'll visit are Edinburgh for one day and Manchester the day before we leave.

Like you, we are planning on doing a tour of Old Trafford, Manchester United's stadium and hoping to hit at least one soccer game while we're over there.

 

[cjnix29]

well, thanks everyone for all the great advice, but I think we actually opted to take a cruise. As much as I would like to go to the UK, the flights are just killing me! I would rather spend my money on the actual experience rather than just the airplane seat! As the cost of this cruise just covers the airfare to the UK. We'll try again when we have more time to plan and can go when airfare is cheaper. Again, thanks for all the good advice!!!

 

[momto3gr8boys]

We're actually not going to London at all. We fly into Edinburgh for a week in Scotland, and then drive to northern Wales for a week down in that direction (fly out of Manchester). We're doing exactly what you're doing and having a central base and making day trips from there.

The only bigger cities we'll visit are Edinburgh for one day and Manchester the day before we leave.

Like you, we are planning on doing a tour of Old Trafford, Manchester United's stadium and hoping to hit at least one soccer game while we're over there.

If you haven't been to Liverpool and are Beatles fans, make sure to try to fit in the museum. I went when I was based in Manchester for a trip and I don't remember it being too far. I would like to get back that way one day