Hen weekend - lots of questions!

[redsquare008]

Hello!

I have jointly been given the task of organising a friend's hen weekend next June!

The plan is that we will book an apartment and stay there for two nights, so have one night out with a meal and drinks (not too much of a hectic typical hen night as we are having a hen night like that back in our home town later on in the month) and a BBQ and drinks at the apartment the following night!

We have seen a few apartments and are thinking that Alicante would provide us with all of this and I have seen a few apartments online that have a pool, BBQ, enough room to sleep us all etc. Firstly, does anyone have any recommendations of companies who are reputable who we could book the apartment through?

Secondly, I heard Ryanair were cheap (yes, also heard about their reputation, but economy is the only way!), but we have been looking at flights from Bournemouth (our nearest airport) and they are coming up at nearly £200 per person after all the taxes and charges etc! I know lots of people who fly cheaply from Bournemouth to Alicante and I wondered if anyone knows of any tricks, i.e. when to book etc that will keep the cost down? - At this rate, we could get flights to the Caribbean!! Also, do flights get cheaper through Ryanair the nearer we get to the time?

Sorry about the million questions, but any help would be appreciated!

[Buenchico]

I know next to nothing about hen weekends, so I'll stick to the bits that I do know about ;-)

The way to find cheap flights with Ryanair is usually to book well in advance (by around 6 months), travel to their less popular destinations (which usually means avoiding the 'sunshine resorts'), travel at times of the year which aren't as busy (i.e. avoiding school holidays) and flying midweek. (Flights at, or around, weekends are often much dearer).

Ryanair flights usually get dearer as time goes by (and the flights start to fill up). They do have occasional special offer periods, when flight prices might drop, but the main bargains are usually to places like Dublin or Frankfurt, rather than to sunshine destinations.

Nobody (not even Ryanair) can guarantee that prices won't go down in the future. (It will depend upon how their computer sees bookings progressing as time goes by). However they're unlikely to do so. (The current economic climate has resulted in many airlines reducing the number of flights which they operate on each route,or even cutting out routes completely. That means that those seats which are left are nearly all the higher-priced ones, with far fewer bargains than there used to be).

You might need to consider an alternative destination. Here's a list of places served from Bournemouth:
http://www.bournemout...ntent/AllDestinations
FlyBe might have some cheap flights out of Southampton:
http://www.southampto...nations+and+airlines/
or from Exeter:
http://www.exeter-air...uled-flights#country1

Chris

[JonnyBoy12]

£200 per person? That does not sound very cheap to me! Can anyone here beat that price?

[redsquare008]

I was vaguely pleased at the total price until I saw it was only for the outward journey...

[spudqueen]

I've been on the Ryanair website, and if you were to fly from Bournemouth to Alicante on Friday 15th June and return on Monday 18th June it would cost £115.74 per person, less booking fee. This does not include a checked bag, but if you could manage hand luggage (10kg each I think) then it doesn't seem too bad to me. Checked luggage would cost more, typically £10 each way per person I think.