I couldn’t think of anything worse.
I’m in the UK right now on holiday. Did HKG-MAN flight on Tuesday, which was 13 hours, and it was bad enough!
Honestly, if I had to do LHR - PER I would probably go to the trouble of booking business class
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i’d love to but this one comes out of my pocket and it was hard enough getting permission from the wife to let me go in economy, let alone business (it’s cost me almost $10,000 when you factor in the package for the test at $8500 that includes flights, accommodation during the test and tickets to the game, than add on the extra accommodation in london)
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Hmmm… At around $6,000 return it’s not cheap.
I’ve been tempted to fly business class overseas, but personally I don’t think it’s worth it.
Definitely not. For that money you can get a (really!) nice hotel when you’re on the ground. I’d rather put up with 24 hours of being uncomfortable so I can spend that money on better accomodation.
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not when it’s over 4 times the price of an economy airfare (i’d priced BNE - LHR return for $1300)
thats $4500 i could spend on a better hotel (or more piss at the cricket 
)
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I have just booked my flights to Europe for 2019. I can only go for a month this year as I fight to finish my studies. So struggling to finish this degree.
So I fly into Budapest and Fly out of Warsaw. Got flight for June - July for $1600. Which I think is the best I have ever paid.
Any suggestions of places to see?
I need to be in London for roughly 10 days. I also have to end up in Barcelona for 3 nights and need to make my way to Amsterdam for a few nights (all to see friends).
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Sounds amazing… want to go later this year just to London, Amsterdam & Venice.
That’s an extreamly good price for flights I would say. Hope you have a really good time!
They are very good places. Whenever I go back to Europe I tend to just do a few places. This time I want to try and make more of the time I have there and get to a few more places. Especially if I am traveling to Budapest - there are 3 countries within 2 hours of one another that are great to visit.
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I am thinking of a return trip to UK in October or November. This time I plan to fly to Hong Kong first, then onward to Helsinki, Berlin then London for a two-week stay in UK. I will fly home on Qantas including the 14-hour trip from London to Perth.
Budapest > Vienna > Prague by train can be easily done. Great cities to visit.
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So I did Prague a few years back but was thinking of going to Bratislava. Have you been?
No, i haven’t been to Bratislava.
I really liked Vienna. Salzburg is really good too but it’s way over the other side of Austria. I did it as pat of a Germany/Austria tour.
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How long did you stay in Budapest and Vienna? And what would you recommend?
It’s hard to say because everyone has different interests. I love architecture and museums and trying the food in these places.
So I tend to think two or three days is usually enough for most cities. The bigger the city, the more there is to see. It depends on arrival and departure times too, of course. I spent 2 days in Vienna (no museums visited) and everything is really spread out so felt I needed at least an extra day there. But maybe two full days in Budapest is enough.
Using a Lonely Planet guide to Europe is great. I’ve got a big chunky Europe one and photocopy/download the pages of the cities I travel to. They give good advice for the best places to visit and eat depending on how long you stay.
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Yeah I have looked but wanted to know from someone else. I am thinking 3 full days in Budapest and 2 full days in Vienna. But not setting anything in stone until a few months before i go.
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What about Ljubljana, the Julian Alps (both in Slovenia), and Croatia’s Adriatic Coast? All of them are easily accessible from Budapest and each provides a very different experience.
Thanks for the suggestions I will look them up. I’m not sure I want to do Croatia just yet. Would rather do it properly - plus I’m not really a beachy person.
Yeah. I’d save Criatia and spend more time there. I did a 12 day tour in 2017 including side day trips to Montenegro and Slovenia and it was awesome. Zagreb, Split, the islands of Hvar & Korchula and especially Dubrovnik. Just brilliant.
I’ve just come back from an 11 day cruise to New Zealand (which included a stop at Hobart on the way back as well) on the Pacific Jewel with P&O. It was my first cruise and definitely a travel experience like I’ve never experienced before.
On paper the thought of having so many days at sea sounded long but I was so impressed with the level of entertainment (musicians, activities, shows etc) that there was never a dull moment, even when we had a couple days of really bad weather. The crowd on the boat was a lot older (as to be expected) which was fine as there were 4 of us doing it together so we were going to have fun regardless. Although the crowd did dictate that a lot of the music was older stuff which did get a bit tired after a while. The themed nights were fun as was celebrating NYE - they threw an amazing party. The food overall was decent enough but we did pay a couple of nights to go to the Salt Grill (a more fine dining restaurant) which was superb. We did have a couple of pretty rocky days on board too as we were apparently going against a current but it didn’t effect me that much, you kind of just got used to it. It was also my first time to New Zeeland and we stopped at Dunedin, Akaroa and Wellington which were all really nice places to visit and luckily the weather got better once we were over there. We also had an afternoon scenic cruising the Fiordland National Park which was stunning.
It was a good experience but I’m definitely a traveller that likes to get out and explore more, although I would definitely consider doing a cruise again. It’s just a different type of holiday and it was great to do over the silly season to just relax and everything you need is close by with not much effort. Probably next time I would either just do a short 2-3 day stint with friends or if I was going somewhere would want to do it somewhere a bit warmer.
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