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Transatlantic cruise over fly back


puli

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Does anyone know if there is a cruise or airline package out there that lets you cruise over to England, stay say a week, and then fly back? I know in the eighties this was a popular trip.

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Puli:

 

I'm a bit confused. Why do you need a package to do this?

 

Paul

 

My husband detest flying especially from West to East. And I want to visit London and the surrounding area. since we both love cruising I figure sailing from the East Coast to say Southhampton, staying a week in London, and then flying back would not be so horendous a trip. I booked a similar trip in the 80's but a family death prevented me from actually taking it. I believe it was a joint venture between British Airlines and Cunard (QE2). The total cost was just a little over the cost of the cruise alone and covered a week of hotels and plane fare.

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Cunard does transatlatic sailings frequently, but i don't know if they package the return flight and stay in London for you. There are also the repositioning voyages when ships return from the caribbean to Europe for the summer 9usually Mar to Apr). These work out very cost effective but are fairly long cruises of say 17-21 nights as they give you ports of call on either side of the Atlantic. certainly on the last one that I was on in April, there were a lot of canadians leaving on the second last day (at le Havre) and doing a week's tour of France before flying home. I also met US citizens who were getting off at Dover and having time in England before flying home. Not sure if it was the cruiseline or the TA that had organised it.I know on my next transatlantic east to west, MSC are flying us to Brazil and giving us a couple of nights in a hotel there before we join the cruise to sail back to the UK.

 

Try asking your TA what they can offer

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Thanks for the suggestions. I do not have a TA (there are none in my area) but I will check with Cunard and other cruise lines tomorrow. I also have sent an email to British Airways and Virgin Airlines.

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Back in the 90s, Cunard bundled the return airfare into the cost of the crossing on the QE2 (Or a free return crossing.)

 

Now they charge the airfare seperatrly. But they do allow you to pick the date to fly with out charging extra,

 

I;m flying on aug. 9th from the US to London. The QM2 does not leave until the 13th.

 

I arranged my own hotel... Way Cheaper!

 

John

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It isn't difficult to book a hotel in London for a week, see some sights, then fly back to the US. We're on a Celebrity Transatlantc cruise from Harwich, England to Bayonne, NJ in September, 2009. (I much prefer flying west to east than the reverse.) I plan to fly to Germany or the UK for some touring before the cruise starts.

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You don't need a package, just book it all yourself. You will have control of your arrangements and save money too.

 

Have you seen any quotes for one-way transatlantic fares recently? They are often more than round-trips, and rarely feature in promotional deals. Plus a one-way ticket is an excellent way to get to learn about how TSA operates, in great detail; it's probably at the top of the terrorist profiling list. Much easier to let Cunard handle it as we are with our April 09 crossing.

 

Incidentally, having done both westbounds and eastbounds, I strongly advise flying over (eg, North America to UK) and crossing back. Eastbound voyages lose an hour for 5 out of the 6 days of the crossing; westbound trips gain an hour for each of 5 days. We feel wrecked after an eastbound crossing, and great after a westbound trip.

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Have you seen any quotes for one-way transatlantic fares recently? They are often more than round-trips, and rarely feature in promotional deals. Plus a one-way ticket is an excellent way to get to learn about how TSA operates, in great detail; it's probably at the top of the terrorist profiling list. Much easier to let Cunard handle it as we are with our April 09 crossing.

 

 

You don't necessarily buy a one-way plane ticket - unless the U.S. port is within driving distance from your home. You would book a multi-city ticket to New York (if on Cunard) and home from London.

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You don't necessarily buy a one-way plane ticket - unless the U.S. port is within driving distance from your home. You would book a multi-city ticket to New York (if on Cunard) and home from London.
Which would almost certainly be priced as two one-way tickets, given the length of the surface sector.
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Does anyone know if there is a cruise or airline package out there that lets you cruise over to England, stay say a week, and then fly back? I know in the eighties this was a popular trip.

 

I hope you are still out there. If so, please acknowledge reading this.

 

We have flown one-way from New York to Dublin, then London, on Aer Lingus. We have also flown from Chicago to Dublin on American Airlines. These flights have been very reasonable in price. Aer Lingus also flies from Chicago, Boston and Washington, I believe.

 

I have not checked, but I would assume that one-way fares from Dublin to the USA are also very reasonable. There are many Aer Lingus and British Air flights from London to Dublin each day, and they typically have been cheap.

 

You could either just change planes in Dublin, or better yet stay in Dublin for a couple of nights. It is a city well worth visiting.

 

Bob :cool:

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I hope you are still out there. If so, please acknowledge reading this.

 

We have flown one-way from New York to Dublin, then London, on Aer Lingus. We have also flown from Chicago to Dublin on American Airlines. These flights have been very reasonable in price. Aer Lingus also flies from Chicago, Boston and Washington, I believe.

 

I have not checked, but I would assume that one-way fares from Dublin to the USA are also very reasonable. There are many Aer Lingus and British Air flights from London to Dublin each day, and they typically have been cheap.

 

You could either just change planes in Dublin, or better yet stay in Dublin for a couple of nights. It is a city well worth visiting.

 

Bob :cool:

Thanks, Bob. I will definitely look into flying via Dublin. If we fly out that means we will be starting from a small comuter airport (Medford,OR) which means we have several change of planes before reaching anywhere nevermind Europe. the best we can hope for is trying to reach Denver, LA, or Portland, OR and then going "across the pond". I will look into a semi-direct flight into Chicago. Flying back from London might be just as difficult but I will research it.

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I am glad you responded. There have been times when I have answered someone's question and never heard back.

 

Out of curiosity I have looked into your flight situation. I was surprised to find that there are one-way flights Dublin to Chicago, connecting to San Francisco or Portland that are reasonably priced. I looked at March which is probably too early for your plans, but still gives a general indication of prices. Apparently the key is leaving from Dublin. This must be due to the presence of Aer Lingus in Dublin and their low prices. It is undoubtedly the reason American has a low price for Chicago to Dublin or return.

 

I am sure that you can find "open jaw" round trips to suit your needs in the USA.

 

You can use sites such as Kayak to get airfare information. Some of their prices direct you to other than airline site themselves, but others direct you to the specific airline. Also, look at sites such as Vayama for fares. For the first time, we have booked through Vayama for one-way New York to Barcelona. This put us on Lufthansa with a change in Düsseldorf. I was able to select seats, and on checking with Lufthansa found that they like Vayama. We have a flight reservation code from Lufthansa itself.

 

This is fun to give advice. I don't know if you have been to London before, but you will enjoy it if you do not worry too much about high prices. We lived in London for a short time many years ago, but have also been back several times since. We like to stay in the Gloucester Street area, close to a couple of museums and on the Piccadilly tube line going directly to the theater district.

 

I have gone this far, so let me plan your complete trip. :D Stay in London for five nights and then in Dublin for at least three nights. You will not be sorry to go to Dublin. There is a great hop-on hop-off bus there and several nice tours into the countryside. We settled on the Mercer Hotel, a bit removed from the big tourist area "Temple Bar."

 

I see that Medford is indeed far from any large city. It must be 250 miles from Portland. Have you considered driving to Portland, parking at the airport, and then flying? We do that here sometimes by driving and parking at Tulsa.

 

With a lot of "homework" I think you can work out a great trip. The people at Cruise Critic have helped me, so I try to reciprocate.

 

Everything is fine on these boards until you get to the discussions of dress codes. :D

 

Bob :rolleyes:

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What a great suggestion! I just reviewed the Aer Lingus schedule and was so surprised at the rates and departure points that we are rethinking our proposed 2009 trip. It looks like we will not cruise over after all but rather fly r/t since the rates could be so low and the flights are direct fron SFO. This would leave us more time to explore Great Britain. Thanks so much, Bob!

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What a great suggestion! I just reviewed the Aer Lingus schedule and was so surprised at the rates and departure points that we are rethinking our proposed 2009 trip. It looks like we will not cruise over after all but rather fly r/t since the rates could be so low and the flights are direct from SFO. This would leave us more time to explore Great Britain. Thanks so much, Bob!

 

You have not said whether you have been to London before. If you haven't, I can give you info on such as the half price theater ticket office, etc. I can also let you know about finding a good TA, if you like. Since this is a cruise site, and you may not cruise for this trip, you can send to bobe at uark dot edu if you want. Don't bring up anything on a TA on this site, however.

 

I did not even realize that Aer Lingus flew from SFO to DUB. It may be that it is cheaper to buy separate round trip ("return" to Brits) tickets from SFO to DUB, and then DUB to London. I think Aer Lingus has a deal where those flying RT across the ocean with them can then check two pieces of luggage each for any Aer Lingus flights within Europe for the following two weeks.

 

Should you want to overnight at DUB, there are hotels at the airport. We stayed at a Clarion there I believe. It was OK, not great, but the price was reasonable and their bus took people from and to the terminal. There are a couple of other hotels there also.

 

If you want, send an e-mail. Best that you label it "Oregon puli" or similar so we don't delete it as spam.

 

Bob :cool:

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Thanks, Bob! We are still debating "The great Vacation of '09" but rest assured if the UK trip wins (cruise or no cruise) I will email you for more information.

 

We are taking our time while continously keeping an eye on the stock market. That we will vacation somewhere is a given what isn't is the range of our budget. I personally would like to return to London since it has been over 35 years since I last spent any real time there; and "yes" I will need advice on current places to stay and things to see.

 

The competition is a visit to Montreal followed by a repeat cruise on the Maasdam to Boston. We did this in '05 minus the pre-cruise Montreal stay and thoroughly enjoyed it. Ironically the air expense is almost the same for both of the above trips. Obviously it does not pay to live any great distance from an authentic international airport ( the one in Medford is called an "international airport" however this must derive from possibly some monthly cargo flight from some foreign place!).

Jenny

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I also am a big fan of using Aer Lingus. They fly from almost every city in Europe to the USA (NYC,Chicago, Boston, DC) via Dublin. A nice feature of this airline is they sell one-way fares for half the price of round trip. They also allow stopovers in Ireland (up to 30 days) for no additional cost plus you get to keep the higher North Atlantic baggage allowances.

 

Hank

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