Hmm.. Still waiting for response from the hotel...

They got back in touch with me earlier today. Try them again?

Did you contact them using their contact form or email? I tried that and since I never heard anything back from them I ended up calling them by phone. It also took them three days to send me a confirmation email (only after I called again to remind them). Impressing service, really...

Cheers,

Peter

I just phoned the hotel and booked my room. Apparently, the magic phrase is to say that you're attending the Schofield birthday party, which then gets you a reduced rate.

Meanwhile, I now have to plan my travel to and from London. I'll be arriving at Heathrow sometime Friday morning. There's apparently a direct train from Waterloo station. Anybody have reservations booked already? Or is somebody driving?

Similarly, I'm leaving Sunday for my Ryan Air extravaganza to Germany. Anybody else have any particular plans for leaving on Sunday onto which I can piggyback?

That didn't work for me. Last Thursday I was told that only executive rooms where left at the regular price. When did you book your room?



We'll arrive Saturday morning.



We're flying Ryan Air too, but we'll stay through Monday


Cheers,

Peter

I booked only a few hours ago. She said they were out of regular rooms but had "superior" and "executive" rooms, so I'm now in the superior room. The price was 84 GBP or thereabouts.

RobRicc and I are ariving friday morning at heathrow too. You might be in the same plane as him.
Rob rented a car, i'm hitching a ride, and i'm pretty sure there's more room in the car.
We're both returning on sunday afternoon too, but to heathrow again, your ryan air flight is from another airport?

I'm also arriving Friday morning (09.20) and planning to take the train, unless someone is offering to let me hitch a ride. I'm staying until Monday.

Dan, was your quoted price with or without breakfast? I was quoted £93 with breakfast, which would only be needed on Saturday, for a Superior Room.

Stig

I assume those prices are per night?

I reserved a Passat, so there should be plenty of room to take a couple more from Heathrow. Just PM me with your details and Bas and I will meet-up with you.

My flight gets in at 7:50AM on Friday.

Yes, they are per night.

Per person, per night. With a ~£20 premium if you are a single person in a double/twin room.

The rate I got, including breakfast, was £79 per person per night for an executive room.

I never asked whether I got breakfast or not. Somehow, I imagine no two of us will end up spending the same price at this place.

I will now gripe about Ryanair. Oh. My.

A one-way ticket from London-Stansted to Frankfurt-Hahn is nominally 36.99 GBP. However, there are additional fees which I must pay:

EU 261 Levy 2.00 GBP
1 x (1st Checked Bag (20kg)) 30.00 GBP
1 x (Web Check in ) 6.00 GBP
Administration Fee 6.00 GBP

And, on top of that, they wanted to charge what amounted to a 10% currency conversion fee on top of that. All said and done, I'm paying somewhere around $136 for the one-way ticket.

They're charging me for web checkin, which saves them money, and I have no idea what an administration fee is. And then they're constantly trying to upsell you on travel insurance, car rental, hotel, and on and on it goes. And that 20kg allowance on the bag... if I end up above that, there are per-kilogram fees.

For contrast, a flight on, say, Southwest Airlines, one-way from Houston to Oklahoma City, would be $69 at the "web special" rate without any additional fees or assorted crap.

No wonder folks dislike Ryanair. Amazing stuff.

So... how should I best get from the empeg meet to London-Stanstead for a Sunday 15:25 departure?

Did you check other airlines? I'm planning to go down to Spain for a week in November and I checked 3 different airlines, Ryanair being one of them. They did turn out to be the cheapest, but not by much and the departure time from Spain was 07.00 in the morning... The airline I expected to be most expensive, was actually close to Ryanair in price.

Edit: Don't forget your boarding pass when you go to the airport, otherwise you have to pay £40 extra. I just checked Lufthansa. They would have flown you from Heathrow to Frankfurt for £87.78, so not much more and I expect the service to be higher.

Stig

Whenever I fly, which is not that often, BA always seems to be within a few tens of pounds of the budget airlines prices. I always pay the extra and avoid the awful budget experience.

Life is too short to be treated like scum by Ryanair.

The only real option, unless someone can give you a lift, is a train into London and back out:

http://traintimes.org.uk/wareham/ssd/14:00a/2011-07-10

The other option is if someone else is going back to Heathrow on the Sunday you could get a lift and then a transfer to Stansted by coach:

http://www.nationalexpress.com/coach/Airport/London-Stansted-Airport.aspx

But given that the transfer can take nearly two hours, the train all the way there is probably a better bet.

Sunday is of course the day that they tend to rip up parts of the train network, so you need to keep an eye out on whether your journey is likely to be lengthened/delayed at all.

I don't think Cris and I are going to be able to attend. At £84 pppn, it's just too expensive.

For those of us in the US, it would be more like £700.

I can't make it either.

I guess me and RobR got lucky, we're in a normal room for 52.50£ per night.
There's no reason you have to sleep at that hotel though, is there?
Maybe bring a tent and stay at this campground?
http://www.ridgefarm.co.uk/

edit: or this one, even closer: http://www.caravan-sites.co.uk/page3.html

For now, I'm not going to book any train tickets. When we get closer to the day, I'll see if there are any scheduled train outages or (if I'm lucky) a ride I can snag in somebody's car.

As to Ryanair vs. other carriers, my destination isn't Frankfurt-Main (i.e., the actual city of Frankfurt), but rather the middle of nowhere (as mentioned earlier), and Frankfurt-Hahn, which is nowhere near Frankfurt, is actually the closest airport to my destination. I did investigate flying into Luxembourg, which would be comparably close, but that was a much more expensive flight.

Besides, at least once, I need to experience the depths of airline hell so I can more properly appreciate the, umm, blinding good design of American discount air carriers.

(Sigh.)

EDIT: I went and checked again, and it seems there's a £107 flight on BA from Heathrow to Luxembourg. Naturally, I checked and Ryanair offers no refund mechanism of any kind.

The only rooms they had were the executive ones. Despite the woman telling me yesterday she'd reserved a normal room for us.

I don't think camping with Cris is an option.

After some searching, it looks like we're going to spend Friday night in a B&B nearby, then we'll be heading back Saturday night after the evening do.

Do we have any idea what time the Bovington tank museum outing ends on Sunday? Might have to head out on Sunday evening. Depending on the timing I will either get a rental car from the airport, or have time to pick up the Vampire on Friday and return it on Sunday...

Ah, and does anyone have the email for the hotel? I still haven't gotten the promised confirmation for the booking I did over the phone.

You'll find the email address here, but I recommend calling them as they never replied to my emails.

Peter

If anyone is flying into Gatwick on Friday morning and wants a lift, let me know. I'll be driving down on Friday with an empty car, starting from near Gatwick (and driving back on Monday).

After reading stuff like that, I'm feeling less annoyed about not being able to stay there. Given my so called 'reserved' room went from £42 pppn to £84 pppn in less than 24 hours.

I phoned the hotel and got the same "limited availability" but I don't feel like stressing over it

I'm *far* more concerned about what to do on Sunday

So ... anyone know which of the events combine?

Ice-cream, Pooh sticks with ducks and model aircraft sounds like a good mix.
Question is ... will the Harbour trip fit in too ???

If we all arrive at the hotel and they stare at us blankly, I wouldn't be altogether surprised if we solved the problem with a mass outing to a camping goods store to purchase tents, which we would then pitch on the hotel's front lawn.

Would your route perhaps pass 51.013458,-0.422603 (that's where the Vampire lives currently), and how early in the morning are you planning on setting off?