Need tips for travel packages

[whitewave]

Hello! I have twins graduating from university this year and so they have both decided they want a trip, and they are open to going together. (Brother/sister). They are looking at Ireland right now.

Does anyone have a tip on where to look at a flight and hotel + transfer bundle or package? Costco? They want to go somewhere and park themselves for 5 days, so no tour groups or driving.

Thanks for any tips!

None of us has been to Ireland, and I’m anxious about my 22 year old Daughter going lol but her brother is head smart.

 

[Lookinagain]

have you looked to see if Aer Lingus has any packages? Also, if they want to just stay in one place, at their age, I'm guessing Dublin? I don't know where you are located so suggesting packages is hard if the starting point isn't known.

 

[Snowdrop13]

If they’re flying all that way there’s probably more to see in London or Paris or even Edinburgh. I’ve used Expedia before with success.

 

[Elizabeth35]

I would check Aer Lingus for packages (or any other preferred airline).

If you look for a package on Expedia, Priceline, etc.--make sure you set up an account and log in. I have found some huge member savings on hotels.

 

[whitewave]

Thanks. They could leave from any departure point, but the most likely one for them would be New Orleans MSY.

They are thinking London now.

 

[Lookinagain]

Is there a budget and approximate dates? the dates can change the prices quite a bit, so looking is difficult if there are not dates to use. Also, if they have any idea about what area they might want to stay in, that would help. I think from New Orleans there are limited options for non-stop flights so they will probably have to change planes, which is generally a bit less expensive anyway.

 

[whitewave]

Definitely will be no non-stop— well I do think BA has a non stop MSY to LHA. Or did before covid and only 1 day a week IIRC.

We are at a crawfish boil so when we get home we are going to look at covid issues, because we just realized there is a high speed rail. It’s now turning into maybe a rail trip through Europe depending on a lot of things.

Pic from today. Not my house. The lake is on a draw down so it’s low.

 

[whitewave]

Budget up to 2k a person. I was thinking around May 22 for a week. End of may….

 

[Lookinagain]

So are they looking for a rail package? They really should do a lot of research and figure out where they want to go. In a week, I wouldn't try to do more than two of the bigger cities. Otherwise, I'd pick one country and go to a few places there. They don't want to lose too much time by spending it all on trains. If they want to see London and Paris, maybe look for a package that includes the Chunnel?

 

[whitewave]

So are they looking for a rail package? They really should do a lot of research and figure out where they want to go. In a week, I wouldn't try to do more than two of the bigger cities. Otherwise, I'd pick one country and go to a few places there. They don't want to lose too much time by spending it all on trains. If they want to see London and Paris, maybe look for a package that includes the Chunnel?

We just found this. I don’t know if they can swing 2 weeks.

Europe Travel Packages 2 Weeks | Euro Highlights | Eurailing Packages

Visit the best European destinations with one of our 2-week Europe travel packages. Experience all that Europe has to offer in 8 of its many iconic cities.

www.eurailingpackages.com

or we can do a custom package.

i think this is where we end up. Thanks, everyone.

 

[Elizabeth35]

British Air has non-stop MSY-LHR on Thursdays and Saturdays--I would see if they have any packages.
For only 5 days I would focus on NS flights and stay in one city. They will need to do a COVID test to return to US so will need to build that into their plans.
They need to spend some time researching and understanding the COVID rules for any country they are visiting or transiting. Some countries may require an attestation or COVID pass for visiting many venues.

 

[Lookinagain]

We just found this. I don’t know if they can swing 2 weeks.

Europe Travel Packages 2 Weeks | Euro Highlights | Eurailing Packages

Visit the best European destinations with one of our 2-week Europe travel packages. Experience all that Europe has to offer in 8 of its many iconic cities.

www.eurailingpackages.com

or we can do a custom package.

i think this is where we end up. Thanks, everyone.

That's certainly a whirlwind pace. But if all they want to do is get a small flavor of each stop, then I guess that will work. I would recommend a bit more time in some of these cities and make fewer stops. Keep us posted on what they decide and give us a trip report when they return.

 

[whitewave]

Ok, they don’t want to do 14 days. We are going to work on this today. I think they want 7-9 days and fewer stops than what I posted above.

Assuming they fly into London (LHR), what is a good little rail jaunt that isnt taxing? Paris? one other stop…

 

[Lookinagain]

Avocado!!!! High smoking temp, extremely versatile.

Ok, they don’t want to do 14 days. We are going to work on this today. I think they want 7-9 days and fewer stops than what I posted above.

Assuming they fly into London (LHR), what is a good little rail jaunt that isnt taxing? Paris? one other stop…

Can they fly into one city (London) and out of another? If so I'd say London, then to Paris via the Chunnel, then to Amsterdam, fly home from Amsterdam. If round trip to London, then what about London, Paris, Brussels, back to London on the last night for a return flight home the next day. They could still do Amsterdam back to London via train. It's about a 4 hour ride. Brussels to London would only be about two hours, but if I were choosing between the two, I'd pick Amsterdam.

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

Forgive me as I don't mean to put a damper on this
but arnt they afraid of covid ?
I realize we have had a completly different pandemic experience here in NZ to most of you with our elimination policy which is now coming to an end with cases and deaths rising so i wont even go to the shops
the last thing i want to do is hop on a plane and fly anywhere let alone a foreign country
I have a young friend from the UK who went to NYC for xmas and got covid and had to then wait to come home

 

[whitewave]

Forgive me as I don't mean to put a damper on this
but arnt they afraid of covid ?
I realize we have had a completly different pandemic experience here in NZ to most of you with our elimination policy which is now coming to an end with cases and deaths rising so i wont even go to the shops
the last thing i want to do is hop on a plane and fly anywhere let alone a foreign country
I have a young friend from the UK who went to NYC for xmas and got covid and had to then wait to come home

It is a consideration. They are boosted and wear masks, so we were approaching this as risk vs benefit. Several places are surging now, so we were trying to consider if they could travel during a lull. Several of my friends have been overseas lately and none caught Covid…. florence, Paris, London.

Everywhere they are looking are considered “red, don’t travel there” on us state department website.

I’m about to start researching Covid protocols. Ireland was clear and that is how this started. It got exciting once we saw how close European counties are to each other… heck, I drive 7 hours and I’m only in Florida. It’s about 15 hours to get to Co. It took 22 Total hours of driving for me to get to Mass.

but we may be getting ahead of ourselves here.

I found this Covid travel link: https://www.expedia.com/lp/b/travel-advisor

 

[whitewave]

So far, I have:

From the USA: (for fully vaccinated)

ireland no restriction no quarantine
england no restriction no quarantine
France no restrictions no quarantine
Netherlands, proof of negative required, no quarantine
Germany, no quarantine

please let me know if any of the above is inaccurate, thanks!

 

[whitewave]

Does everyone love Paris? Does Paris love everyone? They heard the French don’t like Americans.

 

[whitewave]

Can they fly into one city (London) and out of another? If so I'd say London, then to Paris via the Chunnel, then to Amsterdam, fly home from Amsterdam. If round trip to London, then what about London, Paris, Brussels, back to London on the last night for a return flight home the next day. They could still do Amsterdam back to London via train. It's about a 4 hour ride. Brussels to London would only be about two hours, but if I were choosing between the two, I'd pick Amsterdam.

We are going to look at this today. It would be easier for them to fly into one country and fly out of another, yes.

one is up but she is going to eat crawfish with her friend (it’s the height of crawfish season). The other is still sleeping.

 

[whitewave]

It looks like one way is out. It’s basically the same price as round trip MSY-LHR

 

[cvalier26]

Does everyone love Paris? Does Paris love everyone? They heard the French don’t like Americans.

Half of Paris aren’t French haha don’t worry, it’s definitely worth a visit (I’m half French)

 

[marymm]

In a few months, who knows where Covid will be at, and Europe tends to be ahead of whatever happens in US, plus remember what is going in Ukraine is affecting parts of Europe ...

If it were me, in this pandemic & political climate, I'd plan for the trip to be only Ireland, or only Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales), try for direct/non-stop air travel, be very knowledgeable about the country's Covid requirements (past and present), make sure your kids know how to contact the country's American embassy, and have back-up plans in place in case they have to quarantine there and/or get home quickly.

 

[whitewave]

In a few months, who knows where Covid will be at, and Europe tends to be ahead of whatever happens in US, plus remember what is going in Ukraine is affecting parts of Europe ...

If it were me, in this pandemic & political climate, I'd plan for the trip to be only Ireland, or only Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales), try for direct/non-stop air travel, be very knowledgeable about the country's Covid requirements (past and present), make sure your kids know how to contact the country's American embassy, and have back-up plans in place in case they have to quarantine there and/or get home quickly.

Yes, I agree. I think they have settled on May 23/24 ish to May 31/June 1 ish

my son just wants to go to Europe. My daughter is the one who wants the adventure, so we have to talk it out and see if we can line them up.

Now that we have investigated the rail system, i might be able to persuade them to do London, Wales, Scotland And maybe Ireland

 

[Miss Marple]

@whitewave, something to consider with multiple countries is that the COVID requirements can change rapidly. You can’t count on anything until departure.

DD and I went to Europe last fall—right between the Delta and Omicron surges. Timing was dumb luck and fantastic. However, I ended up going to fewer countries than originally planned because tracking the covid requirements was a ton of work. Some but not all countries had testing requirements at the time. All had paperwork requirements that had to be completed on country-specific websites within certain timeframes. Fortunately all had English versions of the websites.

Btw, we started in Paris and ended in Rome. I used the airline website to figure out pricing for multiple destinations. It was only an extra couple hundred dollars at the time to land in one airport and depart from another airport. Different from pricing 2 one way tickets. I paid the approx. 20% premium for fully refundable tickets that also did not charge a change fee. Seemed easier than trying to rely on travel insurance if there was a problem. As it turned out, I changed our flight a couple of time, so the premium saved quite a bit in change fees.

If you do not have a travel credit card, probably worth getting one for the trip and getting an additional card for each child to use while traveling. No foreign exchange fees is huge. Travel card benefits can be great. Both London and Paris mostly assume tourists will use a CC. However, we needed cash for the cab in Paris. CC was fine for cabs in London.

I used a cab to get to the hotel from the airport in Paris. After such a long flight, I was not up to figuring out public transportation. For London, we took a train from Heathrow to Paddington Station, which was extremely easy to navigate, even after a long flight. From Paddington Station, we took a cab to the hotel. Was a good compromise of cost vs convenience.

Given the amount of planning work required, I would personally stick to 1 or 2 countries max. London and train to Paris would be fantastic. Paris was completely fine, although they were not as effusively friendly as Italians.

Local public transportation in both London and Paris are reasonably easy to navigate.

I booked accommodations through my CC website, booking.com or direct with the hotel after figuring out which offered the best overall deal. One thing I looked for was no cancellation fee for last minute (generally 24 to 72 hours in advance) cancellation. Again, seemed easier than dealing with travel insurance if there was a problem. My CC also had some travel insurance baked in. That was my backup, which I fortunately did not need.

I am apparently a masochist because I did all the planning for 3 countries and 6 cities myself—we were gone for a month. DD and I really liked having extra days to just walk around a city and soak in the atmosphere.

Not much that I would have done differently for our trip— except that I could have saved quite a bit on train tickets between cities if I had planned further in advance.

Hope this novel of a post is helpful and your kids have a great time.

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

It is a consideration. They are boosted and wear masks, so we were approaching this as risk vs benefit. Several places are surging now, so we were trying to consider if they could travel during a lull. Several of my friends have been overseas lately and none caught Covid…. florence, Paris, London.

Everywhere they are looking are considered “red, don’t travel there” on us state department website.

I’m about to start researching Covid protocols. Ireland was clear and that is how this started. It got exciting once we saw how close European counties are to each other… heck, I drive 7 hours and I’m only in Florida. It’s about 15 hours to get to Co. It took 22 Total hours of driving for me to get to Mass.

but we may be getting ahead of ourselves here.

I found this Covid travel link: https://www.expedia.com/lp/b/travel-advisor

I have a buddy from my Bruce Springsteen website who just traveled by train to London and went to see some concert at the Royal Albert hall and she didn't wear a mask and was fine despite being out and about in London
not sure I'd take the risk but i think she was hoping to catch it for immunity ???

I don't know if any one country is better than another right now
the US has us on a red list which i kind of find terribly funny because we still arnt letting any one in (well only kiwi's from Australia)

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

I think at the moment with boarder restrictions changing at a moment's notice id be tempted to use an old fashoned travel agent - an actual person who could help me out if things get hairy
i know its more expensive but from my perspective down here and the horror stories ive read they do seem to be worth it right now

 

[lala646]

@whitewave If they're flying into London, they could easily do a side trip to
Edinburgh or Paris for a few days, both easily reached by train. For a first trip of a shorter duration (7-9 days isn't long once you factor in the travel), to do any more than 2 cities would be a bit of a waste of money.

 

[MollyMalone]

It will be a couple of hundred bucks cheaper, and give them a couple of additional days (which would be a huge plus imo), if they were to fly roundtrip out of MSY on either Sat. or Sun., May 20 or 21, and return from Heathrow on Tuesday, May 31 ($1001/person is what's currently showing on the British Airlines website) -- rather than doing the weeklong trip of Tuesday, May 24, returning on the 31st ($1,135/person or $2,270 for the 2 of them), which would give them a mere 5 full days "on the ground."

Is your daughter adverse to the idea of going to Amsterdam or Paris? The Eurostar train offers nonstop transportation from London to either of those cities. The nonstop trip between London and Amsterdam takes more time than to Paris, but it's still only 4 hours, so no longer than, say, train travel between London and Edinburgh. And that way, your son would also get his wish of visiting a continental European city.
https://www.eurostar.com/us-en

Since they first traveled abroad when they were your twins' age, I asked my son and my niece for their opinions on the 2nd city. My son voted for Paris; my niece voted for Amsterdam. Theoretically, your twins could do a train between Paris-Amsterdam, but honestly, I don't think they'll find it difficult to keep themselves busy and entertained with 3-4 days each in London and Amsterdam (or Paris), without shoehorning in a 3rd city. The decision may be influenced by the availability and costs of accommodations in Amsterdam vs. Paris.

Stonehenge is definitely a doable day trip from London. 90-minute train ride to Salisbury, and then a special Stonehenge tour bus (timetable for May is under the Winter schedule tab):

Experience something magical, mysterious and truly magnificent when you hop on board the Stonehenge Tour bus... - The Stonehenge Tour

Experience something magical, mysterious and truly magnificent when you hop on board the Stonehenge Tour bus... - The Stonehenge Tour

www.thestonehengetour.info

Think the twins will like exploring the TimeOut websites for other ideas of what to see-do

Time Out London - Events, Attractions & What's on in London

Find out what's on in London with Time Out. Your guide to the best food & drink, events, activities and attractions in London.

www.timeout.com

Time Out Amsterdam 2024: Best Things to do, Restaurants and More

Find out what’s going on in Amsterdam, from the best restaurants and bars, clubs and the finest attractions and things to do.

www.timeout.com

Time Out Paris 2024 | Paris Events, Activities & Things To Do

Paris’s guide to theatre, restaurants, bars, movies, shopping, events, activities, things to do, music, clubs, dance and nightlife.

www.timeout.com

In case you haven't already noticed, hotel lingo is different than what we're used to. A "double room" is a room with a bed for 2 people, so they'll need to book a "twin room" in order to get a room with 2 beds -- and that will be an additional charge above the rates you initially see when doing searches. I just did a quick search for London university dorm accommodations, but it looks as if their schools' summer recess (when some dorm or "hall" rooms are made available to the general public) doesn't begin until the 2nd week in June or so.

This is such a wonderful, fun graduation gift for them -- memories for a lifetime!

 

[Lookinagain]

It looks like one way is out. It’s basically the same price as round trip MSY-LHR

don't look for one way tickets. look for "open jaw". They often don't cost much more than round trip from the same airport. I use "open jaw" all the time.

And I agree, that with Covid issues, it might be wiser to stay in one country and do a train route within that place. But it didn't sound like that is what they wanted. Also you really haven't told us anything about your children. What do they like? Museums? Food? Funky bars to meet locals? Architecture? History? Are they really straight laced or a bit more "go with the flow"? That information may help with suggestions.

 

[Lookinagain]

Well, I still vote for London, Paris, Amsterdam. Open jaw ticket and three nights in each place if Covid allows. They are all different so it gives them a taste of each place. Hopefully this won't be their only trip to Europe and they will be able to go back and explore more.