Hi, I'm new to the board. I spent some time browsing around and searching for information regarding my question, but was hoping I could get some more feedback from people. My fiance and I are planning our honeymoon in Italy and are trying to decide who to book our travel, hotel, etc. through. We've watched pretty much every Rick Steve's Europe episode over the past couple of weeks and are getting ready to book our trip! I stumbled across a website called europeandestinations.com where you can select multiple cities to travel to (we're thinking Vegas to Venice to Monterossa to Rome to Amalfi for about 15 days). You enter the cities you want to travel to on the site and it packages together all of your transportation and hotels. I found some positive and negative reviews of the site on the forum, but wanted to see if anyone else had any feedback as well as if anyone knew of any other similar websites that perform this type of service. Or, if it is worth it to either go through a physical travel agent or book myself? Seems pretty easy to use and priced reasonably (around $6k for 2 adults for the above mentioned trip including all airfare, transportation, and hotels). This is our first trip to Europe together, so we're rookies (aside from me traveling to France in high school!). Thanks in advance for your feedback!
Posted by
Lakewood, Colorado
19115 posts
Considering that a ETBD tour of about the same length will be $7k-$8k for 2 people, without airfare, I would be a little suspicious of $6k with airfare. (I'm assuming by all airfare you mean including US to Italy, round trip.)
I do things a little differently than Steve. When I get an idea for where I want to go, I create an Excel workbook for the trip, with worksheets (tabs) for each day of travel and each town where I might stay. I also have my itinerary in front, with "intra-workbook" links to the worksheets. (I currently have two trips "under construction".) Using the towns website, I find acceptable places to stay and create links to them on the town page, along with prices and email address, and I order them according to my choice.
So, when I find airfare I like, if I think it might be around for a while, I first email key accommodations to find out if they are available. Occasionally, if it looks like the airfare is not going to last, I just book it, assuming I will be able to find something. Once I have the airfare, I make firm reservations. With my list already in place, that usually goes quickly.
I confine my travel to a small area, which keeps my transportation expenses to a minimum, and use my marginal fluency to stay in inexpensive private rooms and family run guest houses. Traveling single, my expenses over the last 5 years (52 nights) have averaged €73 ($99/day at today's exch. rate), so less than $1500 for 2 weeks. But I've had a lot of practice. First timers will probably spend a lot more.
Rick has an estimate of costs somewhere here (maybe someone will provide a link). I found it to be high, but maybe it's about right for a first timer.
Posted by
OP
Las Vegas, NV, USA
3 posts
Thanks for the quick feedback. We went to a physical travel agent when we first starting thinking about the trip (you're right, picking where we wanted to go was probably the hardest part). She didn't seem extremely helpful and even invited us to a HORRIBLE travel expo/seminar that weekend at a local casino which was basically just a bunch of cruise lines that we weren't interested in. So, we lost a little faith in the travel agent thing (even though i'm sure there are plenty of great travel agents out there, we just happened to stumble across a bad one). I had considered booking everything myself, this just seemed to be a little easier the way it packages everything together. I'd be willing to pay a little extra for the convenience. The $6k did seem extremely reasonable. With airfare from Vegas to Rome hovering around $1200 rt ($2400 with my fiance), that only put the hotels and intra-Italian transportation at $225 per day, which seems great especially considering some of the hotel prices i've been seeing online. as far as the small hostel/bb/private room rentals go, I'm game to say wherever, but I'm sure my fiance will want to spend a little extra to stay in a "luxury" hotel for at least a few nights since it's our honeymoon. The excel sheet is a good idea. I'll set that up and try to estimate the expenses myself and go from there. I've spent more time watching Rick's dvd's (so exhausted after work for reading :), but I'll crack open my book.
Posted by
Lakewood, Colorado
19115 posts
When I go to that website and type in Monterosso, it tells me it is not a valid destination. How did you get a price?
Posted by
OP
Las Vegas, NV, USA
3 posts
You're right. I actually put 'Pisa' as my destination for that leg of the trip. That was one of the things holding me back about the site. I was going to call or email them to see if it's possible to book a city that isn't on their list or if I could not book hotel nights for that leg and fly into Pisa and take care of the Cinque Terre lodging and transportation to part myself. That's why I was asking if anyone knew of any other similar sites, too. One site i found that does have Monterosso is www.eurovacations.com. It is actually a little more customizable as it allows you to add hotels and transportation for each leg as you see fit. You aren't required to book a hotel or train/flight for each leg through them.