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Route plan
Everything started from the wish of doing a route around USA
West Coast. It’s a round route passing by L.A., San Diego, Las Vegas,
Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Kings Canyon N.P., Yosemite N.P., San
Francisco and back to L.A. I started to organize this travel for four
people: me, my wife, my sister and her boyfriend, but finally this last
one couldn’t come. The rates are explained here by person or couple.
The first flight searches immediately showed the
best rates were for New York. “USA gate” I called it. Then, we should
do two stopovers on that airport: when going and when returning. We
haven’t been in New York and is this kind of places you think it
deserves a travel by itself but, as we’re going to be there anyway!
Then, after being documented about that city I decided three days would
be a good stopover for knowing it when returning, as a good stop to
make the jet lag when coming back at Barcelona softer. But, as always
happens to me, when more I read more options appear and “avarice” comes
to me, I mean, the wish of going everywhere. So, I could see Washington
was close and check how easy it would be visiting it if we would rent a
car for one day. Niagara Falls was a special whim of our lives and I
could find one day tours from New York but, as they are so far from the
city we should spend a lot of money just for being a few hours in
there, so it was postponed for now. Somehow, when I saw Philadelphia is
just in the middle of the New York- Washington way I decided to stop
there too. Every time I needed more days and these spent in the East
Coast should be taken from those in West Coast. So, I discarded Kings
Canyon N.P.. It was a pain to discard Monument Valley as it is far from
the main route. I found one day tours to Grand Canyon from Las Vegas,
which saved some days in the car route. Other spots discarded were
Palms Springs, Joshua Tree N.P. or crossing Mexican border to Tijuana.
Route started to appear clear now. Documentation
about each of the spots helps when assigning the days to be in each
place. Hotels search has something to say here if we want to make the
budget lower. For example, we could see hotels in Las Vegas are a lot
cheaper in working days than during the weekend while Washington is the
opposite as the hotels there have lower rates on weekends. That made me
change East Coast visit in order of matching rates with general route
and make the stopover at East when going, at the beginning of the
travel, instead of at the end. All seemed to fit then, and total price
for this travel get lower, but “avarice” kept being there and claiming
about that New York stopover at the end and made me check rate options
for that stopover be made in Buffalo instead, which is the closest
airport to Niagara Falls. It was 85€ per person (hotel included). We
were going to miss Niagara Falls by 85€!?
Finally, the route plan (route day number and
where we spend the night) definitively closed, is like this, starting
at June 6th of 2008:
1: Washington
2: Philadelphia
3,4,5 y 6: New York
7: Route by Big Sur
8: On route, as clos as possible of L.A..
9 y
10: L.A.
11:
San Diego
12,13
y 14: Las
Vegas
15: On route, somewhere
betweenl Death
Valley and Yosemite
16:
Yosemite
17,18
y 19: San
Francisco
20: Niagara Falls
21:
Barcelona
- Flights
Purchasing the flight tickets is what makes a travel to
become to real.
The first, then, was searching for flight
options. Our conditions, as always, quite flexible: almost one month of
vacation and it should be in summer or close. I’m starting at the end
of August so, one year in advance, we have all the chances of looking
for the best offers. I understand soon New York is the cheapest
destination in USA, as it is the one with more air transit. I can find
SWISS and Air Lingus flights in the common search engines by less than
five hundred euros per person, round trip, but there is a direct flight
Barcelona-New York with Delta Airlines by 500€.
Then I start my search for internal flights with
American airlines. I’ve read they use to be cheap and they seem so.
Somehow, Delta airlines website let to use the Multi-city feature for
getting a complete quote for all our travel. What a finding! If we take
all our flights with them the price is 837.23€. We’re talking about 6
flights for 4 ways (stopover in New York for San Francisco-Buffalo and
Buffalo-San Francisco flights). I think we’re starting to discover the
advantages of having euro in historical maximums. Flights are
:
06/06/2008 BCN 10:00 NYC 12:45
06/12/2008 NYC 8:40 SFO
12:10
06/23/2008 SFO 21:45 BUF
10:51
06/25/2008 BUF 14:35 BCN
7:50
As you can see, I finally decided to fly from San Francisco
at night so I could reduce the budget even more by taking on hotel
night off. Flights info is very important in the route plan: it is not
the same arriving to one place at 9 than 21. We earn a lot of time when
flying to West as following the sun makes we land in New York at 12:45
although we left Barcelona at 10h. Then we must think about jet lag.
I’m happy about that stopover in Niagara Falls as we will be able of
slow down the 9 hours jet lag between West Coast and Spain, a part of
our wish of visiting them, of course.
Also, I join to Delta SkyMiles. These itineraries
earn a good amount of miles which I’ll look after how to spend them
later. I have in mind the chance of upgrading to Business class in our
nigh flight, from which I have not a clear idea of being able of
resting properly. It seems as something we could do as the first two
flights earn miles enough as per do so. As it happens when arriving to
San Francisco I’ll have twelve days for checking that point.
Another point I keep in mind is we’re going to
pass by JFK airport in New York (BCN-JFK, JFK-SFO and SFO-BUF and
BUF-BCN) and I could take advantage of it for managing the baggage
leaving some bag there to be taken later.
We completed flight payment on November, far from
travel dates, as I thought rates only could rise from here. Following
them up, I must say in January rates were a little cheaper for a while
(790€ for the same itinerary) but they rose from March on
- Hotels
After the flights we must look for hotels. The budget for
this travel was set on 3000€. I use to search in several hotels web
sites and some with travelers’ reviews as you cannot keep with just one
of them. Also, for work matters I have some benefits for one
of them.
I assigned priorities to hotels to sorting the
order they’re going to be taken. There are 3 nights in route which will
be taken that same day as I cannot say where we’re going to be yet, but
I’ve checked there are a lot of motels and hotels along the road for
these days I’m not worried about them. Therefore, the higher priority
is for the hotels on big cities where we’re going to spend more than
one night.
For New York, my first choice was Pan American
Hotel, with good reviews and rates. It seems its unique handicap is the
location as it is in Queens, but quite close to a metro station. It was
200€ for all four nights. But, as the time to book came, the rates rose
and also I read it takes 30 minutes to reach Manhattan from here, plus
the time you take on going to on specific spot once there. For one city
there are so many things to see in so less time I came back to
Manhattan allocations. It was previously discarded as it seemed all
hotels are very expensive and full of problems such cockroaches and
noise. Then I found Hotel Belleclaire. It was the opinion of one travelling
salesman explaining he tried 8 more expensive hotels in Manhattan
before and he thought they were worst. Rates compensated the change
from Panamerican as we could be in Manhattan by 350€, in a quiet
neighborhood close to Central Park. The only objection is the shared
bathroom for that price, as rooms including private bathroom cost
twice. I was going to take them anyway but Eva, my wife, wanted a
bathroom in room if we were going to be there for four days, so she
offered to pay the extra. Therefore, we take 4 nights in Belleclaire
hotel by 650€ through hotels.com.
I already had the thought of booking in Excalibur
Hotel for Las Vegas as several travelers emphasized that hotel in the
Strip and one called Castle Inn for San Francisco. I did my
investigation anyway. In Excalibur, the hotel shaped as a white castle
with conic colored roofs for the towers, we could get a room by 50€.
Luxor, Egyptian thematic hotel, was even cheaper, and NewYorkNewYork
and Paris hotels were just a little more expensive, so they could be
chosen too. But I finally wanted Excalibur because I could get a room
with views to Strip and 32” plasma by 65€. I recall these rates have
nothing to do with the ones at weekends. I already looked after being
there on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The cheapest way of booking
this hotel was directly from its own web site and pre-paid.
I couldn’t find a better option for San Francisco
in quality, rates and location than Casttle Inn. So I added to our
counts the 89€ by night for three nights until I found the night flight
and could take one of the nights off. 178€ went to this hotel through
hotels.com.
In L.A. our main visit was for Universal studios
so, when checked we could be allocated on Hilton Universal, just besides
the Studios, by 119€ per night we granted on that caprice, although the
price was quite over the travel average. Then, I found out, nights in
Hilton hotels can add miles to our SkyMiles account. We booked through
hotels.com.
There are some hotels you like before reading any
review about them. That happened looking for Hilton hotels because of
the miles discovery. Hilton Garden Inn in Washington avoided me to
spent time on a hotels search for this city. Hilton hotel with pool and
close to the White House by 95€. I took it at once and it made me do a
change on our route for being there on Friday as the same room was
rated by 250€ out of the weekend. We booked from its own web site at
Hilton.com.
I took fast too Hilton DoubleTree in Niagara
Falls. I could check hotel rates on that place are cheaper in Canadian
area than in the American one and, also, that side has got better views
of the falls too. It was over average but as it was our last night and
we could save 89€ in a night flight we added the 154€ of this to our
counts. I think we’re going to need a good rest here. The rate is for a
room with Jacuzzi and views to the falls. We used its own web site for
this, in Hilton.com.
For Yosemite, the choice was clear too and I
booked fast as I read it get full very quick for summer. Hotel Wawona
is so charming that even is visited by some tours around the National
Park. I could see in its own web site we could spend the night in there
by 100€. But when I called in November for booking it I found out there
was not already vacancy for rooms with bathroom. With no second
thoughts, I immediately booked two rooms with shared bathroom by 80€
each. Eva was fine with a shared room for just one night.
Then, I only had to take one hotel for
Philadelphia and another for San Diego nights. Due to the caprice for
some of the hotels and the stopover in Niagara Falls point we will be
definitively over those 3,000€ of budget I looked directly among the
cheapest hotels for those cities. I found Confort Inn Downtown Hist in
Philadelphia, close to the historical area we want to visit, by 90€ and
California Suites in San Diego, with pool, by 80€, quite far from
downtown, though. Reviews were nice for them but we were going to go to
them with low expectations. It’s going to be just one night on these
anyway. We booked these through booking.com.
We haven’t reach the 3,000€ budget. I know the
numbers seem to be wrong then, but the rates here are the ones before
applying the special discount I can get for job matters in hotels.com I
mentioned at the beginning. You could notice the bigger ones are booked
through that website. The two hotels booked through Hilton.com and the
two through booking.com are going to be paid when checking out once
there. So we leave for June a cost of around 500 in booked hotels, plus
the three nights on route.
-Car
rental
For being able of following the plan it was important to rent
a car on East Coast and indispensable for the West Coast.
For East Coast I found expensive rates. I’ve read
about the importance of checking CDW and SLI insurance were included.
After searching a lot I accepted paying close to 100€ per day on this 3
days trip. So, for choosing one agency I forgot about rates and focused
on most comfortable place to deliver the car. I couldn’t find it on web
sites, so I used Street View in Google maps for exploring around our
hotel in Manhattan and I found a Hertz office just one block from the
hotel. In Hertz, if paying in advance, the three days are 232€.
For West Coast, I’ve read car rental was pretty
cheaper. And thank goodness, as with the same rates than East Coast
these 11 days would be a real pain. Besides, I wanted a 4WD for being
able of climb to Yosemite and going around Death Valley, so the
expectations, in terms of expense, were not good. I found the best
rates in Dollar, less than 200€. It was a good rate, but no insurance
included. The bad news came when I looked for rates including
insurance: 330€ and no way of taking a 4WD one! I really thought my
only chance would be accept it, but I kept looking and reading
chronicles from people doing this West Coast route and one of them took
me to one of those tricks meaning directly money. It seems these
agencies have analysis of risk depending on drivers nationality, so
rates change depending of drivers country. Fortunately, this control is
based on their web site franchise. So, when checking the rate for the
same car but from their UK website (www.dollar.co.uk) I found cheaper
rates, and including insurances! With this trick I could rest a 4WD
Jeep Liberty for 11 days with all the insurances included by $220
(130€!!) with the same company and all, only by performing the booking
process from another country’s web site. I could set my country as
Spain and nothing changed, as the rates are showed before introducing
your personal data.
-Other
expenses
We should find a trip to Grand Canyon from Las Vegas. Finally
we’ve chosen the Grand Canyon DeLuxe tour of Scenic airlines which
includes picking us up at hotel and delivery us on it too. I’ve read
the better area is South Rim and this tour takes us to there. It’s 170$
per person.
Looking shows in Las Vegas to watch when we’re
going to be there, we could see Cirque du Soleil ones are very
expensive and there are a lot of them, but I cannot resist to the
chance of being in an Elton John concert in the Coliseum of Caesar’s
Palace the Wednesday.
This travel has a lot of highlights, but visiting
Universal Studios is very special for us. I cannot say, but it’s
possible this whole travel is going to be make in order of spend one
day in there. With that, it’s not strange we looked after the best
experience we could have and that’s the reason we finally took the VIP
Experience. It’s almost 200$ per person including breakfast and lunch
but, overall, the chance of going down the tram to be in the movie sets
and the objects warehouse. Thanks to the euro rise it’s 115€ for us.
With euro currency at 1.6 dollars the whole travel comes with a 33% of
discount
Detailed plan, then, is like this:
|
|
JUNE |
|
| Day |
Night |
Morning |
Afternoon |
| 6 |
Washington |
Arrival
to NY at 12:45 |
Drive
to Washington 4h. White House and Hoover |
| 7 |
Philadelphia |
Lincoln
and
Washington mem.,Smithsonian,Capitol |
To
Lancaster and Philadelphia 3h, Art Museum |
| 8 |
New
York |
Historic
Park and 2h to New York |
Central
Park |
| 9 |
New
York |
Times
Square, Library and 5th Avenue |
Rockefeller
Center and Broadway |
| 10 |
New
York |
South
Manhattan, Pier 17 and bridges |
Chinatown,
Little Italy and Tribeca |
| 11 |
New
York |
Museums |
Cruise |
| 12 |
On
route Big
Sur |
Arrival
to SF and drive to Monterey |
Karmel,
Big
Sur |
| 13 |
On
route Big
Sur |
San
Luis
Obispo |
Sta
Bárbara
Malibú, LA |
| 14 |
Los
Angeles |
Sta
Monica and
Venice Beach |
Chinesse
theater, Hollywood |
| 15 |
Los
Angeles |
Universal |
Warner |
| 16 |
San
Diego |
Disneyland
and to San Diego |
Balboa
park and down town |
| 17 |
Las
Vegas |
Wild
Animal
park |
Drive
to Las
Vegas 5h by I15 |
| 18 |
Las
Vegas |
Hotels |
Elton
John concert |
| 19 |
Las
Vegas |
Grand
Canyon tour |
Hotels |
| 20 |
Mammoth
Lakes |
Death
Valley |
Death
Valley |
| 21 |
Yosemite
N.P |
Yosemite |
Yosemite |
| 22 |
San
Francisco |
Mariposa
Grove |
Golden
Gate
Park and bridge |
| 23 |
San
Francisco |
Pier
21 |
Tram |
| 24 |
On
flight |
Alcatraz |
Flight
to Buffalo |
| 25 |
Niagara
Falls |
Arrival
to Buffalo |
Niagara
Falls |
| 26 |
On
flight |
Maid
of the
Mist and NY flight |
BCN
flight |
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