Airline & Holiday Information

Whilst most of us head for the Alps, more and more skiing and boarding enthusiasts are flying west, where the pound is stronger, the slopes are emptier and the steaks are legendary thick! Breckenridge is the most popular ski destination in the US, and with 155 runs and 29 lifts it caters for every standard of skier.  This is the ideal place to search for your ski holiday and with numbers in America falling, there are some really cheap ski deals to be found as tour operators try to fill beds.

You should not be put off by distance and with modern aircraft the flight time will soon pass; Colorado is more accessible than you think and its advantages are substantial enough to compensate for the extra flight time. So good are airlines and schedules now it is possible to ski Breckenridge for a long weekend. Leave the office on Friday morning and enjoy two full days’ skiing before arriving, glowing and tired, back at work on Monday morning, but of course you should look at 10 to 14 days and take advantage of this ski resort’s great offerings.

American ski resorts have a reputation of having smaller skiing areas than their European counterparts, but this is never a problem in Breckenridge, where you need never ski the same run twice in a weekend. Breckenridge has the highest lift in North America at 12,800 ft and that means that the snow is as close to guaranteed as you’ll find anywhere with a yearly average of around 25 feet! The amenities are amongst the best to be found anywhere and like all American hospitality staff, they are really friendly and take pride in the service they offer, such as handing out hot chocolate to shivering skiers and looking out for children on the chairlifts. A great skiing holiday starts at Breckenridge.

Thailand is a popular holiday destination that offers a rich history and plenty of culture. Packed with historic villages, Thailand is the perfect destination for those looking for an interesting holiday experience. The country is also known for its cuisine, which visitors can sample in a number of cafes and restaurants.

Those looking for plenty of cultural attractions may wish to visit Chaing Mai, which is home to many museums and art centres. Thailand’s fascinating history can be explored through a variety of art and artefacts and visitors can even help to celebrate the country’s culture by exploring Chaing Mai’s festivals, which offer plenty of music, dance and other fun activities.

Also worth a visit is Doi Inthanon, the country’s highest mountain. Surrounded by forests, it is the ideal location for those who love exploring. There are also several national parks in the area that offer stunning scenery and plenty of wildlife, making them ideal for those who enjoy relaxing walks.

For those looking for thriving nightlife and plenty of fascinating tourist attractions, Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, is the perfect holiday destination. One of the country’s most popular tourist destinations, Bangkok offers a wide variety of attractions, including several historic buildings, shopping centres, museums and several public parks.

In addition to its cultural attractions, Thailand also offers plenty of picturesque islands. Patong Beach is a popular tourist destination and offers stunning views at sunset. Thailand’s beaches are perfect for those looking for somewhere to relax where they can enjoy stunning views of the country’s scenery.

Anyone planning a self-catering holiday will immediately be faced with a confusing number of options. Should you just do the equivalent of sticking a pin in the telephone directory and chance your luck clicking the mouse on a web link? Or might there be more reliable methods of getting a good quality holiday apartment or villa at a reasonable price?

One option – unless you have a reliable word-of-mouth alternative – is to explore the possibilities on offer from established tour operators like Compareaway. Most of the big players will offer a broad range of resorts and villas/apartments to browse through, including flights, ferries and Eurotunnel travel options. Choosing a villa from a reputable tour operator does mean you’ll be dining out or cooking in, but you’ll definitely not be cooped up in a single hotel room. And you’ll almost certainly get the advantages of privacy and seclusion – just the ticket if you’re taking refuge from a helter-skelter work schedule. You can take a villa in the thick of the city or high up in the mountains with a private or shared swimming pool, go for the small-scale two-person variety or the grander-scale 16-sleeper type – whatever your requirements, a good tour operator should be able to locate the perfect apartment or villa in the resort of your choice.

You’ll pay a little extra over the pot luck option, but a good self-catering apartment should be a haven of comfort and relaxation, not a dungeon of sub-basic amenities. If you really need some rest, comfort and fun, and you’re opting for self-catering, take the tour operator option unless someone you really trust has given you a sure-fire winner.

One of the most important aspects of any cruise is the ship you will be staying on.  No matter where you are heading to in the world, you will want to be sure your accommodation and facilities are top notch on your chosen cruise ship.

Princess Cruises has a wide range of cruise ships known as the Princess fleet.  There are fourteen in all with three smaller ships available as well, depending on where you want to go on your cruise. One thing they all have in common is style and class. Take the Ruby Princess for example; this ship offers private balconies in nearly nine hundred of the staterooms on board. You can even get married in the onboard chapel!

The Caribbean Princess is the ship to choose if you want a suite all to yourself.  There are also plenty of venues to select when you want to have a bite to eat, and with a casino on board too you are in for an entertaining night. You can also enjoy a theatre show and there are swimming pools on board to take a refreshing dip in.

Each ship in the Princess Cruises fleet has its own array of features and facilities to look forward to. So whichever cruise you book yourself onto you will find the ship you are travelling on will have everything you could possibly need to enjoy a relaxing and luxurious cruise.

Cheap flights are everywhere. Many countries now have their own low cost airlines that operate both domestic and international flights for relatively little money. Low cost airlines are opening the world up for those who otherwise would never get to see so many wonderful places.

This means those living in the UK can obtain flights to Moscow or flights to Cairo for example, for as much as it would cost to fly to Spain. This makes people more inclined to visit areas off the tourist trail, that at one time were reserved for those with bigger budgets.

Cheap flights mean that short breaks and city breaks are also much more appealing. Not so long ago city breaks were considered to be a lot of money for a short time away, whereas these days short city breaks are common and are a perfect get away for hen or stag parties, or a unique way to spend a birthday. Of course they are also ideal for those people who need a break but have limited holiday time.

Children can also benefit from short breaks and city breaks, they get to see a little of other cultures and they can learn a little about another way of life. Cheap flights can be a godsend for those with larger families on a tighter budget and can help to make school holidays more bearable without costing too much.

A cheap flight within one’s own country is a quick and easy way or travelling between two cities, and there are many cheap domestic flights to be found online.

Said to be the Jewel of the Indian Ocean, this stunning, diverse island does not fail to utterly charm anyone who visits. Troubled by civil war and persistent political unrest for many years, and also wrecked by the terrible 2004 tsunami (south and east coastal areas in particular), Sri Lanka’s sense of optimism and its resourceful and resilient spirit have put it firmly back on the top holiday destination list. Welcoming natives, picture-postcard beaches, exotic wildlife, tropical forests and lush scenery await every tourist.

Located around 20 miles from the south coast of India, and served by Colombo airport (Bandaranaike), Sri Lanka is full of delights, with colonial architecture, ornate Buddhist and Hindu temples, tea plantations (its most famous export is Ceylon tea) and the Dutch fort of Galle. One of its most visited parks is Yala National Park, where visitors can get close to hundreds of species of wild animal, including leopards, mongoose, elephants, sloth bears, hundreds of different birds and a rainbow of butterflies. Kandy, a scenic city in central Sri Lanka, has a world heritage site containing the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic. Surrounded by lush rainforest, Sigariya is home to an ancient sacred rock, representing what is left of an ancient civilisation. Driving around Sri Lanka is a venture best left to the natives who are accustomed to the kamikaze craziness of the roads. One popular mode of transport is the tuc-tuc, a special kind of motorised rickshaw – although hold on to your hats! Sri Lanka also has a railway system which connects most major towns and cities.

P&O Cruises is Britain’s largest and most modern cruise line. The company has a long history, first inventing modern cruises in 1837. P&O Cruises sail to more than 180 different destinations in 72 countries.

P&O offers cruises throughout the year, departing from Southampton for European and Mediterranean cruises. Overnight stays are available at the De Vere Grand Harbour Hotel, with free transfer to the port. Travellers can fly from most UK airports for cruises to North America and other fly cruises. As well as Red Sea cruises, Caribbean cruises, Far East cruises and Baltic cruises (and Fjords), destinations include Africa, Alaska, Australasia, Asia, the Black Sea, Canada, the Canary Islands and Azores, Dubai, the Indian Ocean, the Middle East, North America, Pacific Islands, the Panama Canal, South America and Europe.

P&O Cruises offers travellers a traditional and relaxed style, with plenty of opportunity to dress up for evening entertainment. Their six modern cruise ships have elegant interiors and acres of deck on which to sunbathe, each one offering something slightly different. The P&O Aurora and Oriana offer a more traditional style of holiday cruise, whilst the Arcadia and Oceana are more contemporary. Some of the cruises are adults only, whilst others are aimed at families, with the emphasis on fun and activities.

On-board entertainment includes comedy, cabaret, quizzes, music and themed nights. Passengers can relax in one of the bars with a drink, or sit on deck under the stars.

P&O has always had a reputation for its quality of dining and high standards of service. Traditionally the menus were mainly British, but with the introduction of menus by Gary Rhodes and Marco Pierre White, the dining experience has become more modern and varied.

P&O cruises are popular with first-time cruisers, and they also offer good itineraries and facilities for families. Cruise weddings with P&O Cruises have become increasingly popular.

It’s no exaggeration to state that, when it comes to skiing holidays, Switzerland is ‘Ski Paradise’. You’ll be slowly drawn up jaw-droppingly beautiful (and almost impossibly steep) slopes by rickety trains into unbelievably gorgeous little skiing villages, whereupon the fun will really begin.

At Verbier, one of the country’s most famous and popular ski resorts, the off-piste skiing is astounding, and the slopes will exhaust your adrenal glands in no time. Over in the stunning resort of Zermatt, overseen by the mighty Matterhorn, you’ll not only be in a setting so beautiful that you’ll be pinching yourself to prove that you’re not dreaming, you’ll get access to the some of the best skiing the world has to offer as well. This resort will suit intermediates and experts alike – and you can conclude the day with a fine meal in one of the resort’s splendid restaurants. Less well known than Verbier and Zermatt is Saas-Fee, a resort boasting amazing glaciers, 4000 metre peaks and absolutely guaranteed snow. This resort is ideal for beginners and intermediates, but ski veterans will definitely have plenty to grapple with on these slopes as well.

Accommodation for ski deals in Switzerland can be expensive – but it’s also superb quality, with anything from 5-star hotels to family-run ‘guest house’ style businesses and luxurious chalets on offer (you’ll even find bed and breakfast options increasingly available if you are on a slightly tighter budget).

In these days of increasingly cheap flights there is no good reason why you should not take yourself off to a favourite holiday destination such as Palma, almost on a whim. Booking online is simplicity itself, and with so many cheap flights to choose from the only difficulty is deciding which one to go for.

It’s easy to see why Palma is a top destination for short breaks and longer holidays alike. Being the capital of the Balearic Islands (with the great advantage of being situated in the stunning Bay of Palma) this city has worked hard to rise from more deprived times and is now a favourite with visitors, striking just the right balance between the historic and modern.

If you are looking for a vibrant nightlife, trendy bars, boutiques and nightclubs, Palma has all of these. But equally, there are traditional restaurants and pavement cafes in which to relax. The historic quarter, palaces, galleries and museums cater for all tastes, and tourists have been discovering that Palma is a worthy destination in its own right rather than just a staging post to the beach resorts.

There are plenty of pensions and hotels to choose from, such as the small and friendly Palau Sa Font, which is a renovated Episcopal palace dating from the sixteenth century, having a fine view across the Bay. Seafood restaurants on the waterfront and restaurants specialising in Mallorcan cuisine ensure plenty of choice when it comes to dining.

The sandstone cathedral dominating the waterfront and the Royal Palace of the Citadel are just two of the great sights on offer, so choose from the cheap flights and fly to Palma pronto.

Despite its political swing to the hard ‘right’ a few years ago, when it started to crack down harshly on its own traditions of religious freedom, sexual tolerance and generous immigration, today Amsterdam – the city of relaxed open-mindedness and colourful diversity – appears to have returned to its easy-going centre of gravity. All of which makes the lovely sights and scenes it has to offer a good deal more enjoyable.

The people of Amsterdam are gracious, friendly and helpful to the tourist (as well as to one another), attributes which undoubtedly enhance the enjoyment of visiting. With so much relaxed toleration, though, visitors from less laid-back cultures may find themselves discovering their own inner prude. For instance, there really are cannabis cafes, and the famous red light district is thriving. But because the Dutch are at ease with both, they’re also maturely discrete about them – you’re not going to find a scantily-clad dancer writhing in a shop window on the high street, or a family-friendly restaurant choked with spliff-exhaust. If you want to see these places, you’re going to have to make a point of finding them.

There is much to see and appreciate in this marvellous city. In the summer especially, Amsterdam plays host to a huge array of colourful festivals and events. You can sit in a café beside a beautiful old canal, stare in wonderment at the splendid old villas of the merchants, visit countless museums laden with fabulous art, stroll through the peaceful lanes, courtyards and boutiques of the Jordaan, or soothe yourself in the luscious green tranquillity of the Vondelpark (the grandest of the city’s thirty parks) – and you can shop till you drop if the fancy takes you.