Trip planning advice needed...

[parkslions]

Hi everyone,

I posted once before in 05 before one of my trips, but I am always on the site reading everything and checking out everyone's trips. I love the site!

A couple questions:

My flight to London is officially booked for April 21st 09 and I fly home from Paris on May 8th. After I visit a friend in England for about 5 days, I'll be flying to Paris to meet a friend. So I'll have about 11 days to go see a few things.

1- How is Ryanair? I have heard bad things about them. Any input on that airline? Is it an option or should I look elsewhere? I was hoping to find a flight to Bucharest to visit some friends (it would just be for a day or two).

2- Can I do Prague and Germany in 9 days? By Germany I don't mean the entire country. I was hoping maybe a castle or two and a major city. I don't have any specifics on what I would want to do because I don't know much about the best places to see. Basically I was hoping a couple of you experts could give me some advice on Germany and Prague.

I have lived in France and speak French. I know the country like the back of my hand now, but other than that, I am a novice with anything outside. So i would be a fish out of water in Prague and Germany. I was planning on using whatever transportation is best; rental car, train, planes, etc. Anything that you would recommend for the best transportation.

Thanks,

Andrew

[Eagle]

parkslions, welcome back! A few thoughts on the questions you raised.

Eleven days is not a long time to see much of Europe, especially as you'll have to allow some time to get between the various cities. However, with careful planning it should be possible to cover most of the places you want to see, although Bucharest is a bit out of the way. Given the short time frame, my choice would be to leave that for another trip. Even when travelling by budget air, I've found that travel time can be at least half a day and often longer (travel to and from the airports, check-in, going through security, boarding, etc.).

1.) RyanAir - provide fairly cheap flights, but there are often a lot of "extra charges" - read the "fine print" carefully so that you know exactly what the real cost will be for the flight. They are brutal with baggage limits, so if your luggage is even a bit over the allowable limit, you'll be nicked with an overweight charge! From my experience, that's a bit of a nuisance as you'll have to queue in a separate line to pay the charge and then back to the original line to check-in. If you're using a Backpack, they may ask you to take it to the "non standard luggage" queue, and be prepared to have the Lock cut off with bolt cutters (even if it's a TSA approved Lock!).

One other aspect of RyanAir is that they often use "out of the way", smaller airports so travellers have to factor in the time and cost to get to and from these airports.

The "bottom line" is that you'll get to your destination with RyanAir, but it might not be the most pleasurable or stress free travel experience and it will very likely not be as inexpensive as it first appeared. I will use RyanAir again if necessary, but will most definitely check EasyJet or others first!!!

2.) Prague & Germany - you should easily be able to fit those into a nine day window. You could perhaps spend two or three days in Prague and the remainder in Germany (and perhaps a day or so in Austria, perhaps Salzburg?).

For Germany I'd suggest the Munich area would be a good choice, as there's lots to see there and it's an easy day trip to Neuschwanstein ( the model for Disney's Castle) and Hohenschwangau Castles in Fussen. I used Radius Tours for those day trips and they took care of all the arrangements (check their web site for details and prices). If you're interested in history, Dachau is also an easy trip from Munich (I used Radius for that also).

For transportation between the various cities, my first choice would be high speed rail (where possible). Note that reservations are usually mandatory on the high speed trains (TGV, ICE, etc.). For the few journeys you'll be taking, P-P tickets would probably be the best option, as even with a Rail Pass you would have to pay the reservation charges separately. It will be easier to figure out the rail segments once you decide on which cities you want to visit and in which order.

This should give you some info to start with. I'm sure the others will have a few thoughts as well.

Cheers!

[pointofnoreturn]

I don't really prefer RyanAir. I like easyJet better but RyanAir does serve some airports that are in the city rather than out of town places like Paris Beauvais. If the price can't be beat, then I'd probably jump on it - only if the transportation from the airport to the city is worth it. Haven't been to Prague or Germany so I can't comment on it

[parkslions]

Thanks for the information! I really appreciate it. One last quick question for anyone out there.

Can you suggest any other airlines other than Ryanair and Easyjet that might be a good option?

I'll be using Easyjet to get from London to Paris.

Sadly due to work committments I can usually only take about 15-16 day European trips. I go about every year and a half.

[Eagle]

parkslions, to find other European airlines, you might have a look at www.whichbudget.com. Click on the "from" and "to" countries/cities, and the site will provide a list of which airlines service that route.

Some of the others that are mentioned on a fairly regular basis are ClickAir and Vueling. Hopefully herrbert will spot this post, as he always has some good tips on Euro airlines.

Good luck with your planning!

[herrbert]

Nov 2, 2008 16:01:51 GMT -5 Eagle said:

parkslions, to find other European airlines, you might have a look at www.whichbudget.com. Click on the "from" and "to" countries/cities, and the site will provide a list of which airlines service that route.

Some of the others that are mentioned on a fairly regular basis are ClickAir and Vueling. Hopefully herrbert will spot this post, as he always has some good tips on Euro airlines.

Good luck with your planning!

Vueling and Clickair are good options for flights to and from Spain. (Vueling is based in Madrid, and Clickair in Barcelona)

I think that I would prefer to try to get a ticket on the Eurostar first to get to Paris (from London.) As this is the faster option, and you will find yourself in the middle of town when you arrive.

If you would like to get to Bucharest, one option is to fly from London to Bucharest, with Blueair, and then back to Paris also with Blueair or Wizzair. (But please note that these like Ryanair fly to Beauvais airport!!), an option would be to fly from Bucharest to Cologne with Blueair or Germanwings, and spend some days in Cologne (as you would like to visit Germany this seems a good option.)

I only wonder how this would fit in 11 days.

[jessus]

I had a really good experience with my 2 Ryanair flights, despite the fact that they were both at out-of-the-way airports (if you don't want to take a shuttle for another hour at the end of your flight, make sure that the name beside the city name of the airport... is just the NAME of the airport, and not a different city!).

The staff were friendly, the lines moved quickly, everything happened on time, they had no problems with my backpack (although it has that nifty feature where you can zip the straps inside), and the only excess charges I was hit with were taxes & the original "pay to check baggage" fee that I paid on the internet. It goes like this: if it's comfortable enough to sit on my back for many hours, it's not too heavy for Ryanair!

Anyway, enough of Ryanair.

Nine days should be decent to visit Prague and Germany. I was going to suggest Munich and Neuschwanstein Castle (and Fussen and Hohenschwangau too!), but since it's already been mentioned, I'll bring up something else. There's also Rothenburg ob der Tauber in mid-Germany which (I've heard, I've never actually been) is a lovely little still medieval town. Really touristy, but that doesn't excuse the fact that it's really neat too!