Itinerary tweaks
I did a bit more work on our itinerary last night now that we've got an arrival date and location locked in. There were a couple of sticking points that might take some working out.
The problem with Bangkok
First, our flight from Bangkok on a Thursday morning. So Jetstar have a
perfectly timed flight on a Wednesday, that would get us into Bangkok at 8:30pm. The problem is, it's the last direct flight that would get us into Bangkok in time to catch the next one. I realise there is
heaps of buffer time between an estimated 8:30pm arrival and an 11:30am departure the next day, however Jetstar are known to be fairly unreliable and it's definitely not unheard of for flights to be cancelled/delayed until the next day. So it would be better to arrive in Bangkok on the Tuesday night to be safe. The next problem is, Jetstar doesn't fly to Bangkok on Tuesdays or Thursdays. The only other direct option is Thai Airways, which is a pretty expensive way of doing it as they charge a massive premium for one-way flights. So we might just end up with a little stopover in Bangkok which, while not necessarily a bad thing, does add extra days to the trip when we're already maxing out!
I have enough Qantas points left that I could afford to purchase a different flight and then cancel the existing one, so I have signed up for alerts, just in case we can get on a flight out of Bangkok on the Friday, which would solve that issue. Otherwise, not a deal-breaker - we'll just have to price out whether it's going to be cheaper to pay the premium for Thai Airways or add an extra night in Bangkok (probably adding an extra night).
The problem with Vienna
Second issue. I've confirmed that we will need to be in Vienna on a Sunday for as close to a guaranteed performance at the Spanish Riding School as you can get. There is pretty much
always a show on Sundays, but not necessarily on Saturdays. However, we had also decided that we didn't want to spend long in Vienna, and going directly there from DLP would have us arriving on a Thursday night, which would mean 4 nights there (and consequently less time somewhere else).
The other option was to go to Salzburg from DLP, however there are no direct flights or trains. I'd really prefer train travel where we can manage it, and prefer as direct as possible. I didn't really want to have to catch a suburban train back into Paris and a metro to get to the right station to then get on a train to Germany. Most of the direct trains from DLP go north or south, but I did find one that goes east to a town called Strasbourg which I'd never heard of. From there, we could get a train to Stuttgart in Germany and then change to another train straight to Salzburg. I was quite happy to have a night in a random town as a stopover, but when I looked up Strasbourg, it actually looks kind of amazing! And since we were going to end up with 8 nights in Salzburg, I've decided it's worth spending 2 nights in Strasbourg on the way through since the train to Stuttgart leaves early in the morning.
The problem with the UK
So after a week in Salzburg, we can take the train to Vienna on a Saturday, have the Sunday for the Spanish Riding School, and then fly out on the Monday. Which leaves us just over 2 weeks to round out the trip, which sounds like a lot, but is proving quite tricky to try to squeeze in the family visit in Liverpool, at least a week in Wales, a few days in London (I'd like at least 3 nights, preferably 4), and then the journey home via Hong Kong (Hubby wants at least 3 nights, preferably 4).
And of course this last section is fairly dependent on what flights we can get home too, so will be a work in progress for a while!
) with the majority saying Honolulu. I had thought perhaps Reykjavik.
None of us would use a pool so that's neither here nor there.
