Topic Wiki

Points Used:

UR: 133K
MR: 40K
SPG: 90K
AA: 148K
UA: 95K
Hyatt: 4 free nights
Marriott: 146K and 2 free nights (still waiting for some points to post and then change cash res. to points)
IHG: ~130K (still haven't decided which hotel in Belgium to stay at)
Melia: 22K
BA: 4.5K
And 1 BRG :)

Desired Locations: (Strikethrough means booked)

Israel
London
Paris
Zurich

Rome (Car rental booked FCO-FLR-PSA-VCE)
Florence
Pisa
Venice
Madrid (RT train booked to Toledo)
Barcelona
Seville
(Car rental booked SVQ-GIB-SVQ)
Gibraltar
Bruges/Ghent (Belgium) (Have to book trains within Belgium and RT to AMS.)
Amsterdam

Days Scheduled in Each Location
In no order in particular...

Rome 3.5
Florence .5
Pisa .5
Venice 4.5 including Shabbos (although others said it can be done in less time)
Israel 12
Amsterdam 2
Paris 4 including Shabbos
Dublin 1.5
London 4 including Shabbos (although others said it can be done in less time)
Zurich 1 (b/c it's the United <24 hour stopover, but I'm sure there's more than 1 day's worth of activities there)
Belgium 1
(Amount of days in the different Spain cities are short and were very calculated based on suggestions, as I wanted to save any "extra" days I had for other countries.)
Madrid 1
Seville .5
Gibraltar 1.5 including Shabbos
Barcelona 1.5
« Last edited by @Yehuda on June 08, 2014, 06:26:36 PM »

Author Topic: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon  (Read 108077 times)

Offline Ergel

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Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon
« Reply #280 on: April 09, 2014, 11:00:26 AM »
Got another idea here. If I do VCE-ZRH-FCO, I will end up being in Venice for 4-5 days (incl. Shabbos). Now we know Ergel would suggest against that many days in VCE. But, a very similar flight goes from MXP-ZRH-FCO. Meaning I could leave VCE after 2-3 days, drive to Lake Como and then catch the flight from MXP.

Ergel, how much time do I want in LC (especially with no points-hotels there)? Do you think the trip can be done in 1 day? Leave VCE in the morning, 3 hours drive to LC, spend ~5 hours there, and then drive the hour trip to MXP to catch an 8:30PM flight?
Not much to do in lake Como. It's just gorgeous. Drive up to Bellagio. Find a private place to jump in the water. Walk around a little bit and be on your way.
Only issue with that is instead of ditching your car when you her to vce, you'd still need it after your time in Venice (and pay for parking) or do two rentals which may be even more expensive
Life isn't about checking the boxes. Nobody cares.

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon
« Reply #281 on: April 09, 2014, 11:15:35 AM »
Not much to do in lake Como. It's just gorgeous. Drive up to Bellagio. Find a private place to jump in the water. Walk around a little bit and be on your way.
Only issue with that is instead of ditching your car when you her to vce, you'd still need it after your time in Venice (and pay for parking) or do two rentals which may be even more expensive
So then I can definitely do LC in a day, maybe even see some of Milan. But maybe it's just worth it to stay in VCE and chill out for a day. Haven't planned any lazy days yet.

Sorry didn't follow the car issue. Isn't the only difference just whether I'm returning it in VCE or MXP?

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon
« Reply #282 on: April 09, 2014, 12:04:24 PM »
Only issue with that is instead of ditching your car when you her to vce, you'd still need it after your time in Venice (and pay for parking) or do two rentals which may be even more expensive

Just got it. Wasn't thinking that I would have to keep the car somewhere in VCE for 3 days. Okay, forget it. It makes more sense to just chill in VCE. In fact, I'm going to delay my trips to FLR and PSA a day so I'll have a full 3 days in FCO before moving north, and a full 3 days in VCE before going to ZRH. Great. Booking now.

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon
« Reply #283 on: April 13, 2014, 11:00:04 PM »
Got my first 3 hotel nights booked!

Choice BRG to stay in CLT on the last night of the trip before continuing up to New York in the morning.

Signed up for the Melia deal and got 2 nights at different TRYPs in MAD for the 2 nights we'll be there.

:-D

Offline ad120

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Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon
« Reply #284 on: April 14, 2014, 01:07:31 AM »
May i suggest Lugano?
It is really gorgeous in the summer months.
I was just there in the winter and everything was shut down. But it seemed pretty popular for the summer months. We flew into MXP spent the day in Milan before taking 65 min train ride to Lugano. The places I'd go to in Milan are the Duomo, Castle, and the RESTAURANTS!! Carmel had the best Italian kosher pizza and Denzel was pretty good. 

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon
« Reply #285 on: April 14, 2014, 09:25:54 AM »
May i suggest Lugano?
It is really gorgeous in the summer months.
I was just there in the winter and everything was shut down. But it seemed pretty popular for the summer months. We flew into MXP spent the day in Milan before taking 65 min train ride to Lugano. The places I'd go to in Milan are the Duomo, Castle, and the RESTAURANTS!! Carmel had the best Italian kosher pizza and Denzel was pretty good.
Thanks for the suggestions! Unfortunately, our stops are pretty much set at this point, and Milan is not on the itinerary. I might have considered it more if I had spoken with you earlier, but based on the TRs in the Italy master threads, it seemed like most people were not such big fans of Milan, so we left it out.

Offline Emkay

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Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon
« Reply #286 on: April 14, 2014, 02:13:52 PM »
May i suggest Lugano?
It is really gorgeous in the summer months.
I was just there in the winter and everything was shut down. But it seemed pretty popular for the summer months. We flew into MXP spent the day in Milan before taking 65 min train ride to Lugano. The places I'd go to in Milan are the Duomo, Castle, and the RESTAURANTS!! Carmel had the best Italian kosher pizza and Denzel was pretty good.
sorry for hijacking this thread but I felt an intervention was very neccesary.
I have been to Carmel numerous times and to prob every establishment in italy that sells pizza with a respectable hechser and IMHDSEO there is no worse excuse for pizza to be found!!

But they do have Awesome pasta :P

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon
« Reply #287 on: April 14, 2014, 04:42:30 PM »
sorry for hijacking this thread but I felt an intervention was very neccesary.
I have been to Carmel numerous times and to prob every establishment in italy that sells pizza with a respectable hechser and IMHDSEO there is no worse excuse for pizza to be found!!

But they do have Awesome pasta :P
lol then I'll have to enjoy the pasta :)

Offline sky121

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Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon
« Reply #288 on: April 14, 2014, 04:44:26 PM »
Venice has some excellent pizza. One of the best I've ever had.
"Not all who wander are lost"

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon
« Reply #289 on: April 14, 2014, 04:53:57 PM »
Venice has some excellent pizza. One of the best I've ever had.
That's on the list. Will have to make sure to get some :)

Offline Emkay

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Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon
« Reply #290 on: April 14, 2014, 05:01:14 PM »
Venice has some excellent pizza. One of the best I've ever had.


That's on the list. Will have to make sure to get some :)
just make sure not to save it for friday afternoon as they run out of cheese almost every week and all you will be left with is a carrot slice

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon
« Reply #291 on: April 14, 2014, 05:02:11 PM »
just make sure not to save it for friday afternoon as they run out of cheese almost every week and all you will be left with is a carrot slice
LOL we're arriving on Friday. Will just have to wait till Sunday.

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon
« Reply #292 on: April 14, 2014, 05:36:18 PM »
Okay. Still waiting to book VCE-ZRH-FCO bc I realized I once opened a UMPE for my mom to use for a trip but she ended up going on SWA, so I have 50K UA to use w/o having to burn my UR. :) Just waiting for her points to post and then I'll book it.

In the meanwhile, it's time to start looking into hotels. If you read a few posts upthread, I got 2 free nights at TRYPs in Madrid thanks to that deal posted by emak. Now, I want to plan the rest of it.

From the wiki, I have 4 free Hyatt nights, 34K UR, 70K Marriot and 80K IC. There should still be enough time for me to get another cc or 2 before the trip, but here's what we have for now.

I looked up all the Hyatts at the destinations on my trip and here they are with how many nights we'll be in each place. I imagine it's not fun to sleep in 2 hotels in the same city, so using 4 Hyatt nights in Paris when we're there for 5 nights might be annoying, or I could look to buy someone's free night.

I researched all the Hyatts that are in the countries on my itinerary. Would love opinions on where to stay with my 4 free nights. I know people here love the Park Hyatt Paris (and could be I will too) but a friend did stay there and said it was really small (I guess like all hotels in Paris). I listed how many nights I'll be in each city including whether I'll be there for Shabbos.

Park Hyatt
Paris (5 nights incl. Shabbos)
Zurich (1 night)

Andaz
London (4 nights incl. Shabbos)
Amsterdam (2 nights)

Hyatt
Paris x2 (5 nights incl. Shabbos)

Hyatt Regency
London (4 nights incl. Shabbos)
Paris x2 (5 nights incl. Shabbos)

Hyatt Place
Amsterdam (2 nights)

Offline Ergel

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Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon
« Reply #293 on: April 14, 2014, 05:57:15 PM »
30K UR will get you your fifth night at PH Paris
Life isn't about checking the boxes. Nobody cares.

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon
« Reply #294 on: April 14, 2014, 06:07:48 PM »
30K UR will get you your fifth night at PH Paris
Ooo good idea! Is it really that special? i.e. I want to use my nights there?

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon
« Reply #295 on: April 14, 2014, 06:08:10 PM »
And here are the Marriotts with how many nights we'll be there for and how many points are req/night:

Amsterdam (2 nights) 40K
Zurich (1 night) 40K
Paris x4 (5 nights)
~ Champs Elysees 45K
~ Opera Ambassador 40K
~ Rive Gauche 35K
~ CDG Airport 30K
Brussels (possibly 1 night) 35K
Ghent (possibly 1 night) 35K
Rome x2 (4 nights)
~ Grand Hotel Flora 40K
~ Park Hotel 25K
London x10 (4 nights)
~ Park Lane 45K
~ Grosvenor Square 45K
~ County Hall 40K
~ Maida Vale 35K
~ LHR Airport 35K
~ West India Quay 35K
~ Marble Arch 35K
~ Kensington 30K
~ Regents Park 30K
~ Twickenham 30K

Could be I missed some of the ones in the UK as it only showed me UK, and I couldn't specify London. Think 10 is plenty, though. Really thought I could get some 10-15K nights @ Marriotts, but there seem to be no lower-end brands in Europe.

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon
« Reply #296 on: April 17, 2014, 01:57:39 AM »
Points posted to my mom's UA account over Yom Tov and just booked the VCE-ZRH-FCO <24 hour stopover for 15K UA and $50 pax!

Any thoughts on the hotels?
So far, seems like it makes sense to use the 4 Hyatt nights at PH Paris and use my UR to get the 5th night. Regarding the Marriott points, based on the avg costs I posted above and the fact that I have 80K, it seems like I can only get 2 nights out of them, so I might as well use them when I'll be somewhere for 2 nights, i.e. Amsterdam.

Offline Marco Polo

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Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon
« Reply #297 on: April 17, 2014, 07:57:51 AM »
Points posted to my mom's UA account over Yom Tov and just booked the VCE-ZRH-FCO <24 hour stopover for 15K UA and $50 pax!

Any thoughts on the hotels?
So far, seems like it makes sense to use the 4 Hyatt nights at PH Paris and use my UR to get the 5th night. Regarding the Marriott points, based on the avg costs I posted above and the fact that I have 80K, it seems like I can only get 2 nights out of them, so I might as well use them when I'll be somewhere for 2 nights, i.e. Amsterdam.
See is there is C&P availability at the PH for one of your nights. Or it may be worthwhile to buy a night from someone.
Quaerite et Invenietis.

Offline sky121

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Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon
« Reply #298 on: April 17, 2014, 09:31:14 AM »
What hotel are you planning for Venice?
"Not all who wander are lost"

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon
« Reply #299 on: April 17, 2014, 09:40:10 AM »
See is there is C&P availability at the PH for one of your nights. Or it may be worthwhile to buy a night from someone.
Thanks I'll look into it. Do you suggest booking it all online or calling up? Any difference?
What hotel are you planning for Venice?
Unsure. Suggestions? I should still have SPG, IC, and some MR.