Some help with Tokyo planning please?

[sandie]

Yep thats my fault - as soon as I purchased my plane tickets it started to fall!

Sandie

[Mel]

Yep thats my fault - as soon as I purchased my plane tickets it started to fall!

Sandie

Well thanks a lot Sandie! Our trip is in doubt now Luckily, we have a long time for it to recover before we have to make a decision.

[ajp]

Yep thats my fault - as soon as I purchased my plane tickets it started to fall!

Sandie

Then it's official! I hold you completely responsible. We're going to have to do a replan and possibly a rethink. To the BatSpreadsheet!

[sandie]

To the BatSpreadsheet!

Does BAT stand for Big A**E Travel Spreadsheet?

Sandie

[ajp]

It does now!

[Mel]

It does now!

[ajp]

GO THE DOLLAR!!

Dollar a short time ago (11:30 Tues 14th) was 73.1Y and rising! Not bad after starting the day at around 66 ish. A little (albeit short term) relief at present.

[Mel]

Cool! I've been keeping an eye on it and watching my dream of the kids and us in TDL slip away. Let's hope it keeps on climbing!

I also just did some quotes on the Jetstar website and found out it's about $700 cheaper for us to have a stopover in the Gold Coast. You need to stop over there anyway (or Cairns) but if you book it direct from Sydney, for some reason it's way more expensive. Handy to know! I'm still a year or so away off booking flights, but I like to know these things....

[sandie]

I booked Jetstar from Sydney for next April and got economy on the way over via Cairns and First Class on the way back also via Cairns for $1900.

Sandie

[mushu mama]

How's everyone's plans for Tokyo going? Have you had to alter anything considering the current fiscal state of the world?

Lisa. -/

[ajp]

Well now you've asked, pretty shaky for us at present. I've enlisted a travel agent to see if we can hopefully get a wholesaler who may have worked around the exchange rate drop. If that fails we may be pulling the pin until things settle down a little. Don't want to of course, but we'll have no choice.

[sandie]

Its a bit easier for me because I am going with a friend and we agreed in advance to spilt hotel costs down the middle and equally carry Eli's share of those costs. Our plane tickets are already paid for so it is really just tickets and spending money now. We will probably curb those areas but we are still def. going. I can not see us really eating at expensive sit down places as we are really eat while we are doing things people when we are not dragging the boys around. I am pretty sure that we won't get scurvy if we survive on pop corn for a week!

Where as Anthony needs to pay for 4 people I only have 1 and a half. If I was going to the US I would be feeling a bit depressed right now.

Sandie

[calisota]

Spare a thought for me. When I came back from the cruise ship, with a pocket full of 6 months pay in US cash, the exchange rate was almost 1:1! If I'd been coming home now I would be several thousand dollars richer.

Greg

[ajp]

The only saving grace Greg is that there has been a long time between when you came home and now, but I suppose it doesn't make it much easier in your position. But at least when you were there, things were "cheaper" relative to now anyway.

Generally, whilst exchange rate is important, I don't consider it or worry about it. For example the rate dropped down below 50c for our 2003 trip, but we were going anyway and just needed to budget for it. The problem this time around is that I only had a limited amount to start with. When we booked the dollar was 105 yen. I had even built contingency in and thought the worst it could get to was about 80 yen and I allowed for that. Once it started to go south and broke through the 80 barrier I worked out that at worse 70 I could handle. So if it happens to come back up 70 ish in the next 4 weeks (currently above 62 according to one source) we're in.

But at the time I didn't buy any currency when it was high, because "she'll be right, it won't come down too much". Needless to say, I am kicking myself daily. But to quote Con's wife "I no complain". Just live with it and make decisions as we need to. It'll happen, just maybe not this time.

[Mel]

I hope it does go back up for you Anthony. We have 18 months for it to start looking better, but I'm pretty sure we'll still go as long as it's above 70 cents.