Planned holidays for 2009?

[sue78]

You can always stay in a hostel for $20 a night in NYC. Go on the internet and find some sublet for the time you are there.

I really miss New York. I could see the Empire State Building from my office but never went there. I actually missed out on a lot of touristy things eventhough i lived there for 3 mths but I did 'become' a New Yorker. priceless!

Initially, I stayed in Queens...it's very convenient to get to the city on the metro and I'm sure there are hotels in the boroughs. Rented a bedroom $400 US a mth. then met a guy through work and moved in with him and his cousin to a 5 storey walk up on the corner of 14th St Third Ave Union Square. He was paying $1600 per mth for a 1br with a tiny lounge, everything was tiny, could only fit 1 person in bathroom and 1 person in kitchen. The lounge room was unused so I turned it into a room and paid $400 p/mth too.

There's a lot more to New York than just all the touristy stuff. At first I hated it but it's just amazing.....you will have the feeling of being there before since you see it on tv a lot. I also found New Yorkers really friendly.

Hotdog is horrible and so is the perculated coffee...but don't worry, there's a starbucks at every corner.

I really miss my coffee and salmon and cream cheese bagel in the morns on my way to work!

I am definitely more an East Coast type girl than a West Coast. SF is ok but NYC is way better than the smoggy LA.

 

[BoatBoy]

Unfortunately its not that exciting. Maldives is definately a beatiful place but I live in the Captital City with my wife who is a Maldivian. The Capital city is 2Kms long x 1 Km wide and theres 130,000 people living there. Pretty much full on 24 hours a day and very different to what you see on the lifestyle programmes on TV.

Nothing much to share with the forum in ways of a story but have some projects about to start that could be worth sharing in the future.

Mark

Heres a pic, the capital is jammed.

I hear the visiting yachties get stuck out in insanely deep water towards the airport on the next Island and have very limited time frames to visit, hardly making it worth the effort of getting there.

Dave

 

[soyabean]

A number of small trips visiting friends and family for us this year .
A long week end in Blue Mountain at the end of April, with 3 more couples all friends from high school. Rent a house in Leura or nearby, explore BM, eat, drink, chitchat, laugh !
A week in Adelaide in August to visit in-laws, and friends from uni days. Eat, drink, chitchat, laugh some more
Xmas & New Year break we will take a week cruising with friends. Don't know which cruise ship and where yet but it is not that important this time. Likely one of the friends will organise everything. Again, eat, drink, etc ....

 

[fmx_rider]

Vietnam- book as many things there as you can. They are a fraction of the price of the brochures. I hope you are going to Sapa. My favourite place in Vietnam (not that I've been everywhere- yet)

I've been planning my Europe trip for months. It's driving me crazy. So much to see and do. I've already earmarket where I'm going on my next Europe trip and I haven't left for this one yet. A white Christmas is on my list of must do's.

Cheers. RE Vietnam - We haven't booked anything via Aust travel agents or brochures...mostly found hotels we liked the location & fit out budget and booked via hotel itself. Will be booking transport/tours in Vietnam once we get there, except we have booked a Halong Bay 2D/1N cruise via net as we wanted a specific boat and didn't want to get scammed in Hanoi!
Had not planned on Sapa as yet, but might fit it in.

RE Europe - We did 'west & central europe' in the peak season, July/August on our last trip 2007, now we want to head to eastern europe essentially region from Poland to Russia. Will be damn cold but should look great. But we plan to fly into Paris and have Christmas in Paris, New Years in Amsterdam first then head further east from there.

 

[MJD]

vietnam

re vietnam tour, try this website: southpacifictravel.com.vn, I was born in Vietnam, the places worth visits: Ha long bay, sapa, nha trang beach , some resorts in Phan Thiet, Hoi an,. If you go during low seaon, you can get 5 star hotel for USD60 per night , be served like a King.

 

[fmx_rider]

re vietnam tour, try this website: southpacifictravel.com.vn, I was born in Vietnam, the places worth visits: Ha long bay, sapa, nha trang beach , some resorts in Phan Thiet, Hoi an,. If you go during low seaon, you can get 5 star hotel for USD60 per night , be served like a King.

We are flying into HHMC, then going to Nha Trang, Hue, Hoi An, Hanoi, Halong Bay, return to Hanoi. Number of days in each to see all the sights. Used http://www.hotels-in-vietnam.com/ and Trip Advisor when choosing hotels. Kept to budget around $25-35US a night, but allowed ourselves more at Nha Trang to get really nice place on beach. Don't really have time for Sapa, and looking at it on the web, is very similar looking to parts of Sabah/Borneo in Malaysia and PNG highlands which we have already been to.

Cheers for the advice. Will look it up.

 

[sue78]

Sapa was the highlight of our trip. It's really worth the journey!

 

[Skiddy]

Heres a pic, the capital is jammed.

I hear the visiting yachties get stuck out in insanely deep water towards the airport on the next Island and have very limited time frames to visit, hardly making it worth the effort of getting there.

Dave

That first photo lookd a bit old, Its bult up all the way to the edge of the island now.Not too sure about the Yachts Boat boy but there has been problems controlling all the foreign boats for a while now, theres a Marina built special for these in the south of the country.

 

[rexilla99]

I'm depressed coz babies don't want to come out so decided to plan our holiday for this yr to cheer myself up. Hubby thinks I'm nuts lol. Took about 3 hrs of net surfing.

There are some really good deals atm.

We are thinking of California in Sept school holidays with a budget of $5k.

Flights direct Bris to La (2 adults, 1 child, 2 infants) Virgin
10 days
Including:
3 days tour to Las Vegas 3 (inc GC West Rim but will probably give that a miss)
3 days tour to San Fran and Yosemite
5 nights at various hotels
LA hop on hop off
airport transfers
LV night tour
SF night tour
2 day hopper pass to Disneyland

all up $4439 which is pretty good value.

My mil might tag along but we will ask her to pay for herself this time. About $1.5k all inc and we will pay for all food and any extra tours etc.

Have you planned a holiday this year? ppl with kids tend to have to plan much earlier to coz of school holidays. Looked into a cruise but better to wait to all the kids are 3+ for kids club and it's a lot more expensive.

How did you get it so cheap? From a quick browse on virgin website each tickets is about $1000 so you cost should be about $4000 on tickets, maybe I have missed something?

 

[sue78]

It's $1200 return for adults inc tax
less for a child and only 10% for infants so comes to about $3200 for 5 of us.

a 2 night 3 day tour to San Francisco and Yosemite inc hotels, semi guided is USD$230 for 3 ppl and infants free

a 2night 3 day tour to Las Vegas inc a tour of West Rim Grand Canyon, hotels is USD$198 for 3 ppl and infants free

Anaheim hotels are cheap but Disneyland is expensive. Almost $700 for a 2 day hopper pass. Might just go for a day.

Even Air New Zealand is really cheap atm to USA. Similarly priced to Virgin. Qantas is a bit more expensive coz their taxes is higher. But Virgin flies direct from brisbane 12 hrs whereas if you go via Auckland you are looking at up to 18hrs inc transit.

 

[Rob Williams]

a 2 night 3 day tour to San Francisco and Yosemite inc hotels, semi guided is USD$230 for 3 ppl and infants free

Anaheim hotels are cheap but Disneyland is expensive. Almost $700 for a 2 day hopper pass. Might just go for a day.

I did Yosemite. A full day and night of my life I'll never get back again. It's all nice and scenic, but the opportunity cost was, in my opinion, just not worth it.
If you only do Disney for a day, you'll be lucky to see half of it. I did it in the off season and even without the queues, it took a couple of days just to see most of it and enjoy the rides etc.

 

[sue78]

I am into photography and scenery so Yosemite is a must. Disney is just for my 3.5y.o son. I've done Disney enough already. I think it's ok when I was young but going there with kids is like going to any of the qld theme parks, it's just all about the kids. Go on all the kiddy rides. Hubby and I won't be going on thrill rides. I've been to Disneyworld, Universal Studios, Paris and more recently Tokyo and Tokyo was not a good day with the lil one. Even with a 2 or 3 day pass, we won't be there a whole day. It's just way too tiring, especially for littlies. We will take them to Disneyworld when they're a bit older anyway and even Disneyland HK. They'll get plenty of chance.

Probably will skip Universal studios too coz I think our son will get scared. Take him to Santa Monica Beach instead.

 

[Spectre]

I spent the day in Santa Monica and Malibu about a month ago. I could live there in a heartbeat.

Just standing there at the crosswalk in SM and Keanu's across the street.
Coffee at the Starbucks in Malibu and Jessica Biel is next to you - who would complain about that?!?!?!? Maybe a wife who yelled at you for staring too long but that'd be about it lol.

Nice beaches too.

Re the disneyland / universal on the other side (or is it MGM?) - we took our kids there a year or so ago - not scary stuff at all. Its pretty small really. you can knock it off in half a day.

Cali's just a cool place.

If you're looking for cheaper places there - track down the tower at Beverly hills - nice, clean safe not a dump - around 250 a night US I think. I had to compromise because the Bev Hills hotel was booked out.

 

[sparky23]

A number of small trips visiting friends and family for us this year .
A long week end in Blue Mountain at the end of April, with 3 more couples all friends from high school. Rent a house in Leura or nearby, explore BM, eat, drink, chitchat, laugh !

Hey you will also be there when Ironfest is on - check it out!

 

[MJD]

MJD - I arranged it myself on the net. No travel agents.

Just book directly with hotels, there's also the California City pass which offers great value for theme parks and check out www.gotobus.com

Sue78
have you got experience with gotobus.com , as I heard the hotel included in the packages is generally not good at all. We got kids so don't want to take that risk ,it may ruin the holiday
thanks
MJ

 

[sue78]

the reviews on trip advisor are good. You can't expect a 5 star hotel for that price. They use Crowne, Quality, Ramada and Best Western brands which are all over the USA. Better than the hotels you get on Contiki tours. You can check out the hotel's website and photos which I already have and it's perfectly fine. Being tours, I doubt we would spend too much time in the hotel. I was quite impressed that the hotel rooms had microwave.

We are also travelling with 3 kids. The rest of the time, we will probably stay around Anaheim and visit Disneyland. Maybe 2 nights in Hollywood/Beverly Hills towards the end of our trip.

I have a USA brochure from the travel agent and transfers from LA to LV is $150 one way per person alone! add hotels, Grand Canyon tour etc

 

[Monopoly]

Hey Sue78,

Sounds great, I love the states and visit there regularly especially the West Coast. In fact, I'm heading back there in July.

If you're going to make the trip to Vegas (provided you don't blow all your money at the tables or the slots) be sure to venture out a little further and take a trip to see the Grand Canyon; it's a real eye opener and the kids will love it. (I noticed you mentioned it in your last post) it really is a MUST NOT MISS. Don't forget Hoover Dam; that's pretty awesome as well.

Cheers,
Jo