Courtneelouise

Any price you pay for a holiday is relevant to what you will receive for your money. You are going to hotel accommodation, probably guaranteed sunshine and all for under £1300 (4 people). And the flight is pretty long and dearer than the flights say to Italy, Southern France or Spain.

Like Beauty - Value is in the eye of the beholder.

Alternative Holiday 4 People. One Week:- Southern Spain (Granada, Almeria, Murcia etc) Prices in Euro not GBP£. Flights:- €400, Accommodation €350.00 (2 Bed Apartment), Car Rental €120.00, Petrol €60.00 (probably even less), Food (Restaurant Breakfast and Restaurant Dinner) €400.00 max. [Sunshine not guaranteed though. but likely] - And all for GBP£650 maximum and if I put my mind to it, I'm sure I would come up with cheaper for the time of year.

Hi Courtneelouise, the way I would check to see if I had a good deal would be to price it up against a package deal. I usually do that before I make the booking but we've done DIY twice now and it's always come up cheaper to do it that way and we are doing DIY again next year.

Have a lovely holiday

Courtneelouise

If you paid the price quoted, then presumably you were happy with it!

People on this forum can be competitive, and someone will always tell you that they know of a cheaper bargain.

Your price sounds good to me. You should be happy, and we all hope you have a great time.

Hi Courtneelouise,

You've got the holiday you wanted at a price you were prepared to pay - end of story. It's irrelevant whether you could have got a cheaper holiday in southern Spain or any other destination if you really wanted to go to Cyprus. October can be a pricey month for flights because of the way the school half term holidays fall. And you'll always end up paying more for if, for whatever reason, you can't book with a no-frills carrier when they first publish their new schedules.

I'm off to the Canaries in October and I know that there are loads of people who would tell me on this forum that I could do it cheaper than this holiday will cost us but:

- both my parents are disabled and I prefer to pay more for BA flights whose assistance for disabled passengers is so much more reliable than anything we've can guarentee recieving from the charter/no frills operators. For example, I would only ever use Ryanair as the very last resort when travelling with them both now.

- for understandable reasons we prefer decent day time flights, preferably morning flights because it means we can be at out final destination by early/mid-afternoon.

- we prefer to travel from Manchester and flights from there always cost us more than what the friend who will be joining us this year can get out of Gatwick.

- we don't like big resorts and prefer very small, quiet ones so always go over to La Gomera rather than stay on Tenerife and with a smaller pool of suitable apartments to choose from prices tend to be higher. We also like to stay at one particular small block right be the quayside and harbour beach at Valle Gran Rey. Not the cheapest but certainly the best value for money to our minds.

- even though we stay in an apartment we eat out all the time but don't like to use bars and restaurants that cater for British visitors with cheap menus - we like to splash out on the best of the local cuisine.

So this year, it's costing us about £400 per head for flights, ferries and the large 2 bed apartment for 4 adults. I'm sure that we could get something far cheaper on Tenerife itself, especially with night time flights. We could probably even get a package cheaper than what we pay for these DIY trips but it simply wouldn't be the holiday we wanted. Enjoy you're holiday which you've been able to tailor-make to your own requirements which is the reason why I usually go DIY - not because it's cheaper but because it means I can get exactly the holiday I want.

SM

Hi. I'd just like to add my piece. We've booked a week in Costa Del Sol B&B for easter week, next year. Price we've paid including return flights from Bristol was £1,080 total for 6 adults. We're really chuffed! Whenever we've compared a package with a Diy before we've not gained much but I will certainly be comparing prices more often now. The secret is to get the cheap flights. Couldn't believe we managed to get cheap flights during the Easter period. Costa Del Sol! Here we come

yep, diy is the way to go, booked flights to tenerife for next easter £440 for 3 of us return, and private 2bed duplex apartment for £300 for a week and thats in term time !
how chuffed am I ?
as other posters have said, we all have our own ideas on what we consider a good deal, if your'e happy with what you've paid, great !
just don't keep looking at the flights and be gutted if they go down in price !
happy hols,
juby

Thankyou for that everyone!
looks like weve made a good choice then!
& we also had a car for £120 for the week so that was very good!
were we live in Bristol its about 10 minutes away from the airport so we tryed everywhere for Bristol airport & belive it or not we found flights from bristol to larnaca £5760!!! when we have just got ours to manchester for £878! like SMa said maybe its because the prices go up because of the kids half term ?

if we like the place were in now what were renting were looking to go for a hole year next year and its round about £4000 maybe if we like it then we could make a move and buy out there!

Happy Hols For Everyone

Oh just before i go while im here i might aswell add does anyone know if my daughter can take her Nintendo DS on the plane? i know you can take ipods and use your phone if you put it in flight mode but not to sure about her DS

Thanks,
CourtneeLouise

no probs with the ds , my daughter uses hers on the plane also, have a fabulous time on your jollies !
juby

i know you can take ipods and use your phone if you put it in flight mode

Correction - You cannot use a mobile on the flight under any circumstances, even in flight mode.

luci

Jeez Guys - I'm getting some bad press here (and to be honest I think I inadvertently brought it on myself - Sorry, I put my foot in 'it' as usual)

And now to ruin the apology with an explanation:- You go to Marks & Spencer and buy an item and two weeks later you return to the shop to find the item at half price. You cannot argue as you purchased at the going price and subsequently the price of the item was reduced.

It is the same here, a holiday was booked (good value, of that there is no doubt).

But, why have bread when you can eat cake (that is if you want cake, of course!). By dealing directly with holiday home owners and low cost airlines (even from Bristol) we enjoy several holidays per year. For example in early November we are flying into Alicante (return) for around £40 each (incl of all taxes etc) and have rented an apartment in Almeria for £220 approx, There are four of us so the whole lot including car rental comes to not more than £450. Obviously, petrol must also be purchased. This kind of deal is widely and easily available through the internet.

That is all I was trying to say and no offence was meant and I hope the holiday in Cyprus goes well (incidentally Cyprus is an excellent holiday destination).