Las Vegas/Los Angeles & Orlando

mpet

Help!

Due to the family being unable to agree on a simple one location holiday, the Las vegas/Los Angeles & orlando combo was arrived at. Now I get left to sort it out!

I want to fly to either Las Vegas/Los Angeles (from London), then internal to Orlando and back to London from there - overall duration 3 weeks (approx). I don't mind booking each bit seperately, but after looking at the prices, I'm beginning to wonder if a tailor made quote from a Tour Operator would be easier/cheaper. I've been looking at the Virgin brochure and they mention tailor made quotes - has anyone had any experience of this?

Mpet

blindman

When

How many and what age??

How long each place.

Budget.

Drivers

Expectations.

nelly_2

Im in the same boat for my honey moon

We fly to new york.
Then new york to vegas
then vegas home

And its coming to £2700 how charming is that???

mpet

Blindman

When -departing anytime from 25th July to about 7th August (school holidays - no choice as DD is at school & DS is graduating on 21st July).

How Many - 4 adults.

How long - I was thinking 4 nights in Las Vegas/5 in Los Angeles and 8 in Orlando.

I was thinking of driving between Las Vegas & Los Angeles (does that sound practical) 2 Drivers.

I want to stay in hotels in Las Vegas & Los Angeles (mid range?) and just a fly drive in Orlando (staying with relatives).

price - I know it won't be cheap - does £1000 per person sound reasonable - cheaper would be nice but at that time of year I know it won't happen!!!


Mpet

Cardew

At that time of the year you are talking a lot of money just to cross the Atlantic which ever way you go. LA to Las Vagas is an easy drive - once you get out of LA airport area.

Probably be cheaper going to West Coast first as Orlando is impossible to get cheap flights to from UK at the beginning of School holidays - won't be easy flying back either. Probably be cheaper to get UK to LA return - drive to Las Vagas and back - and a return to Orlando from LA. Although why anyone would want to spend 5 days in LA beats me!!

£1,000 to cover what? Airfares? - car hire? - Hotels? - Meals? - Gambling money in Vagas?(why else would you go there)

newfoundglory

Travel operators are (in my opinion), probably not one of the cheaper ways of doing it... it can often be cheaper and better to do it yourself; although not always. That said, its only going to be significantly cheaper on flights etc if you are prepared to do the work yourself... which a lot of people understandably don't want to do.

From experience, I'm surprised that more people don't fly to less popular airports; you can save yourself thousands of pounds and the nightmare of immigration at touristy airports.

For example, a cost of a return ticket to Orlando or Miami in height of summer would be an awful lot... but you could fly to Philidelphia for a _fraction_ of the cost... then get an internal on a US low-cost carrier down to Orlando (internal might cost you $20 to $40 a head) on something like AirTran, JetBlue or Southwest airlines (depending on where you want to go). If you get it right, the flight times are often no different, although you might have a 1 or 2 hour wait for the connection. Sometimes its nice to sleep over night, before flying down the following morning to get a chance to have a look around.

I've flown out of Heathrow to LAX before, then taken an internal flight on Southwest to Vegas (AmericaWest airlines do too I think). I find internal flights a very convenient and cheap way of seeing loads.

boots_babe

I'd definitely vote for doing it yourself. Last September, we went to Las Vegas (2nts Mirage, 3 nts Luxor), Los Angeles (5 nts) and San Diego (5nts). And despite staying in the best hotels in each location, it only cost us £850 per person :-)

I'd say trawl the usual flight comparison sites - Expedia, Opodo etc. There are loads of other good ones, some have better deals than others. We got our flights (Man to Las Vegas, Las Vegas to LA, San Diego to Man) for just £400 each.

Then book your hotels separately. As well as the usual hotel sites, I'd definitely recommend Travelaxe, as it came up with some excellent prices. As with any site, it is not ALWAYS the best so check elsewhere, but we found it had cheapest prices 90% of the time.

Good luck with getting some good deals, and hope you all enjoy your holiday. One thing I'd say is spend extra time in Las Vegas if you can. I was dubious about going as not interested in gambling, but the 5 days we had there flew by far too quickly and I was wishing we had at least a couple more days.

blindman

Plenty of good advice on here from others.

My 2 cents:

Flights

Delta fly from Gatwick to LAS (via Atlanta) and they usually come up with cheaper fares than others.

Look at cheapflights for ideas as to who flies into where as well as airline network.

Driving from LAS (Vegas) to LAX is about 4 boring hours but is easily doable.
Loads of cheap flights between the two cities though look at Southwest for cheap fares.

Hotels.
Use priceline for hotels in LAX and Orlando and possibly LAS, though the savings in LAS depend on what offers are on at the time of your visit.

Look for other threads on this site, there are a few around asking the same question.

This type of holiday is easily done by yourself and the savings can be huge compared with a travel agent.

bj-sailaway

Was thinking of doing something similar myself, but a friend who works for BA pointed out that we would be doubling our jet lag, time difference from London to LA, then another considerable time difference between east and west coast of the states. Never done it, but it was pointed out to me as a consideration, especially with all the driving on top.

Apparently the airline recommend a day per hour time difference to recover.

Cardew

boots_babe wrote:

I'd definitely vote for doing it yourself. Last September, we went to Las Vegas (2nts Mirage, 3 nts Luxor), Los Angeles (5 nts) and San Diego (5nts). And despite staying in the best hotels in each location, it only cost us £850 per person :-)

I'd say trawl the usual flight comparison sites - Expedia, Opodo etc. There are loads of other good ones, some have better deals than others. We got our flights (Man to Las Vegas, Las Vegas to LA, San Diego to Man) for just £400 each.

Then book your hotels separately. As well as the usual hotel sites, I'd definitely recommend Travelaxe, as it came up with some excellent prices. As with any site, it is not ALWAYS the best so check elsewhere, but we found it had cheapest prices 90% of the time.

Good luck with getting some good deals, and hope you all enjoy your holiday. One thing I'd say is spend extra time in Las Vegas if you can. I was dubious about going as not interested in gambling, but the 5 days we had there flew by far too quickly and I was wishing we had at least a couple more days.

Good advice, but you went in September! During UK school holidays any Transatlantic flight - especially if Florida is involved on the inward or outward leg - is usually £600-700.
It is possible to get flights to the West Coast with the major airlines for well under £300 at times. Try and see what you can come up with in the window he has given - anything under £700 for flights will be a bonus I suspect.

Murphy_The_Cat

Mrs Cat and I flew from San Diego To Las Vegas to Los Angeles for £27.00 pp each way and the flight took about 50 mins - to put it into context you are going to lose the best part of 2 days driving through the BORING desert in a hire car which will (probably) cost more than the flights !


More time in Vegas with more money to spend YEEEEEEE HAAAAAAHHH

MTC

p.s. it costs a small fortune but a helicoptor trip via the Hoover Dam to the Grand Canyon with a barbecue on an Arizonan ranch was one of the highlights of our USA trip.

oh and anothr thing , don't fly BA longhaul unless you want to be packed into a planeseat like a veal calf !