Sept 18 2010 WB TransAtlantic Pirates/Capt Jacks Re-Repoing Repossession Cruise Pt.3

[kcashner]

Are you willing to share the secret of the reasonably priced airline?
I'm off to call BA to see if they'll do me a deal if we book all our flight segments with them. If we book all our flights separately as one-ways with them the prices are sky high. So, I'm hoping we can book an open-jaw ticket like we did last year for the WBPC Repo.

What I did....looked on Orbitz and found flights. British Airways was cheapest for me. I couldn't find the same flights on the BA site or the AA flight (which had the US segment.) I did a fair amount of research and found A LOT of different routings. There's no way I'd get a direct flight from my home airport to anywhere in Europe--that doesn't exist; so I didn't really care what airport I flew thru.

I found flights from BCN to Madrid, London, Paris, etc. Again, didn't matter to me. Could fly to JFK, Detroit, Atlanta, Chicago--again, I don't care where I'm making connections--one airport looks pretty much like another.

I wasn't comfortable booking thru Orbitz, so I e-mailed my TA the info I'd found. She used HER booking software, and got me the same flights I'd seen on Orbitz for abotu $20 less than their cost. Bottom line, I'm happy with the price, and it's DONE!

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Well, I thought I had it all planned. Before I went on the Magic I did a lot of adding up and found that between annual leave and lieu days, I had enough vacation time to do both Transatlantic Cruises. Today I found out more or less by accident that they have shortened the opening hours over Christmas and that means that they need only two team leaders. As I car share with one of the other team leaders and he is the one that drives, they decided that they would put me down for mandatory leave. That means that I now don't have enough vacation time to do both cruises. I am so upset right now. Now I have to make the decision which cruise to cancel.

This is where you come in. If I can only do one of the cruises, which one is better to keep and why?

Corinna

Oh no Corinna - you must be so disappointed ..... but at least you'll still be able to do one of the cruises. I would definitely choose the WBTA - no long flight at the start of your holiday, warmer weather in Europe in September, an extra "free" 5 hours on board with the time changes, the Caribbean ports and a few hours in Castaway Cay to look forward to at the end of the cruise. The flight back is an ordeal but at the end of your holiday you'll be miserable anyway so it won't matter! And the biggest bonus to the WB - you will be with all of us !!! plus you will be cruising with your hubby and not alone, which will remove the whole "single room" issue and give you 2 weeks quality time with your hubby .

We actually bought something for the cruise today! LOL!! Walmart had a clearance on Halloween stuff and we got pirate tshirts for $2 each. So for all 5 of us it was only $10, and they are super cute. So, even if we didnt use them on the TA cruise, we would use them sometime....right?!?!

Oooooh I love buying things for the cruise and putting them away! Thats a real bargain!

Ok, Cheapoair does not include all the taxes and fees in their price. So their total for the two of us was $927 through Dusseldorf with a 6.5 hour layover there. There was another site that had a flight on Swiss Air (allows TWO bags still) thru Zurich with only 1.5 hr layover there for $945 for the two of us. I just went ahead and booked that one. The taxes and fees are not going to go down and I was hoping for less than $500 per person. Whew! That is done, now to get Beach Club Villas booked for a week when we return, find a place in Orlando to stash the RV for 3 weeks and get a rental car from Orlando to Miami ----- unless some of you seasoned travelers know of a better way to get from Orlando to Miami cheaply. Then I am done and just need to wait....oh, and save up some more $$$$

I am thinking of getting Euros now since the dollar seems to be getting weaker and weaker and I see no end in sight over the next year. Any thoughts on that?

Great price for your flights! I can't wait until I have mine all signed and sealed!
Can't help you on the euros / dollar rate - the £ is really weak at the moment against the euro so I may leave it some time yet and hope that the Uk economy improves before buying any currency!

A lot of folks are anti globespan,you may be one of them but we got a great deal with them.
Barcelona from edinburgh 70 pounds and back from orly to glasgow, 400 dollars.(25 kg luggae each way)
Good luck with BA

really good price for your flights Lynne - if Glopespan would fly MCO - Edinburgh on the Sunday I would be booking with them at that price. Can't wait to get everything booked now!

 

[orlandothebeagle]

Oh no Corinna - you must be so disappointed ..... but at least you'll still be able to do one of the cruises. I would definitely choose the WBTA - no long flight at the start of your holiday, warmer weather in Europe in September, an extra "free" 5 hours on board with the time changes, the Caribbean ports and a few hours in Castaway Cay to look forward to at the end of the cruise. The flight back is an ordeal but at the end of your holiday you'll be miserable anyway so it won't matter! And the biggest bonus to the WB - you will be with all of us !!! plus you will be cruising with your hubby and not alone, which will remove the whole "single room" issue and give you 2 weeks quality time with your hubby .




Oooooh I love buying things for the cruise and putting them away! Thats a real bargain!



Great price for your flights! I can't wait until I have mine all signed and sealed!
Can't help you on the euros / dollar rate - the £ is really weak at the moment against the euro so I may leave it some time yet and hope that the Uk economy improves before buying any currency!



really good price for your flights Lynne - if Glopespan would fly MCO - Edinburgh on the Sunday I would be booking with them at that price. Can't wait to get everything booked now!

I hate mco, It is a bonus if I can avoid it.
They released the edinburgh flights after I booked glasgow! doh.

 

[gismo1554]

Thanks for all your input. I think I will make a list of all the advantages and disadvantages of both cruises and make the decision then. I have the feeling it is probably the Eastbound that is going to go as this would have been a solo cruise for me and we are both booked on the Westbound. Another advantage with canceling the Eastbound is that I am both hoping and expecting that the Magic will move to Europe more or less for good in 2012. So maybe I should aim to be on the cruise that takes her there.

2011 is not an option. I have an Eastern Caribbean booked for our anniversary and we are hoping to do a vow renewal. Maybe I can add a 4 night on the Dream to that to make it a kind of back to back with one night on land in between. The irony is in 2011 I get an additional vacation day per year as I will have been with the company for 5 years, so a year later, this would not have been a problem.

Corinna

Definately good idea to start a list! Itll help Im sure!

 

[gismo1554]

Wow - great prices there - way to go! We're not Globespan haters either - we've used them a few times for holidays to Spain and have never had any problems.

BA have just gone and priced themselves out of the hemisphere by quoting me £744.30 per person one way - from Aberdeen to Barcelona! Even their sales person seemed shocked! He wasn't surprised when I said that I wasn't interested in booking! That's even more expensive than the price I got for a Virgin flight from Orlando to Aberdeen!

Apparently, we can't book an open-jaw ticket that goes into one country then out of another. Of course for the WBPC it was into Orlando and out of LA, that's why we'd been able to book that as a roundtrip fare.

I'm away to check out Globespan's schedule and pricing then.

I think its to do with flying to 2 seperate areas or at least thats what I was told in 2007. You can book open jaw around Europe or around America but not including both!

 

[gismo1554]

I found a great fare using mileage for a flight that is direct from the US. Problem is, I only have enough miles at the moment for 42% of what I need (enough for 1 ticket, almost enough for a 2nd, we need 4). I can buy mileage for $1350 that would get me enough miles now to lock down 3 of the 4 tickets needed, and I'd have the rest of the miles in a short period after that. I would in essence be buying enough miles for 2 tickets, equating to about $750/ticket, but with the bonus miles and my existing miles, I would hopefully end up with an out of pocket cost of $337.50/ticket for the transatlantic flight.

So the question is, is it worth it to spend that much on buying the miles needed, taking the chance that I'd still be able to purchase a 4th ticket with miles once the rest of them come through in a few weeks, or do I just keep holding off and looking for other options?

The airline that I'm looking at, the website price for the flights we're looking at is $2600+ for the one way flight, so buying that 4th seat isn't a viable option.

Oh difficult one! I hate these sort of dilemas!

 

[Disneynut64]

WE just booked the transatlantic, it will be myself, my husband, and both fathers. Looking foreward to getting to know everyone before we leave. Is there a certain post available, to get info regarding activities and lanyards. Cindy

 

[granmaz]

Well it does look like we should be able to book a reward flight with Virgin from Miami to Heathrow. Orlando to Manchester, or London Gatwick are very hard to come by I believe. As we are planning on staying a few weeks after the cruise I won't be able to book for a few weeks yet. The waiting is a pain!!!

However, we just booked a 5+ week trip for Feb/March so We have 12 nights booked at SSR(too late for BCV or BWV but we do like SSR), then we are keeping a week free to see if we can get a cruise, and then we have 3 weeks at a villa.

Hope you all continue to get good rates for your flights. I had better check the BA flight to Barcelona first though. No way can I manage with 20kg.

 

[orlandothebeagle]

WE just booked the transatlantic, it will be myself, my husband, and both fathers. Looking foreward to getting to know everyone before we leave. Is there a certain post available, to get info regarding activities and lanyards. Cindy

A warm welcome from chilly scotland.

 

[gismo1554]

WE just booked the transatlantic, it will be myself, my husband, and both fathers. Looking foreward to getting to know everyone before we leave. Is there a certain post available, to get info regarding activities and lanyards. Cindy

Hey Cindy. Look at the first post on Page 1 of this thread for more info on signing up to things.

 

[TotallyAngelic]

WE just booked the transatlantic, it will be myself, my husband, and both fathers. Looking foreward to getting to know everyone before we leave. Is there a certain post available, to get info regarding activities and lanyards. Cindy

welcome aboard Cindy and family.

 

[MrsMork]

WE just booked the transatlantic, it will be myself, my husband, and both fathers. Looking foreward to getting to know everyone before we leave. Is there a certain post available, to get info regarding activities and lanyards. Cindy

WELCOME!!!!

Well it does look like we should be able to book a reward flight with Virgin from Miami to Heathrow. Orlando to Manchester, or London Gatwick are very hard to come by I believe. As we are planning on staying a few weeks after the cruise I won't be able to book for a few weeks yet. The waiting is a pain!!!

However, we just booked a 5+ week trip for Feb/March so We have 12 nights booked at SSR(too late for BCV or BWV but we do like SSR), then we are keeping a week free to see if we can get a cruise, and then we have 3 weeks at a villa.

Hope you all continue to get good rates for your flights. I had better check the BA flight to Barcelona first though. No way can I manage with 20kg.

Marilyn!!! Yay! I'm happy to hear this will work for you. Offer still stands for sharing a 2 BD at BCV for a week after the cruise if you would like. I will be booking in a couple of days and can get either a 1 BD for us or 2 BD for all of us. Let me know.

 

[Disneynut64]

Has anyone posted where they are staying before the cruise or are people flying they day of. Has anyone every stayed at the recommended hotels by disney or any other recomendations. Cindy

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Has anyone posted where they are staying before the cruise or are people flying they day of. Has anyone every stayed at the recommended hotels by disney or any other recomendations. Cindy

We are flying in the day before to have a day in Barcelona before the cruise - don't know where we are staying yet though. Some people have booked Le Meridien - which is one of the Disney recommended hotels!

 

[orlandothebeagle]

Has anyone posted where they are staying before the cruise or are people flying they day of. Has anyone every stayed at the recommended hotels by disney or any other recomendations. Cindy

We are flying out on the wed and staying in an apartment overlooking harbour.

 

[gismo1554]

Has anyone posted where they are staying before the cruise or are people flying they day of. Has anyone every stayed at the recommended hotels by disney or any other recomendations. Cindy

We're flying in the day before but late at night, as it fellow disers Lorraine on here. We're staying at the Renaissance at the airport as its such a late flight

 

[pilk]

We'll be flying into the UK a week before and staying with friends, who will be joining us on the cruise. Then heading into Spain a couple days before the big day. Don't know where we'll be staying yet.

 

[woody73]

We plan to arrive in Barcelona two days before the cruise.

Woody

 

[Disneynut64]

We are thinking of staying at the hilton that disney recommends, anyone heard anything about his hotel.

 

[orlandothebeagle]

We are thinking of staying at the hilton that disney recommends, anyone heard anything about his hotel.

No sorry.

This one???
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_...ews-Hilton_Barcelona-Barcelona_Catalonia.html
Seem to get great reviews.