Philadelphia Nesties
NewQueen
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
UK/Ireland September 2012
DH and I will be celebrating 10 years (as a couple) in August and are going to celebrate with our first major trip (and my first trip overseas) in September! Where should I start my planning and what are the best international travel websites? What are the best airports to fly out of and into? I've already posted on the travel board but wanted to get advice from the ladies on this board that have already experienced this type of traveling.
Re: UK/Ireland September 2012
I always use Trip Advisor to narrow down and get reviews on hotels, restaurants, and attractions. Hasn't steered me wrong yet! I also like Rick Steves' website (http://www.ricksteves.com/) and guidebooks for planning. When we went to Spain for our honeymoon and France last year, he had a lot of great recommendations for walks and tour plans, particularly if you only have limited time in certain places. I tend to buy Frommer's Guidebooks, because they always have great maps and lots of information. Their website is also great, and they have similar planning tools to Rick Steves' site.
I'm guessing you are going to London? Heathrow is the largest airport, but I've also flown into Gatwick before (it's about 28 miles outside of London), but is smaller and not as crazy, generally speaking.
Where else are you headed? I've not been to Ireland, but have been to London and some surrounding areas a couple of times and would be happy to help some more if I can!
Both times I went to London, we ended up renting apartments for our week long stay--it worked out to be cheaper than a hotel and we could buy some of our own food to save money, and also had a bit more space, so it might be worth looking into wherever you are going. Trip Advisor can point you in the right direction of good rental agencies and such.
Happy Planning!
I use TripAdvisor for hotel/B&B/restaurant reviews. Another option is to rent a cottage and car for a week and do daytrips (this might be an option in Ireland or if you are going north of London or to Scotland). We've used cottages4you.co.uk many times with DH's family, and have been happy with them.
Are you just going to London or are you thinking about other areas of England? Let me know if you need help or suggestions.
I've never been to England, but loved Dublin and the surrounding area. For my trip there, I tagged along with DH for his work conference, so I did no real planning in advance, other than buying this book. In fact, I buy those books for each city I travel to, assuming it exists. The series carries most major cities, and they divide the city by section to give you the best sights in each. I like them because they're small and I carry them around in my purse. Plus, they have a public transport map on the inside cover.
DH and I went to Paris, Venice, Florence, and Rome in March and we used a travel agent to plan the whole trip. It ended up costing a little more since we followed her hotel recs instead of finding cheap ones, but I am so glad we used her and didn't have to comb through a million hotels to find something that was conducive to our needs. I would totally go that route again - so worth it!
We did a 10 day trip to Dublin and London for our honeymoon way back when. We also returned to Dublin for a 10 day trip in 2007.
In Dublin, we stayed at the Brooks Hotel--small, boutique style hotel that is close to Trinity College. LOVED it. A suggestion to find good rates for airfare: fly PHL to London and then connect to Dublin or Shannon (west coast) airports using one of the low-cost airlines (RyanAir, bmi, etc.). Dublin Airport is outside of the city, so I recommend taking the AirCoach--it has multiple stops throughout the city center and is reasonable.
Eyewitness Publisher's "Top Ten" guide was helpful for the main attractions. Also, I suggest looking into staydublin.com for accommodations; they have multiple apartment locations throughout the city and many are convenient to the AirCoach and the popular sites. We stayed here on our second trip. It was nice having an apartment with a kitchen. Clean, modestly furnished, and affordable.
For trips outside of Dublin, we relied on public transportation--we took the light rail line from Dublin to the fishing village of Howth (northeast of the city). Also, we took a train trip to Galway from Dublin on both of our visits to Ireland.
eta: I believe that USAir flies non-stop from PHL to Shannon airport, but it is limited to certain months of the year (I think it is March to August).