Holiday advice

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ric
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nw42 said:
We loved it, never felt unsafe out and about, again the locals are all bang on, you can go where you like from what I experienced. The beaches are the best part for me, all the different shacks where you can stay all day, sunbeds, beers, freshly cooked lunch, more beers, coffees, whatever £25 tops for 2 for the whole day, couldn't fault it and can't wait to return.
We were in Candolim, booked it via TUI's bucket site, https://www.holidayhypermarket.co.uk stayed at Aldeia Santa Rita, can highly recommend it, although not luxury by any means we couldn't fault any aspect of it, food, staff. location, all were spot on.
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so is the nightlife is on the beaches?, and then going to town another option in a tuk tuk thing, looking at some of the hotel pics on TUI they seem quite further back in the trees,il check your hotel out, thanks
 
marco said:
so is the nightlife is on the beaches?, and then going to town another option in a tuk tuk thing, looking at some of the hotel pics on TUI they seem quite further back in the trees,il check your hotel out, thanks
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Most of the entertainment is on the main Baga to Candalim road (if you can call it that).
Loads of pubs sports bars and eateries awaiting your kind perusal. Walk-able from Baga to Calangute roundabout and a few decent bars around that area including Molly Mollones for all your diddle dee dee fixes.

Some good restaurants and you can easily spend a full night just chilling and eating. The beach bars are open and accessible from the main road and usually have music and a few fireworks to entertain. A few good clubs in the Calangutte area if that's your bag with some awesome trance music doing the rounds. If you want to spend a nice day listening to good music then nip up north to Vagator and spend the day at a shack. Taxi driver will wait for you and just work a price between you.

A lot of the hotels are on the main drag such as Ronils and whispering palm with others scattered around like the Marinha Dourada @ inland Arpora that has some good fishing lakes. Stayed here twice and although only a 2 to 3 star gaff the location is banging and you can walk into the Arpora village easily. Some good bars where the locals sup and for absolute pennies. We have stayed down south Goa a few times at calvelosim and benaulim and whilst more quiter it has the better beaches. Palolim is a gem

You can hire a bike if your confident enough to swerve around elephants and goats or use the very good bus service that is silly cheap. I do not think I would consider going until the virus has been put to bed. Its a third world country and if I do get maudlin whilst overseas I would prefer a more up to date infrastructure.
 
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marco said:
so is the nightlife is on the beaches?, and then going to town another option in a tuk tuk thing, looking at some of the hotel pics on TUI they seem quite further back in the trees,il check your hotel out, thanks
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No worries, there is nightlife on the beaches but the town is only 150yds off the beach, our hotel had it's own little sandy path down to the sea, 2 minutes walk, beautiful way to start every day. I've so much more to learn myself but we did as much as we could in the 2 weeks, tuk tuks, bus rides are mental, loved it, visited a proper busy town, Mapusa, that wasn't full of tourists, wandering round the crowded market taking it all in, my mrs never once felt uneasy, mind you she grew up in Speke.

I learnt loads before we went, mainly from Trip advisor forums and two gun bob on here, he's been a couple of times, eg, arrange a cab from the airport before you go, it's the best part of an hours drive, which can turn into 3 hours if you're last off the coach, cabs are about £20, made a huge difference to us after a 9hr+ flight.
We went AI, although everyone said don't bother, can see why they say that because eating out is cheap and plentiful, however, if we get back there we'll use the same hotel and go AI, the price wasn't much different and I was confident through reading reviews that the food was worth staying in for, it was the best I've ever had, still went out on the evenings after tea.
There are probably plenty of aspects to it that won't suit some, just depends on your expectations, for us it's about relaxing, wandering aimlessly, feeling welcome and relatively safe at any time of day or night if out and about, also high up our list is to feel like we've spent our hard earned wisely, Goa ticked all those boxes for us.
 
Calangutte high street

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Our favourite shack in Baga.

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FYI - The Spanish PM has said he expects Spain to be open for tourism when they have vaccinated 70% of the population which he expects will be the end of summer 2021.
 
bluethrunthru said:
FYI - The Spanish PM has said he expects Spain to be open for tourism when they have vaccinated 70% of the population which he expects will be the end of summer 2021.
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Spanish minister for tourism said this isn't correct and tourists are expected as soon as the airways open, possibly by the end of spring.
 
bluesmith said:
Spanish minister for tourism said this isn't correct and tourists are expected as soon as the airways open, possibly by the end of spring.
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I'd guess the PM trumps the tourism minister but clearly its just our govt giving out mixed messages
 
bluethrunthru said:
I'd guess the PM trumps the tourism minister but clearly its just our govt giving out mixed messages
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You'd think so but for him to specifically come out and say the prime minister was wrong I'd guess he had the OK to do it. Clearly no one has a clue, but my gut feel is the Spanish will want tourists back as soon as possible.
 
bluesmith said:
You'd think so but for him to specifically come out and say the prime minister was wrong I'd guess he had the OK to do it. Clearly no one has a clue, but my gut feel is the Spanish will want tourists back as soon as possible.
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lets hope the do it from a place of confidence not blind hope like we seem to do here
 
anyone had a recent refund from Aer lingus?

My flight to Vienna for March was cancelled and they pushed and pushed for me to take vouchers. However, i managed to find a refund page deep on their site and completed the form but all i got was a case number from an automatic email.

Its been about 10 days and no word...surely they arent dealing with too many refunds these days?
 
Brittany ferries have announced that their plans to reopen passenger services in March will not now happen until mid May at the earliest.
 
Easyjet cancelled my flight to Pisa at the end of April tonight.
Not farting about rebooking.
Getting a refund.
Still not convinced they’ll agree on terms for international travel any time soon.
 
mr t said:
In normal times I’d be on this like a tramp on chips looking for cheap flights to Europe but it’s hard to make long term plans at the moment.
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It is, but if you can get in early you can get the flights cheap enough that it's worth the gamble, particularly with this release including Easter, early May Bank Holiday and potentially the start of the 3 day week for the double Bank Holiday in June.
 
bluesmith said:
Easyjet are supposedly releasing 2022 flights for April and May tomorrow.
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Now released.

Lots of cheap flights, managed to get 10 nights over easter for 241 for 4 plus the Monday of w/ c the double bank holiday for 165.
 
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i have a bad feeling about surges and variants in western European countries following by air bridges being closed at very short notice. Hard to know what to do this summer. I think ill wait until a lot of Europe has caught up with Vaccines.
 
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