Flights/car hire

[Regulars since 1992]

Hi,

New members.  My wife Sue and I have been regular visitors to Plakias most years since the early '90s and view it like visiting an old friend too.  Always go October Half term week and have stayed every year bar two (when at the Myrtis) at wonderful Stella's.

We too are victims of First Choice's decision to pull out and, as we hope to go again this year and stay at Stella's booking it directly via their son, I'm exploring flights/car hire.  Got a few potential flights via the web, but any tips from anyone?  Also, any tips on car hire?  Have a reasonable quote already via Expedia.

Thanks

Graham

[harribobs]

hi, welcome to the forum

well for my 2d i would say make sure the price quoted for the flights includes airport taxes

and consider getting a cheap (late) deal to (say) malia/hersonnisos, as the package may well be cheaper than a flight only (obviously you ignore the accomodation)

[Regulars since 1992]

Thanks, Harribobs.

Graham

[Ploppy]

Hi,

New members.  My wife Sue and I have been regular visitors to Plakias most years since the early '90s and view it like visiting an old friend too.  Always go October Half term week and have stayed every year bar two (when at the Myrtis) at wonderful Stella's.

We too are victims of First Choice's decision to pull out and, as we hope to go again this year and stay at Stella's booking it directly via their son, I'm exploring flights/car hire.  Got a few potential flights via the web, but any tips from anyone?  Also, any tips on car hire?  Have a reasonable quote already via Expedia.

Thanks

Graham
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Hi Graham (& Sue),

Welcome to the forum.

Don't have personal experience of car hire in Plakias (not long been driving here, way to scary in Crete!) However there have been a few discussions on car hire from the likes of [a href=\"http://www.web-greece.gr/crete/ansotravel/]Anso[/url] or CityCars.

Check out a search on car hire here.

Cheers,

Paul

[John R]

Hi,

New members.  My wife Sue and I have been regular visitors to Plakias most years since the early '90s and view it like visiting an old friend too.  Always go October Half term week and have stayed every year bar two (when at the Myrtis) at wonderful Stella's.

We too are victims of First Choice's decision to pull out and, as we hope to go again this year and stay at Stella's booking it directly via their son, I'm exploring flights/car hire.  Got a few potential flights via the web, but any tips from anyone?  Also, any tips on car hire?  Have a reasonable quote already via Expedia.

Thanks

Graham
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=3274\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

So glad someone else is booking privately at Stella. We are going on 28 September onwards for 2 weeks and it will be our 8th year there. We also always hire a car. We can recommend Anso, though last year and this year we went/go with Caravel - equally good and perhaps slightly cheaper. In very  recent discussions on this topic Alianthos car hire has also had favourable mention.

We find driving on Crete to be perfectly ok as long as you drive defensively. If you are a skilful driver you can usually cope with and outwit the local drivers who do not show any particular skills in that department.

John R

[Regulars since 1992]

Thanks, Paul and John, for your assistance.  

Re your response to my other note under 'Stella Pension', John, it does indeed sound like we are v much Plakias clones, enjoying the same sort of thing.  We too feel really sorry for Stella and Yannis and hope that they can muster sufficient private bookings.  Do you know if they have approached any other tour companies, British or otherwise, to replace First choice?  The village doctor (on the 'fish shop' road) said to us last October that he thought First Choice would be back, but maybe this was just wishful thinking.  We'll see.

We've used Anso and Alianthos for car hire in the past, but not Caravel.  Thanks for the tip.  Having driven widely around the world and with my twin professions as a chauffeur and motorsport journalist I'm pretty happy to drive anything anywhere, but I fully agree about the need for defensive driving on Crete - driving standards vary a lot!

[John R]

Thanks, Paul and John, for your assistance. 

Re your response to my other note under 'Stella Pension', John, it does indeed sound like we are v much Plakias clones, enjoying the same sort of thing.  We too feel really sorry for Stella and Yannis and hope that they can muster sufficient private bookings.  Do you know if they have approached any other tour companies, British or otherwise, to replace First choice? 
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=3290\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

When talking to Marcos last year it did not appear that Stella had been approached by any other tour company. I was suprised Kosmar did not. It is noticable that the places they are going to have a pool. For me that is a minus but for holiday companies it is deemed as a plus. Marcos spent a lot of time with me going through the First Choice brochure where I could explain lots of things. He was confused about the way things worked - with holiday companies at the customer end - and I managed to clarify a lot with him. I would be interested to hear from people on this forum who go earlier than us if they can find out anything on how Stella are doing. I think that mid season they will be ok. At low season they may be struggling. Might be very quiet for you / us at breakfast time this year. For years we had a large regular gathering staying at Stella in our 2 weeks - known as The Stella Pensioners - now renamed to The Saga Louts because all of them except us two have deserted Stella for Kosmar.

Re Caravel car hire - they are very willing to meet our plane in the early hours (3AM) and they are charging 300 euro for a small/medium air conditioned car for the full 14 (15) days, Heraklion airport to Heraklion airport. They were very efficient last year, delivering / recovering from Stella doorstep.

John R

[Rodger]

hi, welcome to the forum

well for my 2d i would say make sure the price quoted for the flights includes airport taxes

and consider getting a cheap (late) deal to (say) malia/hersonnisos, as the package may well be cheaper than a flight only (obviously you ignore the accomodation)
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=3276\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I just got a cheap charter flight to Heraklion via Olympic's website, under Special Offers.  They do flight-only deals.  Much cheaper than anything I found on Expedia or lastminute.com for instance, including taxes and other extras.

[Noopsy]

I just got a cheap charter flight to Heraklion via Olympic's website, under Special Offers.  They do flight-only deals.  Much cheaper than anything I found on Expedia or lastminute.com for instance, including taxes and other extras.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=3698\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I got my ticket (LHR-ATH-HER) through the Olympic website as well.  And I can confirm that they have a greater range of flights on offer, and are cheaper than Expedia.

Noopsy