Totally Overwhelmed with picking flights!

[eeyorepixie]

First off let me say I am a planners planner...that being said I am totally over whelmed with the cost, the abreviations that you use (I swear everything seems like it is over my head, I feel like a newbie all over again) the euro thing and the pressure of being in another country with my my family, my in-laws, my parents and wanting to get it "right".

I love planning but the flight thing is hard, I am good with the hotels options but not sure what to do first.

Any feedback will be appreciated, I have already done a search on flight threads and read the ones that pertained to me.

Here are a few questions

1. what is FLYBE?

2. I need to fly to Ireland, then to England then to Paris. From what I have read the best prices seem to be when the dates are released. I can not play roulette with the hopes of cost going down. KWIM? What sites should I sign up for to get notification when they are releasing their dates?


Am I even approaching this correctly?

This trip all started because a friend is lending their house to us in Cork, Ireland and I am taking on a trip to DLP because I know this is probably my only chance

 

[DLPdaft]

Flybe is a budget airline carrier in the UK, flying from regional airports there to European airports and beyond.

Yes, generally speaking the flights will be at their cheapest when they are first released (except if you are using Easyjet and are going in low-season, as they regularly have sales on their flight prices).

 

[Jonjo]

Depending on where you are staying in the UK, flying from England to France might not be your cheapest option. You could look at the Eurostar, that is the train service that runs from London to Paris and they have a direct service that goes direct to Dinseyland Paris.

 

[tracy021083]

We are flying from Manchester to paris return with fly be and airfrance (they seemed to be part of the same company) for £110 each return which I thought was quite good

 

[Ware Bears]

If you sign up for the newsletter for Flybe you'll get advance notice of the next release of flights so will get the chance to book them before prices rise (which they do especially if you're travelling in school holidays). Do you know which airport you are looking at flying to/from England?

And I second Jonjo's recommendation for the Eurostar. Even if it isn't cheaper for your dates it's a much more civilised way to travel!

 

[eeyorepixie]

Flybe is a budget airline carrier in the UK, flying from regional airports there to European airports and beyond.

Yes, generally speaking the flights will be at their cheapest when they are first released (except if you are using Easyjet and are going in low-season, as they regularly have sales on their flight prices).

First let me say a sincere thank you to all of you for answering, I swear my head was hurting and the wierd thing is I love to plan, but I know I am waaay out of my depth here and I have a ton to learn.


Jonjo- I really am liking that the Eurostar could take me directly to DLP, I think we will stay at Explorers as we are a larger family...but I digress, I need to deal with the travel arrangements first because if I can't afford to fly to Paris, I will not be staying anywhere.

I can fly in any order,I could Paris/London/England or any other combo. My parents and In-laws I think will only be on the Ireland/England part...so I was thinking it may be best to fly with them, but if it was a significant cost difference, maybe we could switch it up. KWIM?

Tracey, that sound like a good price...but then again I am still getting the gist of the pound thing.

Warebare (what's the odds of two Mods having the same time) I had read I could sign up for mailer, but could not understand the abreviations so thank you for confirmation/clarification. I will sign up for that next.

We are going to be garden variety tourists...so I think we will stay in the heart of London for a few days and do the bus tour thing, the eye just the major points. Maybe when my kids are older, me and my DH will really adventure around but, this very well could be my only trip here in my life. I am 47 and always wanted to see these countries...so when opportunity knocked I was SO IN! So that is my long winded way I guess of answering that I will do whatever airport is the closest to London. Now I am assuming that there will be a major airport near London? Let me know if I am wrong

So my next step as I see it is I have to sign up for FLYB and then read up on this Eurstar train thing, because might even be cool see the country side as we travel. I will do a search in the forum for it first and see what I can figure out I am sure I will have some questions, but I will try to learn as much as I can first.

Thanks again, you feedback to help big time!

 

[mommy2ash]

is the order of your trip set in stone?

i only ask as if you are flying to cork first you can fly directly from cork to dlp. you could then get the eurostar from dlp to london and fly back home directly from there.

 

[sky13]

I'll add on my recommendation for the Eurostar - it's really fantastic and you can get from the centre of London to Disneyland in around 3 hours.

The cheapest return ticket will probably be £69. If you book right when the tickets start going on sale it's generally easier to find a £69 return fare - Eurostar usually starts selling tickets for the direct London-Disneyland train several months in advance; for the indirect route (London-Lille on Eurostar, then Lille-Disneyland on TGV, taking 3-4 hours) 3 months in advance, and London-Paris 4 months in advance.

Other options of getting to Paris/Disneyland from London:
- Fly - Easyjet flies between London Luton airport (though this isn't the most accessible airport in my opinion!) and Paris CDG airport
- Coach - Eurolines and Megabus run coach journeys between London and Paris, but these take around 8 hours so may not be the best option!

 

[eeyorepixie]

I'll add on my recommendation for the Eurostar - it's really fantastic and you can get from the centre of London to Disneyland in around 3 hours.

The cheapest return ticket will probably be £69. If you book right when the tickets start going on sale it's generally easier to find a £69 return fare - Eurostar usually starts selling tickets for the direct London-Disneyland train several months in advance; for the indirect route (London-Lille on Eurostar, then Lille-Disneyland on TGV, taking 3-4 hours) 3 months in advance, and London-Paris 4 months in advance.

Other options of getting to Paris/Disneyland from London:
- Fly - Easyjet flies between London Luton airport (though this isn't the most accessible airport in my opinion!) and Paris CDG airport
- Coach - Eurolines and Megabus run coach journeys between London and Paris, but these take around 8 hours so may not be the best option!

Thanks this is the exact kind of info I need, and I did look at it and seems like this will work perfectly because it seems so inexpensive and I do not mind a few hour ride at all if it so convenient too! Convenient and low cost that is a good combo!

Mommytoash, no we are not set in stone and are flexible to a degree, but I am kind of liking that cost for our family of 5 for the Eurostar. I am thinking a flight from Cork to Paris will cost more. Am I right? I think I will still have to get some sort of puddle jumper from Cork to England. Hopefully that does not cost much.

Thanks to you both, I already feel better from the help on the DIS...I will be O.K....just keep swimming...just keep swimming...I will jus take this one step at a time, you know like "How do you eat an elephant? - one bite at a time"

I swear this morning I was reading about flights and my head started to hurt I was so overwhelmed! Usually, I relish a planning dillema but not this time. I just felt so many things could go wrong and was getting worried over how bad I could screw this up for my family who consider me the crazy disney "planner"
so I know I have said it several times, but honestly thanks!

 

[sky13]

Yes the Eurostar is really convenient, and it saves a lot of hassle/time over flying (no need to transfer to/from the airport, can check-in up to 30 minutes before train departure). Just plan to book tickets as early as you can as prices can go up quite dramatically!

Cork-London - have a look at Ryanair as well as they fly this route. They will likely have cheap tickets if you book in advance but watch out for additional fees with them (such as baggage fees!) and read their terms and conditions!

Good luck with planning - am sure you'll be fine!!

 

[HappySlinky]

A couple of websites that might help:

skyscanner.com - for flights, you can put in specific airports or 'From' London (Any) 'To' Paris (Any) to cover all the capitals' airports and either put in exact dates or have a look for a whole month at the time to see when the cheapest flights are. I never buy tickets from the site but use it to see which airlines fly where and when. This might be really stating the obvious but I'm not sure how familiar you are with the budget airlines (Ryanair, Easyjet, ...), the price you see on a comparison or when you go to their own sites is the basic flight and tax price, you then pay for anything you want to add on, eg. seat reservations, suitcases, food during the flight plus a booking fee so to see what it's really going to cost it's good to go through the whole booking up to the stage where you'd put your card details in.

thetrainline.com - train timetables and tickets, covers all of the UK I think, but could be handy to see how to get from the airport. Put in eg. Gatwick Airport to London (Any) and you'll be able to see whereabouts in London you can get a direct train transfer to, or if you know exactly where you're going you can obviously put that in as your destination!

 

[Sparkly Pooh Bear]

Hi flights from cork to dlp should be cheap enough, you need to go onto the aerlingus (Irish airline) website or skyscanner. Cork is a small airport so there is only one flight per day to paris as far as I know. According to skyscanner flight time is 1hr40 mins and flights cost per adult ¬105 upwards (thats return so single trip will be cheaper, I actually did a quick for flight on 8 October and 1 way for 1 adult is only E47!!! There are baggage charges so just check them out). Would it be an option to fly cork to Paris, and then when returning get the Eurostar to London?

Ryanair only fly into beauvais airport which is further from Paris and dlp than cdg and in my opinion an extra unnecessary hassle.

By the way cork is a fabulous city, don't miss the city gaol tour and if you can get down to coabh you can see the titanic museum.