Summer 2005 - Scottish departures

[minniemarie]

Hi Everyone,

Looking for some advice on flights during the school summer holidays next year. This will be my 6th visit to Orlando in as many years but this time I'm tied to the school breaks. I normally arrange the holiday myself and have never paid more than £400 pp for the flights and that includes BA. So I'm having a heart attack when seeing BA coming in at £800

If anyone has seen any good deals out there please let me know.

I'm not really looking for package deals as I prefer to arrange the accomodation myself and usually save $$$, but at the prices I'm seeing perhaps I could change my mind!

 

[brigadoon]

I know the problem. I was comparing prices for 2 July 2005 from Glasgow and couldn't believe the direct costs and also BA via Gatwick. I ended up booking the same day from Manchester with Direct Holidays for £1,556 for two adults and two children. This was about £1,100 less than the same company from Glasgow and about £700 or £800 less than BA. If I'm going to save £1,100 I don't mind an extra 4 hours drive. You can even get a direct bus to Manchester airport from Glasgow, I think.

 

[minniemarie]

Thanks for the info Brigadoon, is that flight only?

 

[brigadoon]

It was Flydrive without the car insurance, so I've booked car hire with uscarhire and saved £130-odd over what Direct Holidays wanted for insurance. I just won't bother picking up the first car. When I booked the flight, the flight only cost was the same.

I believe the only way to get cheap flights from Scotland in July is to fly from England, there's just no other way around it if you need to book months in advance.

 

[RUSHBURY]

I usually use a company in Glasgow for my flights and fly from Glasgow via Newark with Continental - they've started flights from Edinburgh via Newark this year.

 

[tartangirl]

I agree with Brigadoon. If you want to get a cheap deal from Scotland during the school holidays the best bet is to get to England before the English schools break up.

We flew from Manchester (virgin) this year (staying in a hotel the night before) and are planning to do the same next year. The year before we flew charter from Newcastle (drove down from Edinburgh in the morning).

We prefer this option over a flight that has a stop as the stop makes for an early start on the way out and the return journey very long. I had a quick look into Continental now they fly from Edinburgh but the flights I saw had a 5 hour transfer in Newark. I have heard of good deals flying Icelandair from Glasgow via Kevlavik but when I looked at those they were arriving in Orlando after 10pm and I didn't want to be looking for a villa at that time. This may all have changed for next year.

I would advise trying to get a flight before the summer price hike (normally 1st July but may vary between airlines). We booked for 30th June next year (day after our schools break up).

The bad news is that you'll probably be paying more than £400 - at least for adults. We were £1600 for 2 adults and 2 children and that included a 10% discount.

 

[minniemarie]

Thanks for all the feed back,

I would prefer to fly scheduled but would probably have to add the night before flying and the night on arriving (if flying from England) and that would eat up on holiday leave. However, if the savings are there I'll take them

Rushbury, how long is the layover in Newark and can you break your stay as I have familiy in New Jersey area and could work that into my holiday

 

[RUSHBURY]

Hi minniemarie

The stopover this Oct is 2 and 1/2 hrs for the Glasgow flight and I think it's 3 and 1/2 hrs for he Edinburgh flight. We're staying overnight in Newark this year. The price for the overnight stay was the same as the straight through flights. Seemingly you can have 1 overnight without the price being altered. We had a choice of about 4 or 5 flights to choose from for the following day. We have a 2 hr car journey to get to the airport and that's why we don;t fly from any of the English airports

 

[Dazed]

We're flying Continental from Edinburgh in two weeks The stop over is down to one hour now following several schedule changes by the airline. The sooner we get there the better!!

Time to get the cases out

 

[Scottish Mouse]

Hi we ended up booking our holiday with British Airways Holidays. I had difficulty getting flights with Virgin so ended up booking flights via Gatwick (from Glasgow) to Tampa with BA. We've decided to take the kids out of school a day and a half early to save some extra money.

Check out their prices for that time on BA webiste. Sometimes its work the kids missing a couple of days at the end of term!