First time long haul holiday-planning

oysterman

Started an eatlier thread about flight's but thought as i have a bit of time today i would start planning our holiday for next year(25th wedding anniverasary trip)

We are planning to go mid march for approx 5 weeks. We have decided to fly to
singapore for 2 nights,
then onto Christchurch (1-2 nights) & tour south island for 3 weeks,
then onto fiji for 1 week,
returning to NZ & fly home.

What questions should we ask when we go to the travel agent.

As it's our first major trip not that confident in doing all our self. The way i am thinking is i should book all the flights, singapore + c/church accom + hire car & fiji trip with one t/agent. The south island tour will book ourselves wherever we go.

Am i right in thinking flights first(most expensive bit) & then everything round them.

Is tripadvisor the best place to info about hotels & places to visit, more so ref singapore & fiji.

Cheers in advance:beer:

isplumm

Hi,

With that schedule, it might be worth you thinking about a RTW ticket .... London - Singapore - NZ - Fiji - LA - London might be doable - talk to people like travel republic, they should be able to help.

Are we talking about March 2010 or 2011?

Mark

isplumm

Look at http://www.roundtheworldexperts.co.uk/world-trips/under-one-thousand?gclid=CIyZ0fOViJ8CFaBb4wodsznuJg or

http://www.roundtheworldflights.com/

These will give you some ideas .

I also think you can do most of this yourself - but of course it takes a lot more effort!!!

Mark

oysterman

isplumm wrote: »

Hi,

With that schedule, it might be worth you thinking about a RTW ticket .... London - Singapore - NZ - Fiji - LA - London might be doable - talk to people like travel republic, they should be able to help.

Are we talking about March 2010 or 2011?

Mark

2011 for the holiday, might have trouble with US visa, thats why no plans on commuting via USA

isplumm

oysterman wrote: »

2011 for the holiday, might have trouble with US visa, thats why no plans on commuting via USA

It might still be worth looking at a RTW ticket ... just go into Singapore - NZ - Fiji - Asia (Hong Kong / Singapore) - London

I note you haven't done the NI of NZ .... why not? SI is the best bit, but there are some good bits on the NI.

Mark

oysterman

isplumm wrote: »

It might still be worth looking at a RTW ticket ... just go into Singapore - NZ - Fiji - Asia (Hong Kong / Singapore) - London

I note you haven't done the NI of NZ .... why not? SI is the best bit, but there are some good bits on the NI.

Mark

Read a bit about NZ & we reckoned did'nt have enough time to do both so picked SI & if have time/money will do NI another time.

isplumm

oysterman wrote: »

Read a bit about NZ & we reckoned did'nt have enough time to do both so picked SI & if have time/money will do NI another time.

Hi ....

Well we had just under 3 weeks - spent 5 days in the NI & rest in SI ... how about fly into Auckland .... 1 night there, then drive to Rotorua - see glowworms caves on way ... then 1 night Rotorua - then fly to Wellington - 1 night there - then catch ferry to picton (SI) -

I would recommend you fit in the transapline train from Greymouth to Christchurch - great views - only do one way .... we did transscenic Picton to Kaikoura (whale watching) then Kaikoura to Christchurch, then transapline to Greymouth, then drove to Franz Joseph - did heli-hike - excellent - Queenstown - back to Christchurch ...

Mark

becominganobsessivesaver

a few years ago we did hong kong, south island, cook islands and la. We used trailfinders to book the flights and hotels in hk and did the rest ourselves. I'd highly recommend trailfinders as they have numerous staff who have been to the destinations and can offer loads of advice. You can also add more accomodation etc at a later date to your booking.
Accomodation in new Zealand is really easy to sort yourself, we stayed in some fab b and bs and motels. Motels are great as they usually have a kitchen and laundry facilities which is really convenient and means you can eat takeaways or cook to save money and gives you a break from eating out!!! Have you considered hong kong as air new Zealand do some good deals via there and are an excellent airline? I also feel hong kong has a lot more character than Singapore. You could look at some of the low cost airlines (virgin blue comes to mind) to do an add on to the south pacific - do consider the cook islands as they were just amazing. We spent just over 3 weeks for our trip and think you are probably right to just stick to one island as doing too much could be exhausting

oysterman

isplumm wrote: »

Hi ....

Well we had just under 3 weeks - spent 5 days in the NI & rest in SI ... how about fly into Auckland .... 1 night there, then drive to Rotorua - see glowworms caves on way ... then 1 night Rotorua - then fly to Wellington - 1 night there - then catch ferry to picton (SI) -

I would recommend you fit in the transapline train from Greymouth to Christchurch - great views - only do one way .... we did transscenic Picton to Kaikoura (whale watching) then Kaikoura to Christchurch, then transapline to Greymouth, then drove to Franz Joseph - did heli-hike - excellent - Queenstown - back to Christchurch ...

Mark

Cheers for the reply, but that is why we want to do SI first, a bit more relaxing than chasing all the time.

oysterman

becominganobsessivesaver wrote: »

a few years ago we did hong kong, south island, cook islands and la. We used trailfinders to book the flights and hotels in hk and did the rest ourselves. I'd highly recommend trailfinders as they have numerous staff who have been to the destinations and can offer loads of advice. You can also add more accomodation etc at a later date to your booking.
Accomodation in new Zealand is really easy to sort yourself, we stayed in some fab b and bs and motels. Motels are great as they usually have a kitchen and laundry facilities which is really convenient and means you can eat takeaways or cook to save money and gives you a break from eating out!!! Have you considered hong kong as air new Zealand do some good deals via there and are an excellent airline? I also feel hong kong has a lot more character than Singapore. You could look at some of the low cost airlines (virgin blue comes to mind) to do an add on to the south pacific - do consider the cook islands as they were just amazing. We spent just over 3 weeks for our trip and think you are probably right to just stick to one island as doing too much could be exhausting

Cheers for the reply, have been looking at Hong kong as well. The wife has always dreamt of going to Fiji but will have a gander at other islands.:T

oysterman

isplumm wrote: »

Look at http://www.roundtheworldexperts.co.uk/world-trips/under-one-thousand?gclid=CIyZ0fOViJ8CFaBb4wodsznuJg or

http://www.roundtheworldflights.com/

These will give you some ideas .

I also think you can do most of this yourself - but of course it takes a lot more effort!!!

Mark

Cheers for the replt
I probably could do a lot more on my own, but thought going through a travel agent would be easier, if there is any problems they can sort it out without me chasing different people if problemw occur.