daintyaqua
New Member
this seems very true for us at least.
will like to share my thoughts for those who are tied between joining a tour operator or on ur own.
we had just returned from our f&e honeymoon in paris, london & switzerland. we spent a total of 24 days (excl. flight times) and the trip cost us a little less than $8000 (for 2 person & incl. the following expenses):
- return open-jaw tickets (arrive in paris, depart from geneva) by qatar airways.
- 15 days swiss pass bought from sta travels
- return eurostar train tickets from paris <--> london
- tgv train tickets from paris --> bern
- 5 nights @ 2* ensuite hotel & 1 night @ 3* ensuite best western hotel in paris
- 3 nights @ popular ensuite b&b in london. comes with daily full english breakfast
- 14 nights @ top-rated b&b in interlaken. comes with daily buffet breakfast.
- 4 days paris museum pass
- 3 days paris visite pass
- 2 carnet of metro tickets in paris
- 3 days travelcards in london
- all sightseeing in paris, incl. seine river cruise, st. martin canal cruise etc
- all sightseeing in london, incl madame tussuds, tower of london & a speedboat ride on thames river etc
- all sightseeing in switzerland, incl trips to matterhorn glacier paradise, mt. pilatus etc.
- all food expenses. we had a 3-course french cuisine dinner which incl. escargot, frog's legs etc in paris, ate mussels with fries and sausages in london and a swiss fondue dinner in switzerland. for our other meals, we just bought nice pre-cooked food from supermarkets (monoprix in paris & migros/coops in switzerland), that helped us saved quite a bit.
- travel insurance
a friend has recently booked a local package for 12 days switzerland & paris & ended up paying $3000++/pax after taxes. this price have not incl. tippings for bus driver & tour guides which work out to EUR6/pax/day and only about 50% of the meals are provided so she is rather sored abt the price differences. and obviously, she wont really get to see alot of paris & switzerland for they usually bring u to see sights that are already free or make u pay big bucks for optional tours! for e.g, the seine river cruise cost us just EUR14 for 2pax (with internet discounts), she was told to pay EUR40-50/pax!!
so for those of u still pondering on this subject, i would say go f&e. you get to enjoy big savings + see alot more than with any package tours. this is our first trip to europe, i spent about a month reading up on guide books from the library & on forums like rick steve's webby & tripadvisors.
before the trip, i also had alot of misgivings such as the hassle of moving luggages from place to place, language barriers & pickpocketing etc.
for us, its not really a big hassle of lugging luggages. we just left our big luggages with our hotel in paris (which we will return to stay for 1 night after london & before heading to switzerland) & just brought a hand-carry bag to london. in switzerland, we just used interlaken as our base & stay put at the same hotel for 2 weeks.
language wise, i made efforts to learn some basic french for the trip. they came in quite handy. those french people that we approached are all helpful with directions. i also learnt some basic swiss-german for switzerland but they werent too necessary as its perfectly fine to ask for help/directions in english there.
pickpocketing is not a problem in london or switzerland. we felt very ease in both countries but one shd still be alert & not too complacent.
in paris, u gotta be extra alert in metro stations etc. we have spotted shady looking black guys sizing us up on different occasions. and we also had a bad experience at sacre coeur. i already read abt the black guys with the friendship bands at the rick steve's forums. to avoid them, we took the furnicular up & down instead of the stairs as they practically ambushed the stairways. however, after taking the furnicular down, one black guy still target & came after us. he quite forcefully grabbed my hubby's wrist even though he had one hand in his pocket & the other holding on to a cig. the black guy also grabbed my shoulder to keep us from leaving. i practically had to shout non merci, loudly a few times before he finally backed off. luckily he was alone when he came after us. these guys worked in groups. if he had more people with him, we are pretty sure we would end up paying for the stupid bands tied unwillingly to our wrists.
oh yes, just one more thing, if u take eurostar from paris to london, during the uk border checks, pls avoid any black officer. we had a most unpleasant encounter with this black lady officer who held us for questioning over like 20mins. we were treated like terrorists. she asked many ridiculous questions. for e.g, she asked what is the purpose of our visit in london so i said for honeymoon. she asked married since when so i said since june this year. then she asked how long we were together and i said 7 years and she responded with - 7 years and u only just got married??!! like wth right? is it any of her business or concern? in addition, i had to tell her what activities we did during the 5 days in paris, what we plan to do in london, showed her our museum passes & hotel confirmation email as proofs & also the GBP we are bringing to london. the money was in a money-belt, underneath my hubby's clothing & when we told her that, she just said, i dont care, i need to see so my husband had to strip! at the end of it all, she just said, ur train is about to leave so i will let u go!? we had to run for our dear life to get on the eurostar train which promptly left in mere mins. we felt that we were treated so crudely becos she was racists against asians. luckily that was the only ugly encounter. we also met our fair shares of nice & helpful people in these places though.
thanks to other forumers here who helped me with my questions before my trip.
i hope what i posted here will be helpful to other forumers too.
will like to share my thoughts for those who are tied between joining a tour operator or on ur own.
we had just returned from our f&e honeymoon in paris, london & switzerland. we spent a total of 24 days (excl. flight times) and the trip cost us a little less than $8000 (for 2 person & incl. the following expenses):
- return open-jaw tickets (arrive in paris, depart from geneva) by qatar airways.
- 15 days swiss pass bought from sta travels
- return eurostar train tickets from paris <--> london
- tgv train tickets from paris --> bern
- 5 nights @ 2* ensuite hotel & 1 night @ 3* ensuite best western hotel in paris
- 3 nights @ popular ensuite b&b in london. comes with daily full english breakfast
- 14 nights @ top-rated b&b in interlaken. comes with daily buffet breakfast.
- 4 days paris museum pass
- 3 days paris visite pass
- 2 carnet of metro tickets in paris
- 3 days travelcards in london
- all sightseeing in paris, incl. seine river cruise, st. martin canal cruise etc
- all sightseeing in london, incl madame tussuds, tower of london & a speedboat ride on thames river etc
- all sightseeing in switzerland, incl trips to matterhorn glacier paradise, mt. pilatus etc.
- all food expenses. we had a 3-course french cuisine dinner which incl. escargot, frog's legs etc in paris, ate mussels with fries and sausages in london and a swiss fondue dinner in switzerland. for our other meals, we just bought nice pre-cooked food from supermarkets (monoprix in paris & migros/coops in switzerland), that helped us saved quite a bit.
- travel insurance
a friend has recently booked a local package for 12 days switzerland & paris & ended up paying $3000++/pax after taxes. this price have not incl. tippings for bus driver & tour guides which work out to EUR6/pax/day and only about 50% of the meals are provided so she is rather sored abt the price differences. and obviously, she wont really get to see alot of paris & switzerland for they usually bring u to see sights that are already free or make u pay big bucks for optional tours! for e.g, the seine river cruise cost us just EUR14 for 2pax (with internet discounts), she was told to pay EUR40-50/pax!!
so for those of u still pondering on this subject, i would say go f&e. you get to enjoy big savings + see alot more than with any package tours. this is our first trip to europe, i spent about a month reading up on guide books from the library & on forums like rick steve's webby & tripadvisors.
before the trip, i also had alot of misgivings such as the hassle of moving luggages from place to place, language barriers & pickpocketing etc.
for us, its not really a big hassle of lugging luggages. we just left our big luggages with our hotel in paris (which we will return to stay for 1 night after london & before heading to switzerland) & just brought a hand-carry bag to london. in switzerland, we just used interlaken as our base & stay put at the same hotel for 2 weeks.
language wise, i made efforts to learn some basic french for the trip. they came in quite handy. those french people that we approached are all helpful with directions. i also learnt some basic swiss-german for switzerland but they werent too necessary as its perfectly fine to ask for help/directions in english there.
pickpocketing is not a problem in london or switzerland. we felt very ease in both countries but one shd still be alert & not too complacent.
in paris, u gotta be extra alert in metro stations etc. we have spotted shady looking black guys sizing us up on different occasions. and we also had a bad experience at sacre coeur. i already read abt the black guys with the friendship bands at the rick steve's forums. to avoid them, we took the furnicular up & down instead of the stairs as they practically ambushed the stairways. however, after taking the furnicular down, one black guy still target & came after us. he quite forcefully grabbed my hubby's wrist even though he had one hand in his pocket & the other holding on to a cig. the black guy also grabbed my shoulder to keep us from leaving. i practically had to shout non merci, loudly a few times before he finally backed off. luckily he was alone when he came after us. these guys worked in groups. if he had more people with him, we are pretty sure we would end up paying for the stupid bands tied unwillingly to our wrists.
oh yes, just one more thing, if u take eurostar from paris to london, during the uk border checks, pls avoid any black officer. we had a most unpleasant encounter with this black lady officer who held us for questioning over like 20mins. we were treated like terrorists. she asked many ridiculous questions. for e.g, she asked what is the purpose of our visit in london so i said for honeymoon. she asked married since when so i said since june this year. then she asked how long we were together and i said 7 years and she responded with - 7 years and u only just got married??!! like wth right? is it any of her business or concern? in addition, i had to tell her what activities we did during the 5 days in paris, what we plan to do in london, showed her our museum passes & hotel confirmation email as proofs & also the GBP we are bringing to london. the money was in a money-belt, underneath my hubby's clothing & when we told her that, she just said, i dont care, i need to see so my husband had to strip! at the end of it all, she just said, ur train is about to leave so i will let u go!? we had to run for our dear life to get on the eurostar train which promptly left in mere mins. we felt that we were treated so crudely becos she was racists against asians. luckily that was the only ugly encounter. we also met our fair shares of nice & helpful people in these places though.
thanks to other forumers here who helped me with my questions before my trip.
i hope what i posted here will be helpful to other forumers too.