Summer holidays - are you planning one for 2014?

WantToBeSE

Not very exciting but i am hoping to spend a week in Kent (Ashford) near to the summer holidays.
Might do a day trip into London and also a day trip across the tunnel to France.

provista_2

22 nights touring Route 66 for our silver wedding, can't wait��

flutterby_lil

angelil wrote: »

Oooh, I love the West Country. Good choice We're planning on a driving holiday: we live in France, so planning to drive out of France into Switzerland so hubby can visit the watch museum (and I'm sure I'll find a chocolate museum of some kind ). Shan't be staying there long though as Switzerland is expensive Will then drive out of Switzerland down into northern Italy and stay for about a week hopefully. Ideally in an agiturismo type place. Then back into France from northern Italy and across to my husband's parents' place (they live in the south of France, about an hour's drive from Alès) for 1 or 2 weeks before driving back home. Good times

We went to Switzerland in November, was VERY expensive but so picturesque.

nearlyrich

poet123 wrote: »

Can I ask what time of year you went? We are tied to school hols and the only thing worrying us is the weather (July) we don't expect sky high temps but don't want cold and rain.....

We went to St Petersburg on a Baltic Cruise in July 2011 it was lovely weather in every port we visited. If you are thinking of getting a visa so you can explore on your own it was well worth it for us considering the cost of ship excursions. If you have any more questions we can help with let me know.

poet123

nearlyrich wrote: »

We went to St Petersburg on a Baltic Cruise in July 2011 it was lovely weather in every port we visited. If you are thinking of getting a visa so you can explore on your own it was well worth it for us considering the cost of ship excursions. If you have any more questions we can help with let me know.

Any info on that would be very useful as I was just thinking we would do the ship's excursions there. We never do that, but the visa issues seemed to be hard to sort out.

CruisingSaver

poet123 wrote: »

Can I ask what time of year you went? We are tied to school hols and the only thing worrying us is the weather (July) we don't expect sky high temps but don't want cold and rain.....

We're tied to school holidays too! We went in mid-August and whilst it wasn't dry every day it was warmer than the UK.


The only exception to this was Oslo where it was bucketing down and freezing!


CS

CruisingSaver

poet123 wrote: »

Any info on that would be very useful as I was just thinking we would do the ship's excursions there. We never do that, but the visa issues seemed to be hard to sort out.

You don't need to get a Visa for Russia unless you plan on exploring on your own, which I wouldn't recommend unless you speak Russian.


We did a private tour and the tour company provided a blanket visa as part of the cost. This is the same as the cruise lines provide for their shore excursions.


We used Anastasia Travel for our tour but other reputable companies are Denrus, SPB Travel, Red October (use the Russian office not the US one though), and TJ Travel.


Some companies provide a tour share facility but we preferred to keep it to just the 3 of us.


The Northern Europe and Baltic destination board of Cruise Critic has loads of useful information. This thread provides a taster:


http://cruiseforums.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1906210

CS

nearlyrich

poet123 wrote: »

Any info on that would be very useful as I was just thinking we would do the ship's excursions there. We never do that, but the visa issues seemed to be hard to sort out.

We booked quite late and were expecting to have a problem getting the visa but they came in a couple of days.. I hate being herded about and with two full days to fill it would have cost a fortune on the ship tours. We went to the Peterhof on a hydrofoil and we went all around the places the ship tours went to under our own steam, we didn't do the Hermitage as DH had been before and I'm not really into museums and art galleries..


Have you picked a cruise company yet?

poet123

nearlyrich wrote: »

We booked quite late and were expecting to have a problem getting the visa but they came in a couple of days.. I hate being herded about and with two full days to fill it would have cost a fortune on the ship tours. We went to the Peterhof on a hydrofoil and we went all around the places the ship tours went to under our own steam, we didn't do the Hermitage as DH had been before and I'm not really into museums and art galleries..


Have you picked a cruise company yet?

Probably Celebrity, from Southampton.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Devon/Cornwall at some point. My first holiday in 13 years.

And if we can scrape together the farthings and groats for his passport renewal, somewhere incredibly cheap overseas.