Upcoming holidays:

Upcoming Holidays:
16 June 2024 - Off to Sydney for an overnight stay - seeing a show at the Opera House.
26 July 2024 - Sandy is making a quick trip to Brisbane for Dayboro State School's 150th anniversary.
19 August 2024 - Cruising from Sydney to Fremantle via Northern Australia - 18 days on the Coral Princess.
2 April 2025 - Cruise to Moreton Island on the Carnival Splendor.
10 October 2025 - Paul's 70th birthday - 3 day "Cruise to Nowhere" on the Pacific Explorer.
1 December 2025 - Cruise from Singapore to Brisbane on the Voyager of the Seas.

Sunday 4 September 2011

Hotels and other plans

Gradually getting the plans done. Travel insurance is now all ok, although in the end not with Travel Insurance Direct. All good though.
I've now started looking at hotels. There's no need to rush for some of them, but both Copenhagen and Fort Lauderdale have lots of cruises starting and finishing there and hotel prices don't tend to get cheaper as you get closer - not unless you want to risk not being able to get a decent room at all.
Fort Lauderdale looks like it will be ok - I've had a quick look today though and it seems I'll be able to have a reasonable choice of places well within the rough budget I've set.
Copenhagen is also kind of under control - we already know which hotel we're going to stay in, we just need to decide whether we're going to spend one night there or two, and then I can book it. A lovely lady on the cruise has organised for us to be able to access their group booking rate, which reduces it from 'wildly expensive' to 'a little less than wildly expensive'! However, I knew going in that Copenhagen translates into English as 'leave all your money here' so I'm not really surprised.
Not the case in the UK. I also knew that hotel rooms in London would be very expensive, but it seems I've underestimated just how how expensive. We're going to stay in Cambridge for the first few days after we get to the UK, then go to London the day before the coach tour starts. Since the tour starts fairly early from a meeting point at a hotel, it makes sense to stay at that hotel the night before - lots of people do, and the coach tour company will book it for us at a slight discount from the currently quoted price. However, the slight discount is still $356 for the night for the two of us - including breakfast but even so, wow!. And, although it's a nice hotel - it's the Thistle Marble Arch - and in a good location, it's certainly not top of the range. Ouch.

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