Honeymoon is Spain cost?

bananasplit472001 · October 2014

We have a budget of $8,000 for 10 days 9 nights for 2 people to go to Spain. We are working with a travel agent and she is giving us an itinerary for 10 days 9 nights plus airfare for over $12,000! This does not include most meals, it includes stays in moderately priced hotels, train tickets to 3 cities, and tour guide with literally nothing included except the guide ( no meals, entrance fees to the places, transportation!). I am so pissed because we told her upfront that our budget was $8,000. I thought it was perfectly possibly to plan a 10 day trip to Europe for 2 people for that amount. Am I crazy or should she be able to plan a trip for us for that amount?

loro929 · October 2014

Well, it seems like a lot but there are lot of factors that need to be considered. How much of a chunk is your orund trip airfare?

What season are you travelling in? The costs in Spain fluctuate drastically depending on the season, even so, it seems a bit on the pricy side to me.

The prices also change depending on the location of the hotels and the cities that you are staying in. If you provide a bit more information regarding the cities, we can help with more insight on the costs per city. For instance, it is much more expensive to stay in Barcelona or Madrid than it is in Andalucia or another more southern region. This also goes for food too.

bananasplit472001 · October 2014

We are choosing to to a non-stop round-trip flight on united from Newark,NJ to Barcelona and Madrid-Newark,NJ that costs $1,100 a person. We are going from june 9th-june 20th

We are staying in barcelona for 4 nights at the doubletree at the end of the passig de gracia (shopping district). Seville for 3 nights at the melia (will change to a less expensive hotel) and 3 nights in madrid at the westin palace (our splurge hotel). This cost leaves us about $2,500 for tours/shows/excursions, trains (between cities),transfers (hotel-airport), and food. It likely will be more expensive than $8,000 but we really did not want to go above $10,000.

climbingsingle · October 2014

We just got back from Italy. Round trip airfare for us was a little over $2000. I booked us an apartment on Airbnb. It was just under $1000 for 10 nights. We rented a car (thankfully parking was included with our apartment) and we were able to do day trips from Florence. We went there with no plan, and just booked everything ourselves once we got there. We drove to Cinque Terre and rented a room for a night. We took the train to Venice, and also booked a room for the night (though that one we did book in advance two days before.). We ended up getting really good deals.

It's definitely a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants way to travel, but it worked for us. If we wanted to spend a day relaxing, we could. We didn't have anywhere to be on any particular day. And we still were able to do all the touristy things we wanted to do (Pisa and climbing the tower, The David, etc). So maybe you guys can look into doing something like that?

JoanE2012 · October 2014

It seems like an awfully lot of money for Spain. Do you get a breakdown of how much the hotels costing?? A quick look in Expedia shows the most expensive Melia hotel in Seville for a (weekend) stay at the end of June is $229. Even your splurge hotel, the Westin in Madrid, is $286/night. So to err on the conservative side, if you pay $300/night each of the 10 nights, that's $3,000. Airfare is 2,200. That's just over $5k. Where is the other 7k going towards? Guides and transport can't be that much!

We spent two weeks in Moorea and Bora Bora in overwater bungalows and spent around that same amount, and we got some meals included! I don't understand this $12k quote for your itinerary in Spain.

majesty318 · October 2014

Yeah, this is a really high quote. I would go back to the agent and ask for a breakdown because it just doesn't make sense.

Also, I have no idea if this matters to you but it matters to me so just throwing it out there. I assume your Newark/ Madrid non-stop flight is on United or on Lufthansa code-sharing with United. United flies crappy small planes to Spain & Portugal - they are not the big ones with 2 aisles like most airlines fly to Europe. They're the same type you would take to Florida or something. I find them uncomfortable for a long trip so just FYI.

JoanE2012 · October 2014

majesty318 said:

Yeah, this is a really high quote. I would go back to the agent and ask for a breakdown because it just doesn't make sense.

Also, I have no idea if this matters to you but it matters to me so just throwing it out there. I assume your Newark/ Madrid non-stop flight is on United or on Lufthansa code-sharing with United. United flies crappy small planes to Spain & Portugal - they are not the big ones with 2 aisles like most airlines fly to Europe. They're the same type you would take to Florida or something. I find them uncomfortable for a long trip so just FYI.

Good point! I always try and fly the bigger planes....not only are they more comfortable because of the space, but I find the flights to be more smooth, especially takeoffs.

OP - If you are flying United, look into the Economy Plus seats. The extra 6 inches of legroom makes a big difference, especially on a long flight. We tried it this past spring for the first time and quckly realized we will always splurge for it if we're flying more than 2 hours.

southernbelle0915 · October 2014

That seems like way too much. The only place on the coast I'd probably go is Barcelona. Valencia, Malaga, even Ibiza.. I just didn't think were worth the hype. I do recommend Madrid, Cordoba, Granada and Sevilla. Also Avila, Segovia and Toledo are nice. I lived in Madrid and traveled all over Spain/Europe. If you want, PM me some deets and I'll give you some suggestions on good places to go and how to make the most of your time there.

Also, @lolo883 ‌ hit Barcelona and I believe a couple other cities on her honeymoon so she might have some suggestions too.

loro929 · October 2014

bananasplit472001 said:

We are choosing to to a non-stop round-trip flight on united from Newark,NJ to Barcelona and Madrid-Newark,NJ that costs $1,100 a person. We are going from june 9th-june 20th
We are staying in barcelona for 4 nights at the doubletree at the end of the passig de gracia (shopping district). Seville for 3 nights at the melia (will change to a less expensive hotel) and 3 nights in madrid at the westin palace (our splurge hotel). This cost leaves us about $2,500 for tours/shows/excursions, trains (between cities),transfers (hotel-airport), and food. It likely will be more expensive than $8,000 but we really did not want to go above $10,000.

Okay. Thanks for the update.

The airfare sounds reasonable to me. As PPs said, United does fly smaller one-aisle planes from Newark - Spain (Barcelona / Madrid) and the extra cost for the Economy Comfort is well worth it.

June is high season, so the prices could be a bot more elevated (although the quote does seem very high for Spain).

I am very familiar with Spain and I would think that your budget is fine. I would break it out like this:

airfare x2> $2200

hotels x10 - average price = $2000-$3000 ($200-300 x 10 nights). It will most likely be most expensive in Madrid (closer to $300/night) and least expensive in Sevilla (closer to $200/night).

Considering those 2 fixed costs with your $8000 budget, you should have approx $2800 to spend on excursions etc.

Currently, the AVE (high speed cost train from Barcelona - Mardrid) is around 75euros PP (more or less $100) and I would assume the price would be similiar from Madrid to Sevilla.

Food is much more expensive in Barcelona and Madrid than in Sevilla, where they have all those amazing free tapas when you order a beer. However, in all Spanish cities, they have what is called a "menu del dia", where is a fixed price menu typically with an appetizer, entree, dessert and drink which cost around $15.00-$20.00 PP.

Overall, what I want to say is that your budget **should** be fine for 10 days in Spain. If you remove the cost of airfare (8000-2200) you have approx. $5800 which is around $580.00/day. If you remove around $300 of that for hotel costs, you have around $280.00/day to spend for food and tourism.

Knowing Spain's prices, as I said, it **should** be ok. But, as with anywhere, you can spend as much or as little as you want in regards to food, accomodations and activities.

If you have any specific questions (most specifically about Barcelona), feel free to PM me and I would be happy to answer.

theartistformerlyknownas · October 2014

We spent 8 days in Spain in September and didn't spend nearly that much. We booked everything ourselves through Orbitz. 2400 combined for airfare, about 2000 for hotels. I think the train from Barcelona to Madrid was 90E each one way (cheaper if you buy in advance) and 12E Madrid to Avila roundtrip. That's only about $5000 USD, leaving plenty of money for food and site seeing. I think we only took out 800E cash and spent another $1000 on debit. so with exchange rates that's like... 7000 USD.

I vote skip the tour guide and do the hop on/hop off bus tours.

Jeannine12 · November 2014

@bananasplit472001 my fiance and I are doing the exact same honeymoon and with around the same budget as you. We are traveling in November so season is different but I am not going through a travel agent because of their expense. I am mainly booking airbnb.com for us to stay in because they are far cheaper and more roomy. I have a great board on pinterest if you want to follow it on ideas how to do all those cities on a great budget and not miss anything.

JoanE2012 · November 2014

Jeannine12 said:
@bananasplit472001 my fiance and I are doing the exact same honeymoon and with around the same budget as you. We are traveling in November so season is different but I am not going through a travel agent because of their expense. I am mainly booking airbnb.com for us to stay in because they are far cheaper and more roomy. I have a great board on pinterest if you want to follow it on ideas how to do all those cities on a great budget and not miss anything.

It should not cost you anything to book through a travel agent. Travel agents make commissions paid by the vendors they book. If someone is trying to charge you, find another agent.

Jeannine12 · November 2014

Thank you @JoanE2012 for some reason i always figured that the consumer was paying the travel agent. But still I like to book my own things because I am a deal shopper.

SBmini · November 2014

We didn't keep close track of what it ended up costing us, but I think we did Spain for 15 days for about $8,000.

Here's how we did it:

1. We put a lot of things on a credit card that we paid off very quickly to pay for our airfare.

2. We shopped around using things like Google Flights to make sure we bought our airline tickets at the absolute best time.

3. We did the same for hotels

4. We stayed at a few AirBnbs and cooked our own meals

5. Most did tapas for most meals which really kept costs down

7. We didn't do any scheduled tours or the like and walked and took public transportation to see everything.

Our trip included:

Barcelona for 4 nights

Mallorca for 2 nights + flight over there (waste of time)

Valencia for 1 night (where we rented a car and drove the rest of the time)

Granada for 3 nights (should have stayed a third)

Ronda for 1 night

Sevilla for 2 nights (would have stayed longer but our apartment location was on a tour route and people kept looking in our windows)

Madrid for 2 nights

Gas was pricey as was parking. We kept food pretty inexpensive and other than a boat tour on Mallorca, Flamanco in Sevilla and an F1 race in Barcelona- we paid very little for what we saw and did.

SBmini · November 2014

We didn't do train because we really wanted to see Granada, which isn't connected via the nation's high speed train route. However, domestic flights within Spain are dirt cheap. You could easily do Madrid, Barcelona via train and fly to and from Granada to add it.

I really enjoyed all of Andelucia. I'm very happy we opted to rent a car and drive. We saw so much that you just can't see via train. Granada, Ronda, Cordoba, Toledo- plus some unexpected gems that we stumbled upon off the highway. It wasn't cheap, but I think that a road trip through Andelucia is a wonderful way to spend time in Spain. Depending on the time of year- I wouldn't do this in the middle of summer- it gets hot there. Like Phoenix hot. And a lot of the places we stayed did not have luxuries like AC.

amelisha · November 2014

SBmini said:

We didn't do train because we really wanted to see Granada, which isn't connected via the nation's high speed train route. However, domestic flights within Spain are dirt cheap. You could easily do Madrid, Barcelona via train and fly to and from Granada to add it.

I really enjoyed all of Andelucia. I'm very happy we opted to rent a car and drive. We saw so much that you just can't see via train. Granada, Ronda, Cordoba, Toledo- plus some unexpected gems that we stumbled upon off the highway. It wasn't cheap, but I think that a road trip through Andelucia is a wonderful way to spend time in Spain. Depending on the time of year- I wouldn't do this in the middle of summer- it gets hot there. Like Phoenix hot. And a lot of the places we stayed did not have luxuries like AC.

I would agree with the Andalucia stuff completely. When I was working in Spain I rented a car and drove all over the south with my girlfriends and it was a ton of fun and a great way to see the country. I was pretty young at the time but driving was totally fine there, not crazy at all, and the car rental was inexpensive.

indianaalum · November 2014

lolo883 said:

We spent 8 days in Spain in September and didn't spend nearly that much. We booked everything ourselves through Orbitz. 2400 combined for airfare, about 2000 for hotels. I think the train from Barcelona to Madrid was 90E each one way (cheaper if you buy in advance) and 12E Madrid to Avila roundtrip. That's only about $5000 USD, leaving plenty of money for food and site seeing. I think we only took out 800E cash and spent another $1000 on debit. so with exchange rates that's like... 7000 USD. I vote skip the tour guide and do the hop on/hop off bus tours.

I agree. We did hop on hop off in Italy, France and England. It got us around for cheap and we got to see everything. I HIGHLY recommend doing this instead of tour guides

bananasplit472001 · December 2014

Thank you all for your responses! sorry I have not been on in awhile. We are about to book are trip and have ditched the tour guide! I will go over all of your comments and take you recommendations. Thank you!

avni000 · December 2014

Hi - if you want to find the best order for the flights that will give the cheapest/best to travel options, I would check out Vamo.com: https://www.vamo.com/friend-invite/z8az55

Hopefully that gets your flight costs way down....

Good luck!

Jeannine12 · December 2014

@bananasplit472001 I also find a great deal on information on tripadvisor...its been a lifesaver

Honeymoon is Spain cost?

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