Holidays 2023

JohnC6 said:
Jet2 is superb and consistently come top in Which ? magazine surveys. We've flown with them three times and actually seek out holiday destinations that they fly too. After booking a Lake Garda holiday with them we wanted wanted to go to Lake Como in 2018 before the pandemic and it was Tui. Jet2 didn't fly there.
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Unfortunately they don’t fly from Gatwick and Luton or Stansted are a bit of a trek for us. Might look where they fly to from Bristol
 
Ricardodaforce said:
That’s who I’m going with to Limone tomorrow.
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I wondered when you were going. I'm sure you'll have looked at the temperatures. 30C tomorrow, Thursday 32C, Friday 34C and around that to the end of the week. I hope you remember to look at my post re photos especially the one away from Mescaline ..when I say away,I mean 7-10 mins walk from Masceline town centre,well, at least from where your ferry will dock, where you can look back to the mountains and castle. What I do, too, is look at photos of where I'm going and see if I can get to those locations.

I'll keep an eye out for your photos in Landscapes. Are you away for a week,10 days or two weeks ?
 
JohnC6 said:
I wondered when you were going. I'm sure you'll have looked at the temperatures. 30C tomorrow, Thursday 32C, Friday 34C and around that to the end of the week. I hope you remember to look at my post re photos especially the one away from Mescaline ..when I say away,I mean 7-10 mins walk from Masceline town centre,well, at least from where your ferry will dock, where you can look back to the mountains and castle. What I do, too, is look at photos of where I'm going and see if I can get to those locations.

I'll keep an eye out for your photos in Landscapes. Are you away for a week,10 days or two weeks ?
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Just a week.
 
JohnC6 said:
Jet2 is superb and consistently come top in Which ? magazine surveys. We've flown with them three times and actually seek out holiday destinations that they fly too. After booking a Lake Garda holiday with them we wanted wanted to go to Lake Como in 2018 before the pandemic and it was Tui. Jet2 didn't fly there.
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yup, super easy flight for me, left on time as usual, passport q was a bit long but hey ho.
bonus is my scooter started first time after being left for 12 months
 
Presently sat in the train, waiting to leave Folkestone - it's uncomfortably warm and sweaty and the train is late.

Looking forward to some time in France, unwinding and enjoying the surroundings. My mother died in June and her funeral was on Tuesday, so a little escape will be good.
 
I suggest anyone flying out if possible travels only with hand luggage, UK airports are short of staff and luggage handling is super slow, some airports resemble an explosion in a luggage factory, we arrived 01.30 (late) and it took 2 hours to get it on the carousel, reps gave up the option of wait for the cases however long it took or expect a 4 week delay, flight behind us were told to go a collection centre the next afternoon, their plane would not be unloaded that night, Edinburgh airport you are a disgrace and I wonder what visitors must think.
 
Flying up to Edinburgh soon - good job we're planning on hand baggage only!
 
mj4456 said:
I suggest anyone flying out if possible travels only with hand luggage, UK airports are short of staff and luggage handling is super slow, some airports resemble an explosion in a luggage factory, we arrived 01.30 (late) and it took 2 hours to get it on the carousel, reps gave up the option of wait for the cases however long it took or expect a 4 week delay, flight behind us were told to go a collection centre the next afternoon, their plane would not be unloaded that night, Edinburgh airport you are a disgrace and I wonder what visitors must think.
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I flew into Bristol Airport today. No issues with baggage at all.
 
We've decided to 'take a chance' ..with reservations on my part tbh...re Covid and book abroad for next year mid-May and considering Pathos,Cyprus. Temps start getting into the mid-30's from June. Surely, the current chaos will be behind us by then or will be at war,in some guise, more than we are now, with Russia ? Tui flight times out are 1430 from B'ham .It's a 4hr 45 minute flight. Unfortunately, with our favourite travel company,Jet2, arriving back at Birmingham 0300 on the 14-day trip. So,it's with Tui and we've had good experiences with them.Skiathos twice. Even that, on the 14-day trip, as opposed to the 10-day, would mean hanging around to 7.30-8.00-pm paying an extra £78 to stay in the room plus meals for a 2220 flight home.We'd get home after leaving the car park at about 0500-0530...completely knackered. I don't do 'late' very well let alone 'no sleep'. The return is even more. 5hrs 10min. Flight times are quite long really, outside US/Canada flight times. I didn't realise it was that far. That's ok.,though. If Dominic Raab (as Brexit Sec 2018) didn't realise how near England was to France (looking at the Dover-Calais distance from a plane) then that makes me feel better :)

A Bristol departure is 0700. We'd have to leave home at 0400. We'd lose the first two days completetly knackered.. Maybe we'll go to Bognor Regis .It's only 2hrs 40 mins down the M3...:D

Has anyone been to Pathos ? Is it worth all this ? It looks similar to Skiathos Town..(capital)and we really liked that trip..so much so we went back.

We'd stay in the 'Alexander the Great' hotel ,Pathos, which has excellent reviews and is a 5 minute walk to the harbour. I had to laugh. I looked at trips out. There are two main trips. To the Blue Lagoon, we don't do swimming in lagoons and beach BBQs so a trip to the Blue Lagoon was out. The other was into the mountains.Love that but the highlights are 'cheese tasting' and 'wine-tasting' .I have a reaction to cheese, not as severe as an allergy but it makes me feel like you do when you have the 'flu..hot and cold,lethargic/tired and a sweat on my forehead and eyelids. Red Leicester,Cheshire,Cheddar..the 'hard' cheeses, especially. Strange. It's immediate,too. The other trip is into the Troodos mountains and villages but the other 'highlight' is wine-tasting at a distillery. Wine gives me nasty heartburn. The village(s) look lovely and we like mountains (eg the Dolomites at Lake Garda..2018) The other selling point is that the bus is air-conditioned. We could stay on the bus,I suppose :D https://www.viator.com/tours/Paphos/100-Cyprus/d5629-157802P2

We are concerned with these flight times and as we wanted to go to Lake Como, having been to Lake Garda ..last trip 2018 before the dreaded Covid did its worst and had a wonderful holiday so we're looking at that, too. I've read that the best travel arrangements are with Air Italia and one reason is that as the state airline (now back in state hands since 2020 ) it gets preferential treatment re slots. Flight time to Milan Melpansa from B'ham is 2 hrs.

Any comments/advice appreciated.
 
JohnC6 said:
We've decided to 'take a chance' ..with reservations on my part tbh...re Covid and book abroad for next year mid-May and considering Pathos,Cyprus. Temps start getting into the mid-30's from June. Surely, the current chaos will be behind us by then or will be at war,in some guise, more than we are now, with Russia ? Tui flight times out are 1430 from B'ham .It's a 4hr 45 minute flight. Unfortunately, with our favourite travel company,Jet2, arriving back at Birmingham 0300 on the 14-day trip. So,it's with Tui and we've had good experiences with them.Skiathos twice. Even that, on the 14-day trip, as opposed to the 10-day, would mean hanging around to 7.30-8.00-pm paying an extra £78 to stay in the room plus meals for a 2220 flight home.We'd get home after leaving the car park at about 0500-0530...completely knackered. I don't do 'late' very well let alone 'no sleep'. The return is even more. 5hrs 10min. Flight times are quite long really, outside US/Canada flight times. I didn't realise it was that far. That's ok.,though. If Dominic Raab (as Brexit Sec 2018) didn't realise how near England was to France (looking at the Dover-Calais distance from a plane) then that makes me feel better :)

A Bristol departure is 0700. We'd have to leave home at 0400. We'd lose the first two days completetly knackered.. Maybe we'll go to Bognor Regis .It's only 2hrs 40 mins down the M3...:D

Has anyone been to Pathos ? Is it worth all this ? It looks similar to Skiathos Town..(capital)and we really liked that trip..so much so we went back.

We'd stay in the 'Alexander the Great' hotel ,Pathos, which has excellent reviews and is a 5 minute walk to the harbour. I had to laugh. I looked at trips out. There are two main trips. To the Blue Lagoon, we don't do swimming in lagoons and beach BBQs so a trip to the Blue Lagoon was out. The other was into the mountains.Love that but the highlights are 'cheese tasting' and 'wine-tasting' .I have a reaction to cheese, not as severe as an allergy but it makes me feel like you do when you have the 'flu..hot and cold,lethargic/tired and a sweat on my forehead and eyelids. Red Leicester,Cheshire,Cheddar..the 'hard' cheeses, especially. Strange. It's immediate,too. The other trip is into the Troodos mountains and villages but the other 'highlight' is wine-tasting at a distillery. Wine gives me nasty heartburn. The village(s) look lovely and we like mountains (eg the Dolomites at Lake Garda..2018) The other selling point is that the bus is air-conditioned. We could stay on the bus,I suppose :D https://www.viator.com/tours/Paphos/100-Cyprus/d5629-157802P2

We are concerned with these flight times and as we wanted to go to Lake Como, having been to Lake Garda ..last trip 2018 before the dreaded Covid did its worst and had a wonderful holiday so we're looking at that, too. I've read that the best travel arrangements are with Air Italia and one reason is that as the state airline (now back in state hands since 2020 ) it gets preferential treatment re slots. Flight time to Milan Melpansa from B'ham is 2 hrs.

Any comments/advice appreciated.
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Goodness gracious John, how about a fortnight in hospital instead?
 
JohnC6 said:
A Bristol departure is 0700. We'd have to leave home at 0400.
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When we've had crap flight times to/from Bristol. we've bitten the bullet and stayed in the Hampton by Hilton hotel at the airport, even though we're only an hour away down the M5. For the departure, it takes out the worry of getting delayed on the motorway and for the return, it means we can both have a glass or 2 of wine with our "last supper" on holiday and not worry about driving when tired and after a few drinks.
 
Nod said:
When we've had crap flight times to/from Bristol. we've bitten the bullet and stayed in the Hampton by Hilton hotel at the airport, even though we're only an hour away down the M5. For the departure, it takes out the worry of getting delayed on the motorway and for the return, it means we can both have a glass or 2 of wine with our "last supper" on holiday and not worry about driving when tired and after a few drinks.
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We always go from B'ham and stay at the Novotel hotel at the airport when an early flight... eg 0700.. is unavoidable.

Today, we've had a long chat about this Pathos holiday and considering the trips ..as you read, neither any good to me, the 5hrs 15min flight and the early hours arrival back at B'ham we're going to go where we wanted to go in 2019 but was stopped by Covid. We'll go to Lake Maggiore. It's top choice of the lakes,I've read. We'll have scenery similar to Lake Garda which we loved. We can even go into Switzerland on a trip.
 
We booked our Shuttle journey for late August a couple of weeks ago, which involved uploading our passport details. I didn't upload our vaccination status at the time, because my wife had them and I needed to scan them in order to upload them. No problem because you can do that at any time between booking and departure. I have tried to do it today, but when I log into my Eurotunnel account, I cannot see any current bookings, even though I have the booking confirmation email. On the email there is a booking number but no password. I tried to use the password on my Eurotunnel account but that didn't work. So, then I thought I would contact them, but the contact email form doesn't let me type anything and it also says that a reply can take up to twenty days. I cannot find a telephone number to call, to speak to an actual human being.
As far as I can see, the whole UK transport system is coming to a chaotic, grinding halt, be that motorways, airports, trains, ferries or the good old Shuttle.
 
andya700 said:
We booked our Shuttle journey for late August a couple of weeks ago, which involved uploading our passport details. I didn't upload our vaccination status at the time, because my wife had them and I needed to scan them in order to upload them. No problem because you can do that at any time between booking and departure. I have tried to do it today, but when I log into my Eurotunnel account, I cannot see any current bookings, even though I have the booking confirmation email. On the email there is a booking number but no password. I tried to use the password on my Eurotunnel account but that didn't work. So, then I thought I would contact them, but the contact email form doesn't let me type anything and it also says that a reply can take up to twenty days. I cannot find a telephone number to call, to speak to an actual human being.
As far as I can see, the whole UK transport system is coming to a chaotic, grinding halt, be that motorways, airports, trains, ferries or the good old Shuttle.
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I had no issues with my Shuttle trips last month. Have you tried using the app?
 
Enjoy!
 
andya700 said:
We booked our Shuttle journey for late August a couple of weeks ago, which involved uploading our passport details. I didn't upload our vaccination status at the time, because my wife had them and I needed to scan them in order to upload them. No problem because you can do that at any time between booking and departure. I have tried to do it today, but when I log into my Eurotunnel account, I cannot see any current bookings, even though I have the booking confirmation email. On the email there is a booking number but no password. I tried to use the password on my Eurotunnel account but that didn't work. So, then I thought I would contact them, but the contact email form doesn't let me type anything and it also says that a reply can take up to twenty days. I cannot find a telephone number to call, to speak to an actual human being.
As far as I can see, the whole UK transport system is coming to a chaotic, grinding halt, be that motorways, airports, trains, ferries or the good old Shuttle.
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I find the site a little temperamental, especially when trying to log in. Once I HAVE logged in, trips are usually at the bottom of the page.

I need to book our next crossing from September now.

Just compared Tunnel vs Brittany Ferries Portsmouth-Caen with cabins. £270 + £70 for a hotel O/N vs £740. We used the ferry last October, and it seemed far more reasonable then - around £350ish from memory.
 
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so who's driven through Italy?
We're off there in October and I did think of getting a rail pass to travel around various towns an cities for a couple of weeks. But the trains seem quite expensive for 3 of us, it would appear to be a lot cheaper to hire a car.

So we're landing in Milan and then going no further south than Florence / Sienna. Just wondering what driving it like out there. I've never driven on the other side of the road before so will need to look up Italian highway code. But what's the general consensus on the driving skills of the locals? fairly uk like or maniacs?
 
AshleyC said:
so who's driven through Italy?
We're off there in October and I did think of getting a rail pass to travel around various towns an cities for a couple of weeks. But the trains seem quite expensive for 3 of us, it would appear to be a lot cheaper to hire a car.

So we're landing in Milan and then going no further south than Florence / Sienna. Just wondering what driving it like out there. I've never driven on the other side of the road before so will need to look up Italian highway code. But what's the general consensus on the driving skills of the locals? fairly uk like or maniacs?
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Generally I'd say they are more able drivers than Brits, driving quickly and accurately on roads that are narrower than you are probably used to. You are likely to be bumbly and slow in comparison, not least because you won't know where to go and will be acclimating to an unfamiliar vehicle. Remember to smile, apologise and generally be careful.

I last drove in that area 2006. Florence is fabulous, but beware vehicle restrictions in the city that may not be obvious. Sienna did not allow cars to enter, and we had to leave the car outside and take a taxi within the city to find the hotel. St. Giminagno was good but may be very touristy now.

From memory, motorway signs are green and ordinary roads blue, which may be confusing. parking can still be problematic sometimes, and we used to need lots of 1 euro coins (which were hard to get) for the meters.
 
AshleyC said:
so who's driven through Italy?
We're off there in October and I did think of getting a rail pass to travel around various towns an cities for a couple of weeks. But the trains seem quite expensive for 3 of us, it would appear to be a lot cheaper to hire a car.

So we're landing in Milan and then going no further south than Florence / Sienna. Just wondering what driving it like out there. I've never driven on the other side of the road before so will need to look up Italian highway code. But what's the general consensus on the driving skills of the locals? fairly uk like or maniacs?
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Drove through France to Italy via Nice, and then through Italy up through Switzerland and back through France to get home over Easter. All really easy, driving standards are generally better everywhere in Europe compared to the UK. No one hogs the overtaking lanes, they all understand how to merge in turn properly.

Driving through cities can be stressful because of how busy they are, but the motorway / A road driving is a breeze.
 
Ricardodaforce said:
Also Low Emission Zones will need be a factor.
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Good point. There may be advice that can be obtained from the car hire company as to where low emission zones may be and whether some kind of exemption/certificate is needed. I have a sticker for my car windscreen that allows me to drive it in some ULEZ areas in French cities for example.
 
ancient_mariner said:
Good point. There may be advice that can be obtained from the car hire company as to where low emission zones may be and whether some kind of exemption/certificate is needed. I have a sticker for my car windscreen that allows me to drive it in some ULEZ areas in French cities for example.
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I had to get one for Grenoble for my bike. I got info from the RAC and AA websites then bought the sticker online.
 
Cab coming at 12...
 
Anyone ever had problems with European breakdown cover.

Ironically given the mention above we were driving towards Grenoble a week last Friday and the alternator failed (we knew this was the likely cause) had to get towed out of an aire and to a local garage.

Put onto their European partners by green flag who have been nothing but useless. Due to drive home on Saturday but only today have they got the car to a ford garage (after 10 ducking days and countless hour long phone calls) to do the diagnostics only to tell us this afternoon that indeed they need to replace the alternator. We could have told them that 10 days ago…

As of now we

A.) still have no idea whether the car will be repaired in time to go home
B.) no idea how we get home if it’s not repaired
C.) no idea how or when we get to the car as we are in Cannes and the car is between Lyon and Annecy.

Luckily while stuck for a night in Grenoble 2 weeks ago (luckily it was our stop off point Anyway) we took the initiative ourselves and hired a car to get us to our destination. The insurance company has told us the following on the evening we broke down

“We will start looking for a car for you at 8am in the morning, but at this time of year in France that might be difficult”. After another half an hour on hold in the morning at 9.30they told us they were “still searching”. We eventually had an email back at around 5pm telling us “we can’t get you a car”. In the meantime we got into sixt, hertz, Europecar etc, booked one online and picked it up at Grenoble station at 10am…. I mean wtf let’s just hope we can reclaim the 2k it’s cost us to hire the vehicle for 2 weeks….

Just total incompetence start to finish - or to date as we still have no clear idea of what’s happening or faith in the insurance company to actually give us some help and support.

….so we do have a method to get to the car just don’t know when or how inconvenient it’s going to be/ how it will impact the end of our holiday.

In summary folks buy good reliable insurance if you are driving your own vehicle abroad
 
That sounds really difficult - your advice about having reliable recovery is good. Hope the final stage of getting the car back and coming home works out with less hassle.
 
Was planning on taking my 14yo to Germany later this year. But its hard to know how he may be affected by the Covid pass.

At the moment, it seems like its the same as UK, no pass needed to enter or to do anything (they were strict in every pub back in March to prove vaccine status). But this is a temp measure and due to expire 31st Aug and nothing seems to be clear for after that date. The issue is that U16s cant get booster yet, but IIRC being fully vaccinated meant 1, 2 and booster jabs?
 
Tigger.ufo said:
Have fun!
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:ROFLMAO:

1 hour delay for some unknown reason and when we got close to this end, a spectacular thunderstorm had set in (had the departure been on time, we'd have missed it...) Too dodgy to land so we were diverted to Rhodes to refuel and wait for the storm to end. Finally arrived 4 hours late and our transfer driver had had to leave (we'd suggested this to him and the company from Rhodes) so we had to get a taxi. Finally got to the hotel at 04:30. Only missed a couple of hours of "holiday" and caught up on sleep on Wednesday night. Still worth it!!!
 
We returned back yesterday from our first holiday in three years. We stayed in an apartment in Dinard, Brittany and it was really pleasant, a very relaxed two weeks. The Eurotunnel worked efficently, both there and back with no delays, the journey down there in the car was made easy by the Waze app which my better half had down loaded on to both our phones. We made sure that we sampled as much of the local produce as possible and tried to offset the damage by doing lots of walking. The bread and patisserie was probably the best we have had anywhere, the quality of wine for under ten euros was incredible (try getting Provence rose for under a fiver in the UK, or named Cotes du Rhone villages such as Visan, Plan de Dieu or Seguret). Fuel is significantly cheaper than the UK - Diesel for 1E75 per litre - £1`.52). It was also interesting to see how events of the past couple of days in the UK, were totally dominating French TV channels.
 
andya700 said:
We returned back yesterday from our first holiday in three years. We stayed in an apartment in Dinard, Brittany and it was really pleasant, a very relaxed two weeks. The Eurotunnel worked efficently, both there and back with no delays, the journey down there in the car was made easy by the Waze app which my better half had down loaded on to both our phones. We made sure that we sampled as much of the local produce as possible and tried to offset the damage by doing lots of walking. The bread and patisserie was probably the best we have had anywhere, the quality of wine for under ten euros was incredible (try getting Provence rose for under a fiver in the UK, or named Cotes du Rhone villages such as Visan, Plan de Dieu or Seguret). Fuel is significantly cheaper than the UK - Diesel for 1E75 per litre - £1`.52). It was also interesting to see how events of the past couple of days in the UK, were totally dominating French TV channels.
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Welcome back.
 
Just back from Croatia and can’t understand why I haven’t been there before. Lovely country, lovely people exceptionally clean and not expensive. I will be going back but off to Crete in a couple of weeks.
 
ancient_mariner said:
Travel is hard work.
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I found the journey back from Dinard to Calais very challenging, because it was some of the worst torrential downpours I have ever experienced, virtually no visibility and some drivers were obviously navigating by radar. The six hour trip seemed to be far longer and at 64, I cannot be doing with that stress again.
 
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