the minutiae – part 1 of 43237628 (or the endlessly boring travel planning details of Don and Carol)

So, today was spent deciding more precise (but still approximate) dates for The Holiday.

When I informed ex-husband-2 of my travel plans on Friday, he replied with an,”oh no!” and said he was planning a big trip for his 5th wedding anniversary (which I thought in September) – leaving exactly the same day in April we were planning.

So, Don and I re-evaluated The Holiday timing (because that is the kind of nice ex-wife I am) to late March (because that is the kind of nice ex-wife I am).

Perhaps we are crazy, but we are doing this all ourselves, sans travel agent.

At this stage we are planning on leaving March 13 and returning April 1 (or 3). After checking on Zuji.com.au, Malaysia Airlines appears to be the cheapest, but Emirates is awfully competitive (and would probably be the better journey). There appear to be savings (in the couple of hundred dollar range) to be had with booking with the airline direct (rather than with Zuji).

Tomorrow, I begin the arduous process of applying for a passport. I feel my multiple name changes (from the couple of marriages) may hamper the application somewhat (there being ony room on the form for one name change) – but, admittedly, that could be just my normal state of catastrophising.

Our current estimate of costs for The Holiday is AU$13K. Which is rather a lot to save by March.

If you have travel tips, do feel free to innundate me with them. Irrespective of whether aforesaid tips have anything to do with Italy or not.

Oh! And airline recommendations would be super-fantastic also! If Malaysia or Emirates totsally suck, then please tell me!

3 thoughts on “the minutiae – part 1 of 43237628 (or the endlessly boring travel planning details of Don and Carol)

  1. I’ve never flown Malaysian but several people who have say to give them a wide berth but I’m not really sure why. As for Emirates, we went with them on our last holiday because of the timing of the flights: they only have one stop and you arrive at your detsination at normal times (ie, not the middle of the night), which helps hugely with the old body clock. For us that was worth the extra money on tickets.Service to me always seems to be much of a muchness. Emirates were not really better or worse than any other airline. You may want to consider having a night or two stopover going there and/or coming back – it’s such a long way to fly.The only travel tip I can ever offer is to not feel trapped by the tourist trail. I know that when I plan a holiday I’ll feel like I’d just DIE if I didn’t see major attraction X or Y. But it doesn’t change your life and you can get stuck on the “seeing stuff” merry go round and forget that you’re also there to have a BREAK – you will see lots of terrific stuff anyway even if it isn’t the Leaning Tower of Pisa or whatever. So make sure you have a break.[Of course, I retract this advice when it comes to Easter Island or Machu Picchu. If it nearly kills you to get there, get there you must. Though you’re going to Italy, so ignore me.]And if you’re reading Lonely Planet, our experience is that the grungier and grimier a place is, the more they love it. If it’s clean and pretty they think it’s dull. They are quite handy on the accommodation options, though.I agree, no need to go through a travel agent. You can figure all this stuff out yourself.

  2. How awesome and exciting and WOOOOO!! you don’t need a travel agent – it’s much more fun to work stuff out on your own. I’ve only ever flown qantas – except for one garuda return flight and one of the qantas flights thatwas british airways (the most suckiest flight I’ve ever been on) .. so in summary, I flew the most expensive economy way most times, but I’m a snob that way.

  3. Thank you both for your wisdom đŸ™‚Don is likely to be the one with the extra-long list of things to see (and has the extra-long list already). I’m definitely (to my surprise) more of the “let’s chill, dude, it’s a holiday” and “let’s stay in the country and ride bikes and eat lots and drink lots and sleep in and read books etc”.So, hopefully in the three weeks we’ll have time for both, because I’m insisting on the chilling-out part.

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