Disaster!!!

[armzie]

Hi everyone,

We were going to fly from Munich to Venice on 20 May at 11am (only staying 2 nights in Venice) - I have just received an email from Tuifly to say that the flight is now leaving at 21h00!!!

This means that in effect I will have about one and a half days in Venice before moving onto Florence...do I just accept that this is part of the backpacking adventure?

There are no other flights available on that day...

[WillTravel]

There's not much you can do at this point. What if you stayed the two nights and then took a late-night train to Florence?

[me]

you could always get to Venice the old fashioned way: take a train.

there's a train from Munich (departs 23.45), gets to Villach, Austria, in the early morning - 4.00 - with a connecting train departing Villach for Venice at 4.23. gets to Venice at 8.45.

if you could depart Munich in late afternoon for Linz, Austria, you could catch that same night train from there to Venice at 22.46, get there at 8.45.

the 1st option would take just 1 day on a flex pass. the 2nd would take 2.

[me]

also, is it too late to juggle your schedule? if you could go to Prague between Munich & Venice, there are other flights from Prague to Venice.

[herrbert]

My guess is that it has something to do, with TIUfly buying HLX.xom. This used to be a flight carried out by hlx.xom, but they will be cutting down the doubles. The same is to be expected by Air Berlin, as the news is out, they have bought LTU.

I can't see another solution, both flights by Meridiana and Air Dolimiti/Lufthansa are way too expensive. And even flights via Cologne or Berlin, are not possible or too expensive.

I think the options are
1. wait for the eveningflight, as try to be as effective as can in Venice
2. get on the train (as David suggests)

rerouting the shedule before Venice you would still find yourself with a flight on the 20th of May. From Prague: Alitalia is too expensive, and the AlpiEagles flight is a 16.20 flight, so that would only make up for some lost hours. rerouting to Vienna would mean a flight a day later (as skyeurope has no flight on the 20th. the only other option from Vienna would be Air Dolimiti, but I can't get any results from that website at the moment. getting errors at the moment)

[madamtrashheap]

If you've already paid for your flight, and they aren't offering a refund for the schedule change, then I'd take WT's advice and take the later train to Florence so you can maximise your time in Venice. The train is only about 2hr45 -3hrs so it's not like you'll be travelling for a long time or overnight.

Whilst 1.5 days isn't ideal, if you work out your absolute must-sees you'll be able to cover a lot of ground, and still find time to wander aimlessly (is there any other way?!! ) through the city when the streets are quieter (morning or evening).

[Eagle]

armzie, I did a quick check on the rail sites (using an arbitrary date) and the best option I could find was:

Depart München Hbf 11:30
Arrive Venezia Santa Lucia 18:31
Time 07H.01M, 0 changes, Class EC

Reservations are mandatory on this route AFAIK. Using a rail pass would minimize the cost of the trip, although you'd have to pay the reservation fee separately.

Although travel by rail will be a somewhat longer than by air, you might find the difference will be negligible when other factors are considered (ie: travel to the airport which is likely some distance from the city centre; checking-in two hours prior to flight and waiting; going through security; travel to the city centre at your destination).

One other very important point -- if you were to travel via rail using a Railpass, make sure your pass includes Austria! Otherwise you'll have to buy a separate P-P ticket to cover the Austrian portion of the journey (Kufstein-Brennero).

Have you already bought your air tickets? If not, rail might be an option to consider.

Good luck!!!

[herrbert]

As she got an email from TUIfly, I think she has already booked the flight. (otherwise, how would TUI obtained her mail-address?).

-----

Taking the train, would get you to Venice a couple of hours earlier, but at least give you some great views, but I think I would stick to the flight, unless you would get a refund.

[me]

don't know why i didn't see this before:

there's a night train, departs Munich main station at 23.40 (11.40pm) on May 19, gets to Venezia Santa Lucia at 07.36 the next morning.

this is an ideal solution, if you can sleep on night trains. (take earplugs to wear) it only takes one day on a flexpass, if you have one. but, even then, you'd still need to pay a suplement for a couchette & reservation.

[WillTravel]

I think if you wanted a refund for this flight, with the greatly changed time, you'd be able to get it, but it would take some effort and cost to get in touch with those European call centres.

[armzie]

Hi all,

Thanks for the advice! The good news is that they offered to refund me (I got my friend in the UK to call) because they had re-scheduled the flight by more than four hours.

We have a Eurail pass already so we will be making reservations on the night train...

Thanks again for all the help!

[madamtrashheap]

Great news armzie! Glad it worked out.