Bold New Move (for us)

The bold new move is deciding to go through iStopOver to book our 8-day stay in Barcelona.  I read about this organization from an Arthur Frommer’s article. iStopOver offers short term rentals of rooms or apartments in various cities throughout the world, usually for less than you can rent a simple hotel room. Various amenities are offered from maid service and meals, to no service at all.  Another organization that does this same thing is Airbnb. Anyway I joined both when I first read about them and after we got home from Alaska I searched and searched narrowing down the choice and corresponded with a few of the landlords, some didn’t even bother to reply though.  By today we decided to take the plunge and book a place along La Ramblas, a studio flat, 30 meters from green Metro line.  Per Rick Steves Snapshot Barcelona book most everything we will want to see is along the green line.  Here’s hoping it works out.  The landlord has 48 hours to respond.  If they don’t the charge is dropped and we are back to the drawing board!  Before deciding this, we had finally decided on a simple hotel and figured the cost was worth it since they provided “buffet breakfast” and snacks all day but they had no vacancies.  Do you think it will really look like this?  I hope so!!!

Bookings!

Okay, we’re getting serious now!  Somehow I am going backwards in booking things but today we just booked our post cruise stay in Dubai!  We will stay at the Holiday Inn Express Safa Park Dubai City from Nov. 21-24, with a late check out to catch our flight home on Nov. 25, 01:35.  Yes, you read that right, we begin our flight home at 1:35 am! 

We also sent a few inquires off to find out more about this fun sounding Desert Safari with Orient Tours that we want to do one of the days.  It is highly recommended on Cruise Critic and looks very interesting.  The other days in Dubai we will plan on a 2-day pass on the Big Bus Tours that looks pretty comprehensive. So that completes she basic plans for Dubai, UAE. 

Dubai Skyline

Sicily

Today I went to the library and got a book or two about Sicily.  What shall we do on our stop there?  I also plan to look on the Rick Steves Daily Itinerary in Sicily to see if perhaps we can just “borrow” a day he describes as something we would like to do.  Since I am officially back to work I need to do that first and then play.  I am not sure about a couple of the other stops either, so there is still a lot of research to do.  I have requested a couple of books on Dubai as well. 

Excursions

While here in Alaska we did manage to secure some of our excursions for this cruise.  On Cruise Critic we connected with another traveler, Barbara, who we met on our 2009 Transatlantic cruise.  She is a great organizer and she found some fabulous itineraries and bargains for us.  Unfortunately, RCI (Royal Caribbean International) has yet to post the excursions for this cruise so we have nothing to compare to!  They say the tours will be posted on the website 90 days before departure.  After seeing the fabulous options Barbara located it doesn’t seem possible that anything RCI comes up with will be as comprehensive or well priced so we will go with what she has found in Jordan and Israel so far.  We always enjoy the smaller groups than are typical on the big bus tours from the ships. Our friends Stuart and Darlene have chosen these options as well.  Anyway, plans are moving ahead for this trip!

Booking

So glad we booked this cruise when we did.  The price has gone up in small increments since we booked, now it is almost $400. more.  This tells me the ship must be filling up!  Looking forward to seeing some new and different places!

Airfare!

Since I decided when to take off work we decided to book our flights now.  Seems the price sneaked up a bit in the last month anywat, so why wait!  We will leave FAT 25 October 09:05 and arrive in Barcelona 26 October 15:05, yes it is a LONG flight, which of course we do not relish.  Return will be 25 November 01:35 and arrive back to FAT 25 November 15:15.  So that much is in place.  Love my AMEX travel options, had points so we received $857. off the total cost.  So this is working out to be an overall trip with a very good price! 

Interesting Ideas

Every Sunday I read Frommer’s article in the paper with various travel news.  This week was really intriguing to me!  There is a new website called iStopover where you can go and find local rentals all over the world.  Apparently there is another very well established place to find these as well called AirBnb.  I knew there were places like this but I have always been a bit leery.  To have Frommer’s recommend these as good options piqued my interest.  So, today I joined both sites and have done a little browsing for places in Barcelona, now I am really intrigued!  I sent in a couple inquiries and have already heard back.  There is anything from a single stark bed, sharing a bathroom to a luxury apartment or home for rent.  Most have laundry and kitchen facility.  As you might expect the owners seem very friendly, helpful, and intriguing themselves!  Can’t wait to try this out!