The Dis Exclusive City of Knights and Lights Trip 10/8 - 10/17/2012

[LionKingRules84]

Yeah I haven't started with airfare yet myself because I'm not sure when I'm leaving France(it looks like I may be spending the following week of the adventure in Normandy but not sure for how long).

I was considering British Airways to get there since I took them to and from Europe back in 2000 when I went in High School and I thought they were great but I heard they aren't as good as they use to be. I still hear good things about Air France so I'm considering them for the return trip. I personally want to try to avoid the American companies if at all possible but that is just me. I know Pete is in the rewards program for Delta and they sound decent to their loyal customers not sure about first timers.

I'm a bit nervous about getting airfare since the last time I flew was in '07 when I went to Florida, I haven't taken an 8 hour flight since 2000 and neither trip were all that fun. Getting there is always the hardest for me when traveling to Europe or anything beyond Florida.

[sayhello]

Originally Posted by me_minnie_me

Right now I'm having problems pulling the trigger on purchasing airfare. There are a couple of options that I'm looking at - Delta and British Airways. Does anyone have any thoughts on these airlines? My only experiences are with the Canadian airlines - WestJet and Air Canada (which is experiencing labour relation problems - which makes me wary of booking with them).

Looking forward to meeting everyone.

Karen

Delta and British Airways are associated in some weird fashion (I still can't keep it straight) but look closely. Nine times out of ten, the flights are codeshares, and are actually the same flights. British Airways does not let you select seats ahead of time. Delta does (although apparently "reserved seat" is not an absolute with Delta, and is open to change by them whenever they feel like it).

Sayhello

[me_minnie_me]

From what I've been seeing on Kayak.com (at least for my search preference) - British Airways is not code sharing flight to and from Toronto, but Delta is with Air France. It's a bit fustrating at the moment as the best price that I saw for Britsh Airways was a couple weeks ago when it was about $940 return. Now I'm seening Delta at about the same price and it is quite tempting to pull the trigger.

Karen

[lost*in*cyberspace]

Originally Posted by sayhello

Delta and British Airways are associated in some weird fashion (I still can't keep it straight) but look closely. Nine times out of ten, the flights are codeshares, and are actually the same flights. British Airways does not let you select seats ahead of time. Delta does (although apparently "reserved seat" is not an absolute with Delta, and is open to change by them whenever they feel like it).

Delta and British Airways are members of different airline alliances; they are not associated. Delta is a member of the SkyTeam Alliance; British Airways is a member of the OneWorld Alliance.

British Airways does let you chose seats in advance.

A reserved seat is not an absolute for any airline.

[sayhello]

Originally Posted by lost*in*cyberspace

Delta and British Airways are members of different airline alliances; they are not associated. Delta is a member of the SkyTeam Alliance; British Airways is a member of the OneWorld Alliance.

British Airways does let you chose seats in advance.

A reserved seat is not an absolute for any airline.

From British Airways' site:

Everyone can choose a seat FREE of charge at check-in, from 24 hours before departure.

You can also choose your seat as soon as you've made your booking.
Use our guide to find out if it's free for you or if there's a charge.

The only people who can chose seats at the time of booking (without paying a premium for it) are people who have high frequent flyer status, people with kids, people with disabilities, etc. The regular old everyday traveler can't select a seat until check-in.

Sayhello

[LionKingRules84]

Aside from getting the tickets I noticed that you can't get a direct flight out of Paris every plane seems to stop in Heathrow before heading back to the US(well at least PHL since that's the closets airport for me and it's international). It's rather frustrating I swear I had more options when flying to Florida than Europe. ugh!

All of the posts on this so far are extremely helpful by the way! I love how helpful everyone is on here.

[garneska]

I guess i have a good/bad issue with flights. I cannot book as i may be traveling for work right after the trip and possibly before. Of course to make it worse that travel is to Germany, so I may go from Paris to Berlin and then back to the USA. The good thing is that i should be good for the vacation but i just dont know my flight routes yet. I could potentially be in Europe for 6 weeks. While that sounds great I will definitely miss my doggies. Plus i might miss good flight prices as i DEFINITELY cannot book anything yet.

[whodini]

We'll be flying Delta out of ATL using skymiles. Still trying to figure out the best way to fly business/first right now. Unfortunately it seems there are no "low point" flights there and back so it's going to deplete almost my entire skymiles account, which I'm still OK with.

Anyone else planning on getting to London a day or two early? We'll most likely take the red eye Saturday night which will give us almost 2 full days before meeting everyone on Monday night.

[LionKingRules84]

Originally Posted by whodini

Anyone else planning on getting to London a day or two early? We'll most likely take the red eye Saturday night which will give us almost 2 full days before meeting everyone on Monday night.

I've already booked two pre-nights with ABD in London I plan on leaving friday evening and getting there saturday morning so I have most of that day, Sunday and Monday to spend in London. This is probably the last time I will be in London for a long time(if ever again) so I want to make sure I have more than enough time to do everything. Staying up that entire Saturday is going to be rough though!

[NejTheLion]

Finally got around to posting on here. We're excited to be joining everyone on our second ABD trip and our second one with the DIS!!

My name is Jen, and I'll be traveling with my parents, Debbi and Barry. We were on the ABD Backstage Magic trip last July/August with Pete, Walter, Corey, and Julie, and it was an absolute blast! We were tempted to go on the very first ABD London/Paris trip a year ago, but we had something else scheduled around the same time and just couldn't make it work. So we were thrilled to hear that there would be another one this year!

I'm especially excited because we'll be celebrating my parents' 35th anniversary on the trip. Yes, the actual day we arrive in Disneyland Paris, October 15, is their anniversary. We've spent a couple days in London and Paris, London most recently around our DCL Baltic cruise, Paris almost 15 years ago. But this will be our first time going to any Disney park outside of the US.

[NejTheLion]

Originally Posted by garneska

Am excited seems our thread is a litle slow but we are still 9 months out. I know Bert and I will be coming in Sun before the adventure starts. Right now i think we are planning on visiting the Brittish Library, British Muesum, and Churchill War Rooms.

We toured the British Museum the last time we were in London. Quite amazing - definitely worth a stop.

[NejTheLion]

Originally Posted by sayhello

I can highly recommend a company called London Walks.

http://www.walks.com/

I know they have a Beatles walking tour, and a pretty well-known Jack the Ripper walking tour. The tour I took was a Harry Potter tour, and it was a really great mix of sites mentioned in the books, sites used in the movies and sites dealing with some of the mythology that JKRowling used. I really wish I'd managed to take more of the walks (especially the Jack the Ripper one).

Sayhello

I'll second this recommendation. We did the Dickens walk the last time we were in London, and it was excellent. All you have to do is show up at the appointed time in the appointed location and have money to pay for everyone in your group. Then off you go! Our tour guide, Jean, dressed in period costume and led us through all these little backstreets that seemed to have changed remarkably little since Dickens' time. I'll be looking to see if we can fit one of these in before our trip starts. Though I'm thinking about going to Borough Market as well. Decisions, decisions...

[NejTheLion]

We just booked our flights with Virgin Atlantic. We flew with them the last time we went to Europe, and they were (to use Kevin's favorite word) spectacular! We then used Virgin America to fly to California for the Backstage Magic trip and were similarly impressed. The only bad thing is that they don't fly to that many places out of Washington, but we're going to take advantage of them whenever possible.

Their loyalty program is extremely reasonable (you can use Atlantic or America points for flights, and the amount of points needed seems small compared to the US carriers we typically fly with). So we transferred over a bunch of Marriott points to cover upgrading the flights from economy to upper class, and then our credit union's rewards credit card will be taking care of the cost for the economy flights. So we're essentially flying for free! And upper class with Virgin Atlantic has the seats that go all the way flat. I've never slept so well on a plane

[NejTheLion]

Originally Posted by LionKingRules84

I've already booked two pre-nights with ABD in London I plan on leaving friday evening and getting there saturday morning so I have most of that day, Sunday and Monday to spend in London. This is probably the last time I will be in London for a long time(if ever again) so I want to make sure I have more than enough time to do everything. Staying up that entire Saturday is going to be rough though!

Jet lag definitely affects people in different ways. Just be careful that you don't wear yourself out entirely because I've found it can take longer to recover if you don't deal with it right away.

The last time we flew to Europe, we took an overnight flight and arrived around 7:00am local time. We were able to get some sleep on the plane, but it's never going to be as much or as good as you would get in an actual bed. Here's the plan I devised to get us back on track as quickly as possible...

We went from the airport straight to our hotel, and since we had requested an early check-in time, they were able to accommodate us. Otherwise we were planning to stay in the airport lounge until our room as ready. Once we had all of our bags in the room, we stopped and took about a three-hour nap. We woke up in the afternoon and went out to have high tea. Then back to our hotel room for another three-hour nap. Then out for a late dinner. Then back to the hotel for some real sleep.

We woke up relatively early the next morning (had a day-trip booked heading outside of London), and we made it through the entire day without feeling any noticeable jet lag. So my recommendation would be to take it easy on your arrival day, but also keep yourself from sleeping too long. Those 2 three-hour naps were just enough to refresh us without letting our internal clocks get completely off. Plan one or two things on that day so you'll be forced to wake up, but give yourself time for some serious naps as well.

We're planning to do basically the same thing this time around. Flying Saturday night, using Sunday to adjust to the time difference, and then having Monday during the day for some fun in the city before joining everyone for dinner

[disneyholic family]

this trip is exactly when i'll be in orlando (arriving on oct 9 and staying until oct 21, when i 'finally' board the disney dream!! woo hoo!!!)

but october in london/paris is fabulous....moderate weather and the heaving masses of summer tourists are long gone!!

too bad i can't join you...but i'm not worried ....just as i'm finally getting to cruise on the dream after many many aborted attempts, i'm sure i'll eventually get to join a podcast something or other (be it ABD or cruise)