Croatia Paris

ncpowe

Planning our honeymoon for around the last week in September. We initially wanted to go to Europe focusing mainly on Paris and the beaches in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Neither of us speak the languages and we were worried about that. But we're also on a budget, trying for 2,000 or less.
I just found europeandestinations.com and there are actually great deals on there. They may not be under 2k but they're close. Has anyone had any luck with this site? Any thoughts on the language barrier? Anyone been to Dubrovnik and have any pointers? I'd love any thoughts or suggestions!!

hoffse

Have you actually gotten through the entire check out process at Europeandestinations to see what the final cost would be to you?  The quoted price is from the lowest-cost city (flight-wise) and the lowest priced hotels they have in each city.  It's a perfectly legitimate site, and lots of posters on here have used it, but I know I'm always inclined to upgrade (a lot), and then it doesn't become such a good deal.  Plus you don't get all the flight options or extra perks some hotels include (like complimentary service to/from the airport, etc).  Ultimately, I can usually do better researching on tripadvisor and pricing it out on my own.... I pick mock dates about 2-3 months out, find the days of the week that are cheap for various places we want to stay and that have the best flights from the two airports we often fly out of, and then I put together a trip that works well with our time frame.  If you can just pick a location, it takes maybe 3-4 hours to come up with a really awesome plan using tripadvisor, starting from no knowledge at all.  Example: FI is talking about going to Peru for his bar trip.  I put together a very workable itinerary in about 4 hours (it was a country I had never looked at), including all the research I did on altitude and acclimation.  Just pick a country or city, do a broad search on tripadvisor, and then narrow from there.

ncpowe

Well, took your advice and went through to see how much it would be....good call on your part! Got up to 4k, easily. Poo : I'll try your other suggestion with looking at trip advisor and planning a trip. Thank you!!!

dazyabbey

I think in reality it depend on how much research you do. My husband and I were engaged for almost two years and to me the most important part of our wedding was our honeymoon. We both love to travel and to us it was a reason to save up and take two weeks off. Both of our jobs usually do not allow you to take two full weeks off of work so something like a honeymoon it is more acceptable. We took it and ran with it. We had a budget of around 6k and after an entire year or research and pricing out options and seeing what the best deal we could get we found EuropeanDestinations to be the best option. Other sites were so much more and that includes pricing out the options individually. We did upgrade several things from our flights to the hotel options and even after doing all of that and adding a few extra days (4) it ended up being much lower (about 1k) then pricing it out individually and watching the flight prices, train prices and hotel costs.

One of the things I like about EuropeanDestinations is that you can individualize your trip and customize it almost more than any other package website. You go to go-today, Friendly Planet, Tenon Tours, Gate1, Virgin, Sceptre, etc. and the prices were much higher. We even talked to our travel agent and he was unable to match the deal.
I do understand that many times it is possible to plan a trip on your own and not using a group/booking/travel site but in this case for us it was much more affordable to use them. I have traveled many places and I understand how these things work. I am a relentless planner and whenever I plan a trip from Orlando to Paris I have every detail planned out and every penny accounted for. So when someone hints that I might not know what I am doing and that I probably could have got a better deal not using them it really frustrates me because obviously they know nothing about me.

Also, every single travel website out there states a 'starting' price and it goes up from there. Traveling from Omaha prices for airfare are usually hundreds more for us and we know enough about traveling to not expect the price they convince you to look at to be realistic. Which is one reason I don't usually use websites like TravelZoo or similar.

ncpowe- based on many of your posts I think you should do a lot more research before you decide where you want to go. More than likely Europe is not in your budget as the 2k would probably be ate up in just airfare. Sometimes you can find a good deal and make it work but if you are honestly thinking about 2k and 10 days there is no way it is going to happen.

ncpowe

Thanks for your help. I have done a lot of research as far as finding where we'll go and pricing a few options but I probably need to do more. Every trip that I decided seemed 'great' and 'budget friendly' seemed to add up quick with either travel expenses or accommodations. Our trip doesn't have to be 10 days, in a all reality it will probably be a week long trip. We love being outside. A great view of any natural wonder is always perfect. Love it. I researched quite a bit on Nova Scotia last night and it is breathtaking. I looked up flights to and from, rentals, and rental cars and it pushes it very close to 2k. I'll be doing more research, thats just what I found initially. I showed my fianc and told him the prices and he said that's doable. He didn't seem worried about it. We may have found the spot!! I found a few great places to stay on homeaway. That makes me a little nervous just because you could definitely get scammed if you're not careful. I'll have to thoroughly check my sources and background checks before I book. Have you ever used the site? I've used vrbo one time and it was great but never used homeaway. Thanks so much for all of your help. We're thinking Europe is out for now. We'll plan a trip for our one year and take a shorter, closer to home trip for now.

manjermj

If you only have 10 days going from Croatia to Paris is really silly. They are too far apart, that you will waste at least 1 entire day traveliing from one to the other. I'd suggest picking one or the other and planning your trip around one of those cities. Flights alone will be about $1000 each to either city. Then add on at least $150/night for hotel so that's another $1500. So you're looking at about $3500 for just airfare and hotel for 10 days in any major European City.

dazyabbey

You should try another post with the title Nova Scotia. That will attract people that have been there and would have more information. HomeAway is a reputable website similar to VRBO. Make sure the place you choose has reviews and positive information on it similar to VRBO.

Not sure if they have Groupon or Living Social up there but you can always sign up for emails and go through them to get better deals. A lot of the time they have tourist type deals or groups or tours things like that.
Also:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g154967-Nova_Scotia-Vacations.html
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowForum-g154967-i326-Nova_Scotia.html

Those are from Trip Advisor. THe first one is the Nova Scotia page and the second one is the forum on Nova Scotia. Very helpful and a lot of the times it is more specific about Nova Scotia.

Good luck!

ncpowe

Awesome thanks!!! So helpful!

hz80408

I agree; I hate to say it, but your budget will barely cover the cost of flights outright.

I would keep your eyes open for package deals from Travelzoo, Groupon, etc that include flight and hotel.  Research the hotels on tripadvisor.com before booking, but you can get some great finds!

We went to Ireland for 8 days last fall and got flights, rental car and hotels for LESS than the price of the plane directs through the airline's sight!

betsyray85

The FI and I are looking into London, Paris, and Croatia over two weeks. Airfare alone will be about 1400/person, including our flights to/from Croatia to Paris about 209 round trip. Croatia in September is the off season, so you could spend all your time there to save money, but you will still go over budget on just airfare.