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Has anyone here done a organized vacation tour? I am so lost as to how to plan our Greece trip. (It's this September) and I want to get our plane tix soon so it's a little cheaper.
I have a bunch of books on Greece tours and stuff, and what looks the best so far is a Contiki Tour...(for 18-35 year olds).
But I just don't know if we should do a tour all together, or just go it on our own. I know the islands that I want to go to, but I have no idea about transportation, and obviously don't know the language at all.
I'm just worried about going on a tour...what if the people we're with are a bunch of idiots and we hate them? Then we're stuck with them for 10 days.
Thoughts? Suggestions?
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so i just finally booked my flight for rome and we rocked it out with a long layover in london. normally i would be upset for layovers but this layover is like enough time for us to flee the airport see some sights and then get back. which is perfect. so reccomednations for a few quick hours in london? i k now lot of people have been here....
haha, we have a long layover in London too.
That's what I said...we're gonna go run out and grab some fish & chips to say we ate in London. (we have about 4 hours) So this is a good question for me too!
FYI -
If you arrive at Heathrow Airport you will need to take the Heathrow express into London which will be about 40 min (if you catch it on time) and even when you arrive at Paddington station, there really isnt any place near there that would be fun to see, so you will have to than take the Tube to Covent Garden, Tralfager Square or even Piccadily Circus.
If you arrive at Gathwick Airport (sp.?) It will take a little longer to get into London... and the above applies also when you take the Gathwick Express to London, which brings you to Victoria station.
Make sure you plan accordingly!!
do you know where prince harry hangs out? cuz that is what i'm concerned most with. that and a good cup of tea.
He is probably at Windsor Castle... but thats a whole other day trip in itself...
Are they transferring your luggage for you? That would be a good thing. It' would stink to have to go through baggage checkin again...
Lots of airports actually have lockers you can rent for a few hours; train stations always do too.
um.... not so much anymore... too handy for bombs
Gatwick has a place (which airport?).. but kinda steep prices... £6.00 per item per 24 hours or part thereof. Ouch!
i think the luggage will be staying there. like how they change it for you while changing planes because that's what we're doing. when we were in amsterdam we rented to lockers for everything that we didnt check and ran around town. but we have a seven hour layover. i did it on purpose so that we'll have lots of time for good times.
Because I had booked my two flights separately I had to recheck my own luggage. Yeah, that was the worst thing ever.
I think we found our vacation! Has anyone heard of www.gate1travel.com ?
It's amazing! excellant deals, and it can suit from a small budget to a large one.
I am torn between 2 tours...one is Athens, Santorini, Mykanos & Crete and the other is Athens, Santorini, Mykanos & Istanbul, Turkey
Both are $2,000 per person includes, Airfare, all hotels (11 nights), flights to the different islands, ferrys, breakfast everyday...and per day you can add on guided tours for $50-$100...This is a fantastic price! I am super excited...and the hotels are all at least 3stars. (you can upgrade for additional fees)
This sounds just perfect for us...it's already set up for you...as in..you know where you are going...all the transportation is set up...but you are free to do whatever you want when you get there! and no annoying tour groups to deal with!!! AHHH so exciting!
I've always wanted to see Istanbul!
BOOKED IT! the one including Turkey. YIPPIDEEEEEEEE
so do you have any good information/suggestions about italy?
yea, are you going? where to? My biggest pieces of advice are 1-unless you are traveling from country to country, i found it cheaper NOT to get the euro-rail pass. 2nd..travel by train at night...some of the train rides are 7-8 hours...so you can save a night of having to pay for a hotel.
A place not to miss if you want some down time is the island off the coast of naples..Ischia..(right next to Capri) It is absolutely beautiful, with great beaches..and the place we stayed at was 60euro a night which was really nice and included your breakfast and dinner...and it wasnt cheapo food....it was EXCELLANT. It's really not an american tourist spot at all...it was all Italians & Germans vacationing...
It had a beautiful pool, and was just steps from the beach.
In Rome, we stayed in the Trastevere distict...it was a really hopping area...a lot to do at night...street bands and such. (and the bus systems are really easy to use)
We went to the Rome bethel...and it was nice to see, but if you don't have some time to kill..if you've seen Brooklyn Bethel...you're not going to be missing much...it's super tiny, with just a few cases of stuff to look at. (but that is where we met some cute american witness boys to hang w/ the rest of our trip) lol
I 2nd the forgetting the eurail pass thing. Biggest rip off ever, especially for Italy. I'm pretty sure all trains in Italy require reservations which you have to pay for ontop of your pass, if you have one.
that's mad ghey. good to konw because i was totally trying to figure out if it would be worth it.
I really think I lost a few hundred dollars by using the eurail pass. It was good for local travel (like going back and forth to this one city a few times) but like..when we went into Italy for Venice and Rome I think I totally got ripped off.
Maybe, if you have enough time, look online to see how much it would cost to just make reservations for the different train trips you'll need to make and then compare it to the eurail price? But add to the eurail price more $$ for the reserving of seats (like..the eurail is your ticket price but doesn't include the reservation but if you buy the ticket separate the ticket price would already include the reservation price..)
Also, if you do go for a eurail pass, I think the flexipass works better than say "unlimited travel for one month" type pass unless you'll be on the train every day?
this is such a help too because i totally wanted to stay in trastever but all the guidebooks kept saying to think twice because not all the cabs and stuff go back there after certain hours so i didn't know if it was a good idea. did you go to sicily? i cant think of stuff to do there besides palermo but i was just wondering if there was other stuff to do.
sadly, no, we didn't make it to sicily...and that's where my mom was born. I don't even know much about it. (We're actually thinking about taking a boat from Athens over to sicily when we go) I'll ask my mom if there's anything in particular to check out...
The Roman metro system is very...limited (there's only two lines) but if you could stay anywhere along those lines you're pretty good to go.
Now is definately time to get airfare...we got airfare to Taiwan for 600/ticket
If you hate the people, then drop kick them into the Agean Sea. Haha...
Budget Travel is my favorite resource for planning trips.
Here is their online Greece page.
They have sections called "Getting There" and "Getting Around" that I've found to be pretty right on about car rentals, side trips, etc. Plus, they've got really good suggestions about sites to see and how to get to each one.
I'm not a huge fan of guided tours, personally; I don't care what someone else has to say about a site, I want to bum around and figure things out by myself.
Great! thanks, i'll take a look at that.
I liked just being able to do my own thing. You can always go and take a tour when in Athens around some of the historical sights. This is what I wish I had done for the Roman Forums because everything just looked like rocks..
This has been the most beneficial thing i've ever posted. i'm so happy i did...because i really think now, i just want to do it on our own, instead of the tour. i guess if me and Tina made it all the way up & down Italy for 17 days alone, me and Austin can handle Greece for 10!!
Thanks guys!!
yeah i hate depending on other poeple when traveling cuz i only want to see what i want to see. and if you got books and everything you are sooo set.
i am loving this page.
so funny becaue i get contiki tour emails all the time and i'm always wondering about going on them too!!! if you guys do do that lemme know for sure.
but traveling in greece....i never had a probelm even though i couldnt speak the language. and there are ferry boats that go to absolutely every island. and you buy the ticket for multiple stops and it's open ended. you go the port in athens, get off at whatever one you want and hop back on when you're ready to move on to the next island. they have the schedueles on-line too. like i booked our ferry tickets before we went and then just picked the literal tickets up at the airport when we got there. (and it ended up that they lowered the prices from when i had bought them and i got the money back. which i thought was great, because how would i konw that they lowered the price?) you just have to be careful about booking direct ferries. like athens 2 santorini should only take 2 hours. but on our boat back we didn't book express and it literally took 9 hours!!! yeah we stopped at other islands and bummed but on my vacation i was not happy to spend 9 hours on a boat. it made us miss the meeting!! (which p.s. i would write the society now if you do plan on going to the hall cuz it sometimes takes a while for the letter back)
plane tix......open as many windows as your browser can handle and check all the online sites at the same time. this great site i get emails from got us roundtrip tickets to greece for $600!! mad cheap!
where are you guys gonna be going? like island/city wise?
awesome! yea, 600 is CRAZY cheap, the cheapest i've found is $900. what time of year did you go?
I'm not 100% sure how much we can see in 10 days...because I don't know how close everything is...but I'm thinking: Athens, Crete, Santorini, Corfu, Mykanos, Chios...not sure what else.
any you would suggest definatly not missing?
we went in june. umm....i would say definetely how you cant miss athens(all the historical stuff, the port, lots of cool museums, marketplaces) or santorni (beaches, sunset, glassblowing, partying). crete has really amazing fresh seafood and kinda like a little whole country. i didn't go to mykanos but i've read how its like santorini but more expensive. and i would definetley say if you are only planning on 10 days that you are gonna have to cut some things out of that itinerary. the other places i couldnt really say.
and santorini we had the best hostel in the world i think
everything looks exactly like the pictures and it was right in the center of town and crazy cheap too. i mean $20 per person a night, what a steal!!
the other places we stayed were just mainly cheap and close to everythign but i imagine you guys are gonna go for something nicer.
oh and here's the link to ferry schedueles
you're awesome! thanks!
okay, if i was with you right now, i'd give you a huge hug, because i just found tickets for $650!!! I'm so excited!!!