yummymummy wrote:

Hi I have been looking online on thomascook holidays as I really need a holiday to Goa. I haven't been for a few years and have seen packages for 14 nights Jan 2013 for around the 650 pounds mark

Hi yummymummy

Don't know where your flying from, but we fly out from M/chester on 8/2/2013 with Qatar, and are paying over £750 for flight alone, so yes i think thats a great deal, be interesting to see what other h/trs think. Have a great time.

The Preacher

Hi,

We will also be flying from Manchester :-) , I best get booking then !

Thanks

I think that's a great price for a package I would grab it!!

seems a good price to me,

Just checked Thomas Cook, guessing you might mean going out of Gatwick mid-January.
The hols around the £650 mark seem to be all in Calangute.
If you have never stayed in that town before, or even if it’s been a few years since you were there, you need to think very hard about it.
The town is now very much frequented by young, drunken Indian tourists - out of control.
You will regularly see them urinating in public – anywhere. The town is a mess.
And next to the steps to Calangute beach, and the shacks, is a wondrous mountain
– of foul stinking rubbish.
With huge rats running around it. Even in daytime!
Calangute is a truly filthy, horrible place. And it has to be only a matter of time before Cholera, Typhoid, or something equally unpleasant breaks out there.

Thanks everyone :-)

Ukbill - it is definitely Manchester :-) , total price comes to 1970 for 2 adults and 1 child for 14 nights in calangute. Whilst it's not everyones favorite area, we aren't too bothered as we usually head to Baga or Candolim during the day and eat around Calangute during the evening. This will be my 8th visit to North Goa, although I haven't been for 3 years. Thanks again

ukbill wrote:

Just checked Thomas Cook, guessing you might mean going out of Gatwick mid-January.
The hols around the £650 mark seem to be all in Calangute.
If you have never stayed in that town before, or even if it’s been a few years since you were there, you need to think very hard about it.
The town is now very much frequented by young, drunken Indian tourists - out of control.
You will regularly see them urinating in public – anywhere. The town is a mess.
And next to the steps to Calangute beach, and the shacks, is a wondrous mountain
– of foul stinking rubbish.
With huge rats running around it. Even in daytime!
Calangute is a truly filthy, horrible place. And it has to be only a matter of time before Cholera, Typhoid, or something equally unpleasant breaks out there.

Goodness, is it really that bad now?

.

I do think that is a bit of an exaggeration! We have stayed in Calangute for the last 13 years. I agree around the steps is not a particularly nice place to be but we don't go around there and it is easy to avoid this area. As for domestic tourists, we go at Xmas/New Year and I agree there are a lot of drunken young Indians around but it is also easy to avoid them. As for rats, we have sat in really nice restaurants in Candolim and had them run past our feet. I think Yummy Mummy is quite familiar with North Goa and won't be put off. Hope you get there this time, get booked up, that is a very good price. I think so long as you have a bed and a shower, once you get there you can overlook al the rest as there are moe positives than negatives in my view although someone is bound to disagree with me.

I agree with the last post, certainley the area round the steps in Calangute has been comandeered by the local tourists and they carry on in a very Indian way. However there is a lot more to Calangute than this We now stay at the bottom of Holiday Street near to Nirvana Resturant and use the shacks around there. At the top of Holiday Street are several hotels and eating places used by lots of posters to this site. Certainly most people who use this area of Calangute likely never stray anywhere near the area mentioned around the steps. I walk the 15 min. or so along the beach to the steps every day, to watch the antics and mayhem of the watersports, and it's certainly not for the fainthearted, although I'm amazed at the number of European tourists that choose to sit in the ajoining shacks in the midst of it all. I just would'nt like newcomers to be put of the whole of calangute, by the black views printed here, of one very small part of it.
Alan