That's a bargain Fiona enjoy the next leg of your holiday

The exchange rate is certainly helping but the visa cost sort of offsets that.

Cambodia came close where standards are much higher for hotels etc but there is no doubt if you want to do cheap Goa is hard to beat.

We did not stint in any way and ate in decent places our most expensive bill including food beer a bottle of wine and usually a couple of Irish coffees never came to more than 2100 rupees.

In the UK a similar meal when we got home cost us £75.00.

It is very easy to live well in Goa for little. Also if you want you can do it much cheaper than we did.

And remember Goa is considered by most domestic tourists to be the most expensive state in India.

Fond memories indeed apart from the two 24 hour delays.

Hope you are having a great time Fiona.

Papa

Sounds a bargain Fiona, the costs when there do sound tempting

The price of the visa is a bit off putting and certainly an influencing factor in any decision whether to go to Goa or not, we have paid entry or departure fees many times in various countries however they are of a much more reasonable cost of up to something like £30 pp at the most NOT around the £100 mark as it is for Goa.

A 90 day visa for Turkey is only around £13 for example so is there really any justifiable excuse for the price being charged to allow people to visit Goa?

Having said all that we went in to the TA on Friday to look for a January holiday and Goa was in fact my intended destination, however in the end we booked a Caribbean Cruise and stay in Jamaica, perhaps sometime in the future for Goa?

Kiltman HT Mod wrote:

The price of the visa is a bit off putting and certainly an influencing factor in any decision whether to go to Goa or not, we have paid entry or departure fees many times in various countries however they are of a much more reasonable cost of up to something like £30 pp at the most NOT around the £100 mark as it is for Goa.

A 90 day visa for Turkey is only around £13 for example so is there really any justifiable excuse for the price being charged to allow people to visit Goa?

I don't think the Indian Government have to justify the price of a visa. The cost is the cost.

From what I've read, the visa price is high to UK citizens because of what the UK government charge Indian citizens to visit the UK. Tit-for-tat, in other words.
Visas to visit India for other nationalities is cheaper than we pay.

Visa-on-arrival may be cheaper for the short stayers, the application process should certainly be easier.
Not sure if it will work out cheaper for the twice-per-season visitors as they'd need 2 visas. and if you get a full page stamp on your passport each time that would be 2 pages used instead of the one so your passport will run out of pages quicker and will need renewing more frequently.

Just curious - why did you change your mind from Goa to Caribbean?

not much of a difference- the Caribbean or Goa???
Thanks Papa- yes it was a nice rest.

I don't think the Indian Government have to justify the price of a visa. The cost is the cost.

That could be part of the reason visa costs are so high, nobody querying prices and asking for a breakdown of the price or refusing to pay, to say that ' The cost is the cost' doesn't add up, particularly if what I read is correct and visitors from other countries pay less.

Just curious - why did you change your mind from Goa to Caribbean?

Several reasons, to get to Goa we would have to go from Manchester / London so would have to make our way down there and stay before and or after we return, we fly to the Caribbean from Glasgow airport 20 minutes away from the house.

The package cost (I know many of you arrange your own travel hotel etc) was only slightly more for the cruise and stay in Jamaica than the quoted price for Goa, it will be a new service only starting from Scotland so I think the price probably reflects that to encourage people to use it.

The cruise including a drinks package and highly upgraded cabin, pre-booked seats on the plane and a week in a 5* AI hotel in Jamaica was only £1100 more than the cost of the Marinha Dourada on B&B then there is the visa costs and travel related costs to be factored in.

As I said maybe next year if they introduce the visa on arrival, I wouldn't go through all the hassle just to get a visa at the moment, there are many other countries that make it a simple and quick process.

people are querying the price Graham- and not going. But its nothing Goa can do about it really. Hopefully a big downturn of Indian tourists will have focussed the Indian govt

Kiltman has a good point,

This year we decided to do a few nights in the south and then 10 in North Goa. We made the decision to pay much more for our accomodation than we usually would and upgraded our flights to premium.

Along with the cost of the visas it added up to a pretty penny. Very cheap spends wise once rhere though.

I was actually shocked when I got home and added it all up.

For similar if not a little more money we could have done 5 star Carribean AI and the standards as we know are much higher even if the experience can be a little packaged.

Of course Goa can be done very much cheaper than we did it but at our time of life its not for us any more to do it like that.

Still though not many places as cheap to eat and drink out as Goa. If you were not to be AI in the Carribean I imagine you would need a second mortgage for your spends.

but if you flew premium to the Caribbean it would not have been a similar price. Overall with hotel and all spends for each day we were £50- £55. However, I do know that you can do the Caribbean fairly cheaply as well. You can spend less in a lot of cases going SC. Love the Caribbean as well

We missed last year, the first time in over twenty odd years. Decided to return next season, and have accom. fixed. However, advancing years, we're both in our mid seventies, means that we cant be bothered with the hassle of going through Mumbai any more The dates we could travel are the last week in Jan. 2015. Qatar flies from Edinburgh, our nearest airport but want about £1400 for the two fares, the cheapest at present out of Manchester at the same dates is £1305 The Edinburgh flight means an overnight in Doha on the way out, and the Manchester one means an overnight stay on the way back, add these costs on along with the visas and a possible train down to Manchester and an overnight there and its a no no. We are cheaper flying Emirates to Sydney from Glasgow, with a free online tourist visa thrown in.
So yes its cheap as chips once you arrive but unless Qatars flights magically become competative I cant see our proposed trip taking place We even tried a charter flight option but both Thomson and Thomas Cook are asking about £900 for a flight only three week deal

Alan

Kiltman HT Mod wrote:

That could be part of the reason visa costs are so high, nobody querying prices and asking for a breakdown of the price or refusing to pay, to say that ' The cost is the cost' doesn't add up, particularly if what I read is correct and visitors from other countries pay less.

As Fiona has pointed out, some people feel the Indian visa price is too high and have voted with their feet.
Some have had a tantrum, said they weren't going back - and then booked again.

The cost really is what it is - non-negotiable.
You either choose to book a holiday to Goa, knowing the cost of a visa and factor that into your overall spends or you don't go.

I doubt very much that High Commission of India would enter into any sort of discussion about the breakdown of the visa cost.

Blame the UK Government if you want to blame anyone. That's why the cost is high.

Plenty of Russians to fill hotel rooms to make up for the lack of UK tourists.
The fact that they may not spend as much money as Brits (not sure if this is true or not but I have heard it mentioned) may impact on Goan businesses but it's not Goa that sets the visa price.
And there's the rapidly growing domestic tourist market.

I can see the advantage of you choosing the Caribbean over Goa.
The number of charter flights to Goa have been diminishing over the years.
For 2014-15 Monarch have withdrawn their flight from Manchester, leaving only TC & Thomson.
Maybe it will end up like Kerala. There used to be charter flights into Trivandrum years ago, but I don't think there is now.

On a long-haul flight, door-to-door timings can make a big difference.

PPC
From what I have seen of Russians they probably spend more at the shacks than the Brits. They do tend, from my observations. to eat a lot at lunchtime and also spend a fair bit on drinks( without being drunk). Some stayed on to eat early evening as well. Perhaps its the restaurants rather than the shacks that notice less money being spent though.

Alan
the thing with Qatar as you know is that all of a sudden the flights can go right down in price. Its a case of checking every day.
We did however, wait for Bangkok to go down for summer and then gave up as they were ridiculously more expensive than what we had previously paid.

Fiona wrote:

PPC
From what I have seen of Russians they probably spend more at the shacks than the Brits. They do tend, from my observations. to eat a lot at lunchtime and also spend a fair bit on drinks( without being drunk). Some stayed on to eat early evening as well. Perhaps its the restaurants rather than the shacks that notice less money being spent though.

I think some Russians take alcohol down to the beach, a very nice chap on the next sunbed kept offering me Old Monk that he had in a carrier bag.

But I do agree that they seem to eat a lot - and often, also in restaurants as well as shacks.

Actually, it's the jeweller-type shops that have said to me that the Russians don't spend a lot of money.

Bit the bullet at last,booked Qatar out of Edinburgh for three weeks, the end of January, the flight from Edinburg gets in after the Goa flight leaves so it will bean overnight in Doha. The hotels are half the price of Dubai so it's no great hassle and the flight backs a short transit and we are back in Edinburgh by lunchtime, the flights cost me £644 and I was not sure as to the chance of them dropping much so I just booked them As you said Fiona sometimes you wait for them to come down and they never do.
Off subject I know, but if anyone has any suggestions for an overnight hotel not far from the airport I would like to here, we won't get to the hotel until after midnight, all we want is somewhere half decent,with a pool where we will spend the day till the flight to Goa.
Alan

do you need a visa now for Doha? I wouldn't mind having a look around
Perhaps the airlne has hotel deals?

I think so Fiona, it's just a few Quid, I think, available on arrival, same as Dubai, I also see to remember somewhere that Qatar Air arrange it for you online, I'll check it out in due course. Most of the hotels are close to the airport so that's another plus point
Alan

I did look at hotels a few years back when the best priced flights I could get meant about 13 hours in Doha. I can't for the life of me remember where I was going to stay but we ended up with a change of plans.