It’s been a dream of mine to go to Europe for as long as
I can remember. I’ve been lucky to
travel to all 50 states, Canada, Mexico and many islands in the Caribbean. Getting to Ireland, Hungary, England and
other places across the pond really seemed like an unreachable goal. Since becoming a travel advisor some seven
years ago, I’ve helped many clients plan their trips to Europe and the more I
researched THEIR vacations, the more I realized that I should bite the bullet
and plan my own trip.
After a couple years of stops and starts, 2019 came into
focus as the year that I was going to start ticking items off the bucket
list. My current job has given me the
chance to tour dozens of ships, the most intriguing of all being Cunard’s Queen
Mary 2. This past February, during their
Chinese New Year sale, I saw a very reasonable rate for a single passenger on a
westbound transatlantic sailing, in an inside cabin, for mid-November. I usually always cruise during November,
right before the holidays and since I hadn’t made any plans, I went ahead and
booked! I figured that if I lost the non-refundable
$100 deposit, it wouldn’t be so bad. I
found a nice inside cabin, made the reservation, paid the deposit and then said,
“WHAT are you doing?”
Once the fact that I was committing to crossing the Atlantic
Ocean sunk in (no pun intended), I began researching visiting different places
in Europe for several days prior to the cruise back to Brooklyn. My head was spinning, and I decided that I
needed a travel agent. Suddenly I
realized that was me and I’d get to do the work for myself. It’s not easy folks! Booking trips for others comes naturally but
figuring out what I wanted to do was kind of difficult. The older I get, the more indecisive I become
and if you stick around long enough and follow my posts, you’ll
understand!
Hungary, Spain and France all made it onto the list of
possible destinations, but the logistics were not working out. Yes, getting around Europe once you’re there
is fairly easy, but I couldn’t make it work out within the time frame I had. Thus, a few days in Dublin and a few in
London were the lucky winners.
When I booked the cruise, I priced out airfares into
London and Dublin through several different carriers. I also looked into Cunard’s CompleteAir program
and discovered that I could fly into Dublin, in Premium Economy (or even Business
Class, which was over my budget) for less than 1/6th of the cost of
booking directly with one of the carriers.
Using Cunard’s CompleteAir became a no-brainer. What WAS an issue was the fact that I hated
flying out of Newark airport AND I also hated American Airlines, which had a
great flight from Philadelphia. With
Cunard, you can book “flexible air” which, in some cases, is more expensive
than the ‘restricted air”, but you’re allowed to make as many changes as you
want up until 45 days ahead of your trip.
In my case, flexible air was significantly cheaper than the restricted
air so that’s the route I took.
American Airlines has a great product but my last flight
with them was hugely delayed, the communication was non-existent, and their
customer service is deplorable. Long
story short, I understand delays due to weather and that weather is out of the
control of any carrier. What I cannot
forgive is the flight crews’ refusal to keep us informed of what was
happening. Many other little things also
contributed to my current disdain for them, but in the end, United seemed to be
the best choice even though the flight I’m taking to Dublin has a connection at
London Heathrow (LHR).
With the plans for getting to and from finally set, the
fun part commenced: finding hotels in
Dublin and London and figuring out what I wanted to see!
Stay tuned!!
1 comment:
Happy Travels and Bon Voyage!!!
Post a Comment