Sometime back in the 80’s, when I was a mere youngster, before the days of this amazing Interweb thingy, I remember seeing an advert in a glossy magazine for a place called the Maldives. It was what has now become the sterotypical picture of paradise - the palm tree, white beach, glistening blue lagoon and the distant outline of a small Island - and I remember thinking “one day, I’m GOING to go there!” The trouble is of course, the pics in the brochure are always touched up, taken from the “right angle” and generally the best possible advert…the real thing never lives up to the image.
Or so I thought. When I returned from my first trip to the Maldives in 2001, my answer to people who asked what it was like was “it’s the only place I’ve ever been where the reality is better than the pictures!”. Which is probably why I went back again in 2006 and will be going back again in the next 2 years, and probably again after that (repeat to fade). I’m not normally one to go back to the same place more than twice in quick succession, but the Maldives is definitely the exception Read the rest of this entry »
Last year, my girlfriend and I decided that we’d like to go to one of the Greek Islands for some sun - last minute holidays are typically “us“ and this was no exception. Now both of us have been before…we’ve both done Rhodes and Skiathos, and she’s also been to Crete and the Greek Mainland but this time we wanted somewhere fairly quiet and relaxing, although we are restricted to going during the school holidays so naturally there’s a challenge there! As usual, finding a good deal and suitable destination involved plenty of Interweb wandering and - one of the reasons I started up this site actually - inspiration for some reason always seems to be in short supply. Sure, there are some great cheap deals out there, but none of the travel booking websites seem to tell you what the place is really like.
You know the score - the deal is great but the blurb that accompanies it is all about how wonderful the place is, how amazing the hotel is blah, blah, but it doesn’t tell you that your room looks out over the waste bins, or that 25 guests went down with food poisoning in July. Or that the Island is a protected environment for Waspus Stingus Humungous. And the Greek Islands do have Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been to Amsterdam three times in the past three years and am starting to get a pretty good feel for the place. Each time I’ve booked a package through LastMinute.com and stayed in a different hotel, although one change was only because my preferred hotel was fully booked. I’ll be honest and say that my visits weren’t strictly for holidays as they were to attend conventions, however the sort of convention I go to, you might just as well call it a holiday as it’s all laid on LOL.
I’ll come back to the hotels in a bit, but first, Amsterdam itself. I would call myself a fan, although it’s the sort of city where IMO you have to be a bit choosy about the times you go. It’s got a very relaxed atmosphere, perhaps not quite to Paris levels, but nonetheless it’s chilled and the layout of the city means it’s difficult to get lost as all roads tend to curve in an arc Read the rest of this entry »
September 12th 2008: Only last week, transatlatic airline Zoom who run, actually, better make that “ran“, package holidays between the UK and the USA announced that they had gone into receivership leaving thousands of passengers out of pocket or stranded abroad. They have since blamed creditors for their downfall and said that the chances of resuming operations are “slim”.
And this week, the XL travel firm who also operate package holidays and have their own airline also appear to have, forgive the pun, crashed and burned.
The message here I guess is, while obviously wanting cheap holiday deals, be careful who you book through and in these somewhat turbulent times, perhaps it’s safest to pay a few dollars more and go wih a name you trust. I’m booked on an Easyjet flight in two weeks, followed by a Virgin flight in November, and I’ll eat my hat if either of them don’t last out!
The following items may provide some inspiration for holidaymakers planning a trip to the Australia and South Pacific region (otherwise known as Australasia if we’re going to be geographically correct!) bought to you from Travelbite (via their RSS feed). This feed regularly updates with ideas and reviews of things to do, places to go and general odds and sods and should be useful for planning. Click any headline in the list below to find out more: Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve added a videos section to Package Holiday which checks Lonely Planet on a daily basis for new travel videos and imports them into the site. Each video is generally a few minutes long and shows a specific destination and/or attractions linked to certain destinations. You can comment on each video and leave information for other travellers if you have visited the place in question.
Have to admit I always wanted to do a Nile cruise after we visited Luxor in Egypt one time, but just never got round to it. I’d always wondered whether being trapped on a boat and at the mercy of a chef you didn’t know was asking for trouble, but I’ve met several people who said they love cruising (on boats!), and in particular if you choose a good quality cruise ship. Even the Nile has it’s 4* and 5* cruise boats so one day…it will happen!
Meantime, I’ve found a decent feed of cruise ship reviews and Read the rest of this entry »
I was just browsing around for some decent vacation package feeds to import to the site when I stumbled on Expedia’s new “Beta” service called, erm, well…it doesn’t have a name actually, but what it does is that it allows you to enter some basic search criteria and it comes up with a feed of vacation package deals relevant to your parameters. You can then add the “feed” to your MyMSN, Google, MyYahoo, MyAOL (or any other) personalised hompage, or read it in RSS newsreader software if you have one, and it will constantly update the latest deals from Expedia for you to follow.
It’s pretty simple at the moment, and the destination options are limited to the major US Cities or worldwide “types” of vacation (ie: casino, golf, Europe, family etc etc). Once you have selected your type of vacation, or the city you want to visit, you choose Read the rest of this entry »
The second visit to the Maldives (with my current girlfriend) we did things a little differently, but had an equally fantastic time in a slightly more “natural” habitat on Asdu Sun Island which is an hour speed-boat ride from Malé airport. Asdu is different to Kanuhura in several ways - it’s less “purpose built” and more basic/informal, plenty of trees in a more natural habitat and a smaller Island all round - without the 5* touches, but much more of that “middle of nowhere” feeling which is, I have to say, fantastic. You sit on the white sandy beach during the day looking out at….nothing! Not a thing in sight. Robinson Crusoe this is! You can walk right round the Island in, ooh, 10 minutes, it’s that small. It only had around 25 guest rooms, a central restaurant, and being dive-oriented, is quiet during the day because they all sail out to the reef to, well “dive” I guess! Not that it will ever get busy with so few rooms!
It’s a more rustic feeling, basic yet very clean rooms, but it’s also a very cheap holiday by Maldives standards. We did this Read the rest of this entry »
Sidestep is a USA based site and primarily I use it for finding flights rather than for my package holiday needs, but it deals with flights from any destination to any destination so even if you live outside the US it’s ideal. Where Sidestep grabs me is the way it displays the information in a really easy-to-use format with a “sidebar” containing filters that allow you to fine-tune the search once you’ve done it.
There are two other really useful facets of Sidestep. Firstly, and this is one of my major gripes with many sites, it remembers your holiday dates and the search criteria you put in, even if you go away and come back a few days later. The other service I use is their email alert messaging system. For example Read the rest of this entry »