Vacation Planning: The Dugal Ascension
“I want my love, my joy, my laugh, my smile, my needs
Not in the star signs or the palm that she reads
I want my sun-drenched, wind-swept Ingrid Bergman kiss
Not in the next life, I want it in this
I want it in this”
~ Good As Gold (Stupid As Mud), The Beautiful South
For the upcoming ‘grand adventure of 2009′ as I haven’t actually dubbed it, and probably shall never refer to it as again. I had to work out my own arrangements for flights and hotels, rather than taking the prescriptive package route. This was a rather eye-opening experience to the world of vacationing that both appealed and troubled me simultaneously.
The thing about me is that I try to be organised, punctual and conservative with my time. If I have to meet someone I tend to be ten to fifteen minutes early, even if I try to be on time or even a little relaxed and delayed, most of the time I’m in the vicinity of the meeting place a half to full hour before. Whenever I make travel arrangements, I’ll be the guy who factors in changeover delays, toilet breaks at stopovers and leeway for arrival. This might seem like it borders on anal retentiveness, but in truth it’s less about a need to do it and more a fear of things that could go wrong and need dealing with – what if something breaks down, what if I miss a changeover – and also a part is that should anyone be waiting for me, I don’t want them to feel like they are wasting time.
So when working out flights on my own, I poured for hours over the timetables to mix and match flights there and back again. I wanted as few stopovers as I could, but with enough time at each stopover to get from terminal and gate to new terminal and gate. That’s the other thing with me in charge of travel, I will check boards and displays to make sure I’m at the right gate or platform, sometimes multiple times and even after checking with staff.
Price comparison websites and booking websites do tend to be a little deceptive though, because once you’ve guaranteed your ticket at the set price, they are free to screw around with your itinerary and all you can do is accept the change and hope that it’ll be ok when it comes to flying.
Its a careful balancing act when working out when to book flights and hotels if you want good value, if you get them too soon you could end up paying more, if you get them too late then you might not get them at all. The flight was actually the thing I booked the last, it would seem stupid to book a flight and have nowhere to stay and unable to cancel, whereas hotels are fairly flexible.
For the flight, my main goal was to save money and effort, and in doing so expected to have to take up increased time for the trip itself. I knew that if I flew from one of the main airports, such as Heathrow or Gatwick, that I’d have to put in extra travel to get to the airport and probably get a hotel and stay the night before and/or the night after travelling back. This would then take up a lot more money in rail fare and hotel fare, and cost me a day travelling. Instead I chose to use my local airport and fly in hops.
There’s only a few short hops, to be fair. I make a stop off in continental Europe to get to my long haul flight and then a stop off after the long haul to get a short haul to final destination. I currently don’t have too many delays at any of the stops, though my provider has updated my itinerary several times since booking for the return flight and for whether I’m entitled to be fed or not. I’m a little antsy about flying, not helped by the fact I’m flying with Air France and I dread looking for sympathy after some of the things I’ve said of those wonderful citizens of a fine country.
The flight itself cost £446 ($630) which is mostly tax, booked through the Opodo website. It uses eTickets to save time and to not need paper tickets, instead of paper tickets I’m advised to print out the confirmation of booking, the itinerary, emergency contacts and a few extra documents. To save paper.
So, my flight out leaves my local airport – Bristol – at 6:45 in the morning and after fourteen hours in flight with three and a half hours of stop overs, I arrive at a local time of 16:20-ish. My return flight, originally scheduled for about 9:30 in the morning, to allow me to get up and maybe say some goodbyes, has kindly been forced forward to 6:30 in the morning, though I still get home at the same time as my original booking of 10:30am local time – because they increased one of my stop overs by three hours.
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