European budget travel news

DFDS Seaways the North Sea Cruise ferry Company have some good deals on at present. Why not book up for a three night CityCruise to Amsterdam. They start at £119 GBP per person and there are daily departures in February and March.
The price includes 2 nights on board ship
Return coach transfer from port to hotel
1 night in an Ibis Hotel.
Hurry though as you will need to book by Tuesday 31 January 2006.

If the 3 night cruise break doesn't appeal how about a Valentines treat for someone special DFDS are running a mini cruise break for the day that start at £44.50 GBP per person.

Finally if you book a DFDS Summer Holiday before the end of this month you could get up to 20% discount off. The offer doesn't apply to cottage holidays though.

We have just carried out a price comparison survey of the short Channel Crossings for Easter this year. The market is extremely competetive, the cheapest crossings being found for £58 return fora a car and up to nine occupants. The Easter School Holidays is peak time as far as the ferries go, so these prices are very low. In 2004 the cheapest fare was a £99 and that was a breakthrough price.
The ferries are adopting the budget airline structures and many of the sites provide a choice of sailings and prices for the days searched.

Mercure Hotels the mid price hotel chain have some excellent deals on at some of its hotels. Rooms on its special offers page start at €28 per night for Grand Hotel Mercure Selmun Palace, Mellieha, Malta. Other offers include:
Mewrcure Bregenz City, Austria from € 60
Mercure Graz Messe, Austria from € 60
Mercure Salzburg City, Austria from € 69
Mercure Wien Europaplatz, Austria from € 69
Mercure Paris Terminus Est, France from € 85
Mercure Paris Porte de St Cloud, France from € 90
Mercure Annecy Sud, France from € 66
Mercure Avignon Sud, France from € 60
Mercure Bordeaux Mériadeck, France from € 61
Mercure Cannes Mandelieu, France from € 70
Mercure Chalon sur Saône, France from € 70
Mercure Lille Aéroport, France from € 64
Mercure Lyon Wilson, France from € 70
Mercure Marseille Prado, France from € 65
Mercure Reims Parc des Expositions, France from € 76
Mercure Toulon Centre, FRance from € 60
Mercure Aachen City, Germany from € 49
Mercure Hannover Medical Park, Germany € 39
Mercure Landsberg, Germany, from € 36
Mercure Hotel München Nord, Germany from € 49
Wöhrdersee Hotel Mercure City, Germany from € 39
Mercure Hotel Wings Frankfurt Airport, Germany from € 53
Mercure Stuttgart Bad Cannstatt, Germany from € 55
Mercure Würzburg am Mainufer, Germany, from € 52
Mercure Budapest Korona, Hungary from € 70
Mercure Roma Corso Trieste, Italy from € 94
Mercure Piazza Bologna, Italy from € 100
Mercure Roma Delta Colosseo, Italy from € 111
Grand Hotel Mercure Selmun Palace, Mellieha, Malta from € 28
Grand Hotel Mercure San Antonio, Malta from € 61
Mercure Amsterdam Airport, Netherlands from € 79 € 99
Mercure Unia Lublin, Poland from € 54

If you are planning a weekend or longer in Paris, Brussels or Lille then the Eurostar is a viable alternative to the airlines. Not only that, it is more environmentally friendly too. It takes you from London Waterloo into the heart of these three cities, which are amongst my three favourites.

If you book in advance then you can be fairly certain of securing your ticket for £59 return (Lille starts at £55 return).

P&O Ferries have some good deals on their ferry routes at present. This is the best time of year to book ferry tickets. If you book now then fares for a car plus passengers can cross from the UK to the European mainland for:
Dover to Calais from £35 each way
Hull to Rotterdam from £102 each way
Portsmouth to Bilboa from £207 each way

Eurostar the high speed train operator connecting London Waterloo with Paris, Brussels, Lille and the Alps as well as Avignon in the Summer has recorded a record year of growth. After a refit, the trains have targeted Business Travellers. In doing so the company has successfully weaned many passengers away from planes. Sales of Business tickets rose 14% on 2005. While overall passengers numbers grew by 2.4% on 2004.
Eurostar took 71% of the London to Paris market share and 64% of the London to Brussels traffic.
I order to meet the growing demand a tenth weekday service has been added to the Brussels route. The extra service starts up on 13 February 2006. Finally seats for the Eurostar can now be booked as far as four months in advance.

National Express the United Kingdom's only nationwide scheduled coach operator has a great offer on at present. For domestic travel within the UK, tickets can be booked for £9 each way / £18 return. For holders of the NX2 card this drops to £6 each way / £12 return and for children under 16 or adults over 60 the price is a mere £4.50 each way / £9 return.
Seats must be booked at least three days in advance but can be booked up until 28 March 2006 for travel up to 31 March 2006.
Airport services are not included in the offer, neither are Eurolines or Ulsterbus services. Finally travel wholly within Scotland is not included in the deal.

TGV tickets from $25 - Hurry! Promotion ends 1/30/06 This is turning out to be a very popular offer and tickets are being snapped up. Paris - Nice is a strong favourite, but Avignon, Bordeaux and Lyon are some of the 150 other destinations in France also worth a visit. The fare of $25 (€19 Euros) is not likely to be made available any time soon once this offer ends at the end of January. It is the first time RailEurope have offered tickets for the TGV this cheaply before.

Innkeeper's Lodge the UK budget hotel chain, have a good offer on until 3 April 2006.
Subject to availability a number of hotels are offering Sunday night for free for customers staying Friday and Saturday nights consecutively.
Prices start as little as £39.95 per room per night. Family rooms accommodating 2 adults and up to 2 children are also available. Prices also include a free continental breakfast.
Destinations with rooms from £39.95 include:
Aylesbury South, Fleet, Redhill / Gatwick, Birmingham East, Croydon South, Sandbach, Bedford, Milton Keynes, Stockport, Keighley, Leeds South, Glasgow / Cumbernauld, Northampton
Lodges with rooms from £49.95 include:
Cardiff, Liverpool, Slough / Windsor, Portsmouth, Durham North, Sheffield South

Center Parcs the holiday village operator is having a sale for stays in January and February 2006. Prices will be cut by up to 50% in some cases.

The Center Parc Village concept offers highly specified self catering accommodation in villas, apartments and lodges, set in a forest location.
A range of indoor and outdoor sports and leisure facilities are provided, with woodland and water forming the core elements around which the activities are offered. An indoor Subtropical Swimming Area can be found at the heart of each village.

As recorded in an earlier post, Travelodge UK is to offer 500,000 rooms for all of 2006 at their Saver Rate price of £26, this represents excellent value as the rooms will accommodate up to 2 adults and 2 children.
They have also announced three new openings:
Manchester Airport - which with 201 rooms becomes the second largest Travelodge outside London.
Pembroke Dock – ideally located for passengers on the Irish Ferry.
Dundee Central – which has been constructed in a converted Grade 2 building in Marketgait.

Express by Holiday Inn are a value for money hotel chain operated by the InterContinental Hotels Group which includes Holiday Inn and Staybridge. The Express by Holiday Inn chain have 150 hotels throughout Europe.
Some good deals are on offer at present, including:
London from £49
Birmingham from £39
Southampton from £39
Glasgow from £39
and on mainland Europe;
Paris from €59
Barcelona from €59
Dusseldorf €52
Prague from €75

Eurotunnel the Channel Tunnel operator are currently offering 5,000 Folkestone to Calais single tickets at £49. They are bound to be snapped up quickly so book now to obtain a cheap Summer 2006 crossing.
Eurotunnel offers a convenient M20 Motorway to A16 Autoroute connection, with an actual crossing time of only 35 minutes between the two motorways.