Aah, that date is just slightly too late for me in any case. Mine are back in school on the Wednesday (1st Sept). I'm not getting anything like that quote though - are you trying for 2 separate rooms? Family room may be dearer.

Chris its a suite for 4, are you putting the kids in as kids, why not try as an adult, I know direct holidays booking system don't let you book kids as adults but they might over the phone. Doing 2 rooms was more expensive, I am waiting for the royal dragon to go back on sale with direct to get a better price than what TC want. I have 1 daughter starting college and another uni and its made getting the right date to go difficult because if I start looking at the 12th to the 15th the price rockets. Have you thought about doing a 10 or 11 day holiday, cuts the price down and you are back in time for when schools start back the last price I had for the royal D for 10 nts 19th to 29th £2900. I just checked the royal D for the 15th with Thomas c and its just over £5K. As soon as the Royal D comes back on sale with direct I will be booking it straight away because the prices won't hang around for long.

can't think of .... I was only browsing. I've booked with Direct Holidays for Royal Dragon (3 adults/1 child - got a free child place) in a suite going on 31/7/10 and a good discount verbally. RW is a better price than last week, and I do think prices have dropped, but I'm really pleased to be going to RD. Do you know why it went off sale with DH? Royal Wings is definitely one I'm going to be looking at next time though. I was going from the TC brochure price originally, and it was waaay expensive! I didn't really consider a shorter break than 14 nights - that was a good price you got though.

Chris

The days of free child places for me are long, cheap days. It went off sell with DH because of a pricing issue, the hotel were charging DH more than the contract, they are in the process of sorting it out until its sorted out its off sell, I was told 3 to 4 working days.

Having to pay 4 adult prices are a killer, when my kids were young we couldn't get hotels like the RD. How much did you pay chris and the verbal discount, I tried for a extra discount and the woman said I will need to phone operations and get back to you, she didn't do either. Anyway I will try again because i want a suite and not a room for 4. On the web the onlin discount is coming up between £700 to £800.

I paid £4700 in the end, which I thought was a great price - when it came on sale with both DH and TC, it was around £5,700. We thought we were going to be 4 adults this year, but decided to go a bit earlier before my son turned 13 (20th August). There are cheaper hotels, but I really fancied this one!

I am the same as you chris i have fancied this one since it was pointed out to me last year, if I had seen it before I booked the hemera with direct I would of gone for the RD this year, but direct didn't do it and it was only with TC.

I'll get there one day ... I had Larespark booked with First Choice for last Easter, then they pulled the hotel so we decided to go back to our old favourite S/C apartment that we've visited for years, then amazingly Direct Holidays started offering RW at a really good price. I was gutted as I had already booked our flights and paid in full!

I booked our holiday for next year this morning! 2 weeks in Turkey, First choice Premier Families hotel 4+ AI, it's the last week in May/1st week in June so includes half term week - £1490 for 2xA and 1xChild, in flight meals and reserved seating! Very very pleased with the price...especially as the price has now gone up nearly £500 since I booked at 10.00am!

Sounds good Maisy ... out of interest, what hotel is that?

La Blanche in Turgutreis - it looks fab

anyone else noticed how expensive TC are for hols next year. Was looking at some prices for a holiday to Sicily for next year at the weekend and didnt think the prices were that bad. Been in today to book and all the holidays (not just the one hotel i was interested in) has gone up in price in the region of £200/£300 per person. i think this is just crazy, i expect it to maybe go up slightly but not by £300 each. really fed up now.

daz - keep checking the websites. In my experience, they go up and very often come back down again. First Choice I have seen fluctuate by hundreds of pounds hourly in the past! Obviously, in this current climate, things are different, but if its too expensive and people aren't booking, they're bound to come back down again.

thanks chris

I booked last Saturday with Direct Holidays and the web was £2770.00 for 3 adults (1 being 15) and a child for 2 weeks to Crete half board and when i went into the office to book it it was £2449.00, so it might be worth calling into the travel agent. I was well pleased ps there was no free child place because its a hotel but a reduced child price, and Thomas Cook for same holiday was looking £3200 odds plus meals and 20kg luggage prob work out another few hundred.

Flights now out for summer 2010 with Thomson - £300 EACH return for August! I don't think so!!!!!!!!!!! Don't think they'll sell many at that price somehow!

Just looked at august 2010 antalya flight with thomson £439 each, they can stick that price.

Monarch/Cosmos go on sale 16th July

My feelings exactly can't think of a user name! Prices are ridiculous, no way on earth they'll shift them unless they look at reducing them by 50%. Anyone who books flights at their current prices obviously has money to burn! looks like we'll be flying Jet2 or Easyjet as there is NO way I'm paying £1500 plus seats plus baggage for 5 of us!

I got a really good price for next year. 2 weeks, 19th june, icmeler sun village apartments, for 5 flying from manchester £1380 with...Thomsons i was shocked because they are usually sooo expensive. The price for flying from my local airport, Newcastle, was £2200 for the same holiday so i have made a very good saving.
Also something to be aware of....the Travel shops are advertising that they will beat any price, even internet prices, however when we went into the Thomson shop we were told that we HAD to take their insurance for them to do this for us(which by the way, was £70...and anyone that has previously arranged their own insurance will know you can get the same cover if not better for a fraction of that price if you look around the internet) No we didn`t, which i knew already, they are not allowed to hold us over a barrel to try to get rid of their ins this way, anyway the young girl in the shop wouldn`t budge informing us that her boss had told her to do this and that we couldn`t speak to her as she was on her lunch!!!!
So i upped and left and took my booking elsewhere....next door to the Thomas cook shop, where i got the exact same deal from the internet with no insurance pushed on me.

Its illegal for travel agent to tie taking out their insurance to any booking.