Hi all,
Long-time follower, first time poster.
My fiancée and I are getting married October 25th 2014 and will be heading off soon after on our honeymoon to Phuket. Our first bub is due mid-March and she'll be coming along with us (~7 months).
We bought this Scoopon deal on the weekend and opted for the 10 nights in the 'upgraded' suite. In order to qualify for the booking guarantee we need to book within 14 days of purchase.
We're thinking of splitting our trip into 2 parts; half at a quiet, secluded, more luxurious resort (above), and the other half (up to another 10 nights but can be shorter) in a busier spot with more shopping, markets, entertainment etc. We'll probably start our trip in the busy spot and end at the quieter resort for some R&R. Can anyone recommend a good area of Phuket to spend our 'busy' time? We would hope to be able to stay close enough to be able to walk to town, but far enough that it's still a resort feel and not right in the centre of all the night life.
We'll probably explore the option to get a baby sitter on a couple of occasions; does anyone have any experience/guidance on this topic?
One thing I'm sure all the OzBargainers can help us out with is flights - we're fairly flexible with when we'll fly. We're from Canberra so will travel to/from Sydney (fly or Murrays bus) for the international flights. Earliest departure date is 29th October to give us some time to recoup after the wedding, so using the maximum number of 20 nights in Thailand (excluding any overnight flights) would have us departing Phuket November 18th. We're willing to compromise on flight quality a little in order to save some dough, but considering we'll have the bub we don't want to go with the extreme 'no-frills' flights. It would be great if we could fly Qantas as I've got lounge access (also have Virgin lounge access) and they're always great on board + fares include food, entertainment etc. Putting the above dates into WebJet gives me a return fare of $1068pp on Qantas which seems reasonable? [edit: those flights have since disappeared & cheapest Qantas is now $1278]. In my research on OzBargain I've heard that going through Expedia Brazil can result in even cheaper fares? Or is that just with the more budget companies?
Thanks in advance
Hi georgejetson.
As for flights you should try an engine like http://www.skyscanner.com.au/ it pretty much has all airlines and you can tweak things like day ahead/day back - even search by month for cheapest fare. It links onto the airlines website as opposed to making the booking on their site (like Webjet, but they charge you a fee).
As for your scoopon - I strongly suggest being careful with those, from past experience there are certain T&C's and seeing you pay such a cheap price (along with Scoopon taking a commission on each sale), the merchant wont be willing to accommodate everything and bend over backwards compared to a normal/full paying customer. Just my take on the matter, I'm sure others have had a good experience.
Hope this helps.