Planning our Honeymoon
We started planning our trip long before we were engaged, oddly enough. Of course, it didn't start out as our honeymoon :-) It started out as our summer vacation.
For the past two years Tim and I have gone to Montreal to watch the Canadian Formula 1 Grand Prix. Tim has always been a Formula 1 fan, and he got me hooked too, after we started dating. My Christmas present to him that first year (Christmas of 2000) was a little envelope containing airline tickets, hotel confirmation, and 2 tickets to all 3 days of the Canadian Grand Prix in June 2001. He was beside himself :-). After that first trip, Tim and I decided that we would do a different formula 1 Grand Prix each year! If you want to do it right, you need to start planning the year before - as soon as the new schedule is announced. So in the fall of 2001 as we were planning our 2002 Grand Prix adventure, we decided to go back to Montreal because a) we really loved it the first time, and b) the events of 9/11/01 left us feeling a little uneasy about leaving the continent.
Check these out:
Pictures from our 2001 Canadian Grand Prix trip
Pictures from our 2002 Canadian Grand Prix trip
In fall of 2002 however, as we were deciding what to do for our Grand Prix trip in 2003, we decided to go for it and plan our very first trip to Europe. We chose Italy as our first Grand Prix "abroad" because, well, we're Ferrari fans, and we couldn't think of a more exciting and electric place to be than in Monza to watch Ferrari win (although the 2003 competition is much much closer and much more exciting to watch. It's no longer a "given" that Ferrari's going to take it!).
So... we did a little research. If you've read any other part of our web site you know that this consists of searching on the Internet
The Search Wars We have a little religious "search" war going on in our household. Tim is an avid Google fan and I am a diehard MSN Search user. I have to admit my alliance to MSN Search has more to do with a) my job, b) my sense of personal responsibility to use the product of the company who pays my salary, and c) I like the results format WAY better. Although I've found for some searches Google to be more effective at finding relevant stuff, their presentation of their results leaves much to be desired. But I digress... only a little though :-).
Via MSN Search I found a number of companies online that offer organized Grand Prix trips - they take care of arranging hotel accomodations, event tickets, transportation to/from airport/hotel/event, etc. Some of them are pretty good deals. And it really is the way to go. Even booking a year in advance, it's virtually impossible to get rooms in decent hotels. Event tickets and airfare generally isn't a problem - it's the accommodations that are the hardest to arrange. Probably because a lot of the rooms are bought up by these event coordinators! If you pick the right company though, you really get your money's worth and then some, and you save yourself a whole lot of angst besides. So - after browsing a few of these web sites, we ended up choosing Tours F1 (The Grand Prix Club). And I will tell you right now. We'll be doing the rest of our Grand Prix vacations with them as well - we're now customers for life :-).
At the time that we had found Steve and Angie at Tours F1, the Italian Grand Prix in Monza had not even taken place yet, and the 2003 schedule wasn't published. So all of their pricing info, etc. was for Sept 2002. I contacted them by email and asked when the soonest was that we could book with them for 2003. They were extremely accommodating and we were able to put down a deposit to secure a spot for 2003, even though the schedules had not yet been announced. Although all of their packages offered had great seats and views of the track, we decided to go for their "Gold" package because it included pit passes (a chance to see the cars up close, and possibly maybe even a driver or two if they're up that early ;-)).
It wasn't until after we were engaged, in December 2002, that we decided to turn the trip into our honeymoon, and extend it to include a trip to Rome. I've always been interested in ancient and medieval history, and Rome is a place that I've always wanted to see. Tim's been there before, about 10 years ago, and has always wanted to go back. It was a perfect choice!
We decided to locate a travel agent who could book our flights into Milan, and out of Rome, arrange for our Train tickets from Milan to Rome, book our accommodations in Rome, and coordinate all of our arrival timing, etc with the Tours F1 folks. Tim & I watch a lot of the Travel Channel on weekend mornings (it's a nice little way to start a weekend - fantasizing about a trip to some exotic or historic place) and we came across our agent via Rick Steves' travel show. After seeing one of his shows on Europe, we went to the Rick Steves web site, contacted the Rick Steves' people asking for a travel agency recommendation, and were referred to Elizabeth Holmes Travel. Excellent recommendation! Our agent, Sarah, was extremely knowledgeable, friendly, professional, and booked us a beautiful room in the most wonderful hotel in Rome (complete with a complimentary bottle of Champagne because she notified the hotel it was our honeymoon :-)). She also booked our flights, provided us with train schedules and a link to the web site where we could order tickets/reservations ourselves online, and communicated our arrival schedule to Steve and Angie at Tours F1. If you're looking for a travel agent, we highly recommend Elizabeth Holmes Travel.
Note on Flights British Airways offers a direct flight from Seattle to London which is great. Since there are no direct flights from Seattle to Milan, this was the next best thing. They also have a "World Traveller Plus" seating offering which is very good. If you don't want to shell out the big bucks for Business class or the even bigger bucks for First class, but you're not relishing the thought of spending 9 hours crammed like sardines in the "World Traveller" (their nice name for "Economy") class, then this is for you. It's a bit more expensive than economy, but not NEARLY as pricey as business (an upgrade from Plus to Business would have cost about $2000 per person). The seats are wider and more padded, and you get more leg room. Even if you decide to go sardine-style, British Airways, at least in my opinion and with my limited knowledge of other airlines, is still the way to go. Personal TVs at each seat, good service. We got complimentary wine with dinner in the plus section but I think they also did that for the regular section as well. We were fortunate enough to have been upgraded to business class for free on the way over, and that was very very very nice!
By end of February 2003, we had almost everything taken care of. Deposit was paid to Tours F1 for our hotel and event tickets in Milan; Flights were confirmed and paid for to Milan and from Rome; Hotel confirmed in Rome. I am paranoid by nature though, and this being our honeymoon, wanted everything to go perfectly. So I was sending email about every 2-4 weeks to Angie and Steve to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything; that we were still confirmed; notified them of my change of address & phone number; making sure they had our flight info, and just general questions as I could come up with them. They were EXTREMELY patient with me and always responded almost immediately to my barrage of emails :-) I think I finally settled down once I saw the last payment go through on my credit card ;-).
Because the Train schedules in Europe change from month to month/ season to season, it didn't make sense for us to try and book our train reservations and tickets in February. I think we did that in June or July. Sarah sent us a link to the RailEurope web site so we could book our own reservations and tickets.
Reservations vs Tickets on Trains in Europe On some trains in Europe, it is strongly recommended (if not required in some specific cases) that you purchase reservations in addition to, and separate from, your tickets. Your tickets will get you onto a specific train at a scheduled time, but don't guarantee you a seat. The reservation will guarantee you a seat for the train for which you have a ticket. To purchase a ticket without a reservation can be risky during peak travel seasons - it's kinda first come/first serve. If on the other hand, you purchase a reservation but not a ticket, then although you have assigned seats, you aren't permitted on the train without the ticket. You can travel with a ticket but no reservation but it can be risky. You can't travel with a reservation and no ticket. And in the end, it's just better to make a reservation AND a ticket! The RailEurope web sitedoes an ok job of explaining this, as does the Italian Tourism web site which is where we did some additional research to plan our trip details.
The RailEurope web site was helpful and informative but didn't actually let us book our tickets (ran into some technical difficulties). So I called them, and booked over the phone. Within a week or so, we received our reservations and our tickets in the mail. We'd definitely use them again (probably just use their web site for research and call them to actually order tickets/reservations though).
So - by end of June we were sittin' pretty - had all of our honeymoon details taken care of. There was this little matter of the wedding to pay attention to (but that was actually pretty much under control as well :-)). Just needed to find a way to get through the next 2 months of normal life (ie - work)... that was tough :-)
