Euro Trip - Part 2 Planning

Euro Trip!!! These words in itself are very refreshing and exciting.

We posted our query on TrvaleTriangle.com as this is a platform where they connect the travelers with different companies. The agents can post different itineraries and costing and you can accept or reject based on your liking. If you like someone then you can go ahead with discussion and customize it as per your own convenience. I have already visited Italy and Austria so I didn't want to go to Central Europe and rather explore the western part of it. We can’t lie that we were not influenced by ‘Zindagi na Milegi Dubara’ and lately with ‘Befikre’ (more or less because we did want to Paris the most romantic city in the world) so we chose France and Spain for our honeymoon. We were also thinking of Switzerland for its natural beauty but mostly the packages are with Italy which was excluded from our plan already. PickYourTrail was the one who seemed very promising out of all the posts we got, to be very frank, rest all of them were not good at all. We along with our travel agent put out the itinerary and our preferences were not to have too many evenings at leisure.

So following is my itinerary without the praise of the places which is actually not required:

25th May: [Flight to Paris] Board your flight up to the French Capital Land into Paris's CDG International Airport and get transferred to your accommodation.

26th May: [Louvre museum - Priority Admissions]

27th May: Lido Show

28th May: [Skip-the-Line Tour of Versailles with Roundtrip Transport] and [Eiffel Tower visit with Seine cruise and Paris night Trail] 

29th May: [Fly to Barcelona] Post breakfast check out of your hotel and take your Afternoon flight to Barcelona. [Flamenco Show at Palacio del Flamenco]

30th May: [Montserrat Monastery Tour from Barcelona Including Cogwheel Train Ride]

31st May: [Park Güell & La Sagrada Família Trail]

1st June: [Bus to Costa Brava]

2nd June: [Day at leisure for Scuba diving]

3rd June: [Train to Madrid] in the morning, checkout of your hotel and board your train to Madrid. On arrival, transfer to your hotel and check in.

4th June: [Toledo tour with lunch]

5th June: [Departure]

We didn’t go to Disneyland as we heard that until you are a big fan and follow the latest cartoons then only you will be able to connect with the whole place else it will turn out to be a boring thing after couple of hours. Therefore we cancelled it and booked Lido Show instead and let me tell you it was a nice suggestion by my friend and glad we decided to do that.

They have charged me 2.96L for the whole package and following is the breakup (without the Lido Show Costing):

Type	Inclusions	Cost
Experience	Louvre museum - Priority Admissions | Priority Admission tickets | Departure(0:0) | No Transfer	3464
Experience	Eiffel Tower visit with Seine cruise and Paris night Trail | Transport | Admissions | Guided Tour | Departure(18:15) |	9638
Experience	Skip-the-Line Tour of Versailles with Roundtrip Transport | Skip-the-Line admission to the Palace of Versailles | Access to the gardens, including during the fountain shows | Roundtrip transport | Audio guide available in English | Headset for tour commentary | Multilingual host for the duration of the tour | Departure(8:15) | Shared	8076
Experience	Flamenco Show at Palacio del Flamenco | Drinks,Admissions | Departure(20:15) | No Transfer	5858
Experience	Montserrat Monastery Tour from Barcelona Including Cogwheel Train Ride | Transport by air-conditioned coach Expert guide Cog-wheel train ride Admission to Santa Maria de Montserrat Admission to Royal Basilica of Montserrat Entrance to Montserrat's audiovisual room Tasting of 4 typical liquors | Departure(14:30) | No Transfer	8174
Experience	Park Gauell and La Sagrada Família Trail | Guided tour of Park Gauell and La Sagrada Família, Skip-the-Line entrance to Park Guaell and La Sagrada Família ,Live tour commentary provided in English and Spanish | Departure(10:0) | No Transfer	8360
Experience	Toledo tour with lunch | Meal | Drinks | Transport | Assistance or guided tour | Admissions | Departure(9:0) | Shared	7958
Flight	Bangalore (4:35) - Paris (14:35) | Ethihad Airlines | Baggage Included | Refundable | 30 Kgs	86114
Flight	Paris (9:5) - Barcelona (10:45) | Vueling Airlines | Baggage Included | Non Refundable | 23 Kgs	9018
Flight	Madrid (10:0) - Bangalore (3:15) | Ethihad Airlines | Baggage Included | Refundable | 30 Kgs	0
Stay	4 Nights at Paris | Hotel Gaston | Standard Room, 1 Double Bed | Free Cancellation | Breakfast Included | WIFI	31805
Stay	3 Nights at Barcelona | Hotel Barcelona House | Double Room | Free Cancellation | Breakfast Included | WIFI	22346
Stay	2 Nights at Costa Brava | Apartaments Rosanna | Apartment, 1 Bedroom, Balcony, Partial Sea View | Free Cancellation | No Breakfast | WIFI	7635
Stay	2 Nights at Madrid | Regina Hotel | Standard Room | Free Cancellation | Breakfast Included | WIFI	19599
Train	Barcelona - Madrid | Dep (12:0) - Arr (15:10) Duration 3:10 |	12824
Transfer	Paris Roundtrip Airport to Hotel Transfer	7825
Transfer	Private | Refundable | Barcelona Airport - Hotel | Airport Arriving hall	3352
Transfer	Roundtrip Bus from Barcelona to Costa brava	6000
Transfer	Private | Refundable | Madrid Hotel - Airport | Hotel Lobby	3894
Total cost including of all Taxes and GST		295408

This is where PickYourTrail did their first mistake. Previously when there was an inclusion of Disneyland and Madrid City Tour the costing was given around 3.2L but when I did the summation it was not coming out to be. This brought a doubt in my mind and came to know about the Taxes and GST. I am not sure I was informed that 9.5% is GST and only other are there charges. As a client if I am getting charged something and PickYourTrail’s USP is that they will the exact breakup of each and everything then they should not keep the client in dark.

Visa: First of all you need to take Schengen Visa from that country for which you are spending most of your days of you the trip. We were investing most number of days in Spain so we had to go for Spain Visa BLS Center for the Visa.

PickYourTrail has the visa assistance for me in the package but then their Visa Assistance is really really bad. Do not trust them. Sadly the page for Schengen Visa is also not that helpful (https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/spain-visa/  ). The documents that you will need are as follows:

1.      Spain Declaration Form/Covering Letter

2.      Spain Authorization Letter

3.      Spain Visa Application

4.      Spain Legal Declaration Form

5.      Passport Size photograph

6.      Hotel Stay Bookings

7.      Travel Tickets (Although the website will say that you don’t need to book the tickets but then when we visited BLS they asked to furnish that)

8.      Bank Statement for last 6 months (have the closing balance of 1Lakh for each  person)

9.      Salary Slip for last 6 months

10.   No Objection Certificate from your Employer (This is actually not required, we went without it and we got the visa but their website says so, so my suggestion take it)

11.   Travel Insurance (should not cost you more than 1000/- for each person)

12.   ITR for last 3 years

13.   Passport Copies of ALL pages (current and old)

The problem is that until you have the whole thing planned out you will have very less number of days. The visa appointment should be taken having at least 1 month of gap between your date of travel and the appointment date. If you have all the documents mentioned above, don’t hesitate you will definitely get the visa.

Tips: Take a morning slot in BLS (for Bangalore you can go to Indiranagar, it is located near the Levis showroom) and take ~5,700/- in cash per person (they take only in cash).

You can get it delivered to your house with some minimal charges or you can produce the receipt to them and personally go and take the passports (any one of the members can go and collect the passports). You don’t need to take any proof of residence, your passport address if it is of Bangalore then it is sufficient to make you eligible for applying in Bangalore BLS or else you might have to go to Chennai or Mumbai.